Ewa M. Thompson (born Ewa Majewska; 1937 in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

) is Polish-American

Slavist Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Sla ...

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

. She is the editor of The

Sarmatian Review The ''Sarmatian Review'' () is an English language, English-language peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal, academic tri-quarterly academic journal, journal devoted to Slavistics (the study of the history, histories, cultures, and society, so ...

. She publishes about imperial motives in Russian literature.

Post-colonialism

Thompson's book ''Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism'' was published in

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

in 2000. In it, she strongly asserted the need for revising textual practices around Russian literature that had legitimized colonial practices more brutal than what she called "canonical" colonial practices legitimated in British and French literature. She linked the silence about Russian hegemony about Central European colonies and colonial practices with a Western fascination with Russia, and subsequently with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Although the book did not initially receive much recognition, it has been rediscovered and reinvigorated following the publication of Slavist

Clare Cavanagh Clare Cavanagh (born May 23, 1956) is an American literary critic, a Slavist, and a translator. She is the Frances Hooper Professor in the Arts and Humanities and Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern Univer ...

's works.

English language books

* ''Russian Formalism and Anglo-American New Criticism: A Comparative Study'', The Hague: Mouton, 1971. * ''Witold Gombrowicz'', Boston: Twayne 1979. * ''Understanding Russia: the Holy Fool in Russian Culture'', University Press of America 1987. * ''The Search for Self-Definition in Russian Literature'', Houston: Rice University Press 1991. * ''Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism'', Westport, CT and London: Greenwood 2000. Reviewed Work: Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism by Ewa M. Thompson Review by: Theodore R. Weeks
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References

External links

Ewa M. Thompson’s Homepage
Slavists Rice University faculty Living people 1937 births Writers from Kaunas Polish emigrants to the United States 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American women academics 21st-century American women {{US-academic-bio-stub