RIT Hosts Conference on Nobel Prize-Winning Novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, April 7

The Russian novelist and historian who exposed the evils of the Gulag—the Soviet system of forced labor camps—will be the focus of an evening conference at Rochester Institute of Technology in April.

“Confronting Ideology: Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Political Thought” will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, April 7, in the Xerox Auditorium in the James E. Gleason Building on the RIT campus. The event will feature talks by eminent Solzhenitsyn scholars James Pontuso from Hampden-Sydney College, Daniel Mahoney from Assumption College and Peter Lawler from Berry College, followed by question-and-answer sessions.

One of the most important political and literary figures of the 20th century, Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 for his critique of Soviet totalitarianism. He has also been influential in the West for his critique of its moral complacency.

Solzhenitsyn’s works include One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago and August 1914 among others.

The conference—free and open to the public—is hosted by RIT’s Department of Political Science and College of Liberal Arts with assistance from the Departments of History and Philosophy.

For more information, contact Joseph Fornieri at (585) 475-5889.