Elena Sommers
Principal Lecturer
Elena Sommers
Principal Lecturer
Education
Ph.D., University of Rochester
Dissertation: 'The Ona of Nabokov's Hereafter'
MA, University of Notre Dame
BA, MA, Moscow State Pedagogical University (Russia)
Bio
Check out my 2nd volume on Nabokov: Teaching Nabokov’s Lolita in the #MeToo Era (2021) This collection seeks to critique the novel from the standpoint of its teachability to undergraduate and graduate students in the twenty-first century. In the #MeToo era and beyond, how do we approach Nabokov’s inflammatory novel, Lolita? How do we read a novel that describes an unpardonable crime? How do we balance analysis of Lolita’s brilliant language and aesthetic complexity with due attention to its troubling content? This student-focused volume offers practical/specific answers to these questions. Link is in the title: Teaching Nabokov’s Lolita in the #MeToo Era (March 2021)
Check out my 1st volume on Nabokov: Nabokov’s Women: The Silent Sisterhood of Textual Nomad, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Courses Taught at RIT:
- Dangerous Texts: Propaganda/Disinformation/Censorship
- Great Authors: Nabokov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy
- Global Literatures
- Film Studies
- Global Film
- The Novel
- The Short Story
- Literature & Cultural Studies
- Women’s & Gender Studies in Literature
Select Scholarship
Currently Teaching
In the News
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September 24, 2021
Professor explores teaching Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ in the #MeToo era
Elena Rakhimova-Sommers, principal lecturer in RIT’s Department of English, has taught Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel, Lolita, in her Dangerous Texts course for many years. As the #MeToo movement gained strength and global attention in 2018, however, the novel became particularly relevant.
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September 10, 2021
Rakhimova-Sommers publishes book on ‘Lolita’
Featured Work
English Class Reimagined Book Covers for Controversial Novels and Curated Exhibit
Elena Sommers
Last year, students in the English course Dangerous Texts curated an exhibit titled Banned Book Cover Redesigns, featuring their artwork for reimagined covers of the novels “Lolita” and “Invitation to...