Passion and Perception

This collection of "Stitesiana" includes twenty-nine essays on Russian culture, which the author desired to be collected and published in a single volume.This collection represents the bulk of twenty years of scholarship, besides the well-known monographs, which includes book chapters in collective volumes and scholarly journals, and diverse pieces in popular magazines. Some of these essays appeared before the monographs did, and illustrate how Stites worked with his material, presented it, and allowed it to be utilized.
Six essays set forth Stites's approach to cultural history and cover great deal of ground and time. The second set is related to "Revolutionary Dreams," and fall into two categories: futurism and science fiction, and rituals and symbols. The next grouping comprises a diverse set of essays related to "Russian Popular Culture," which he conceived as seed with more to follow. The final set corresponds to "Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia."