Gary Saul Morson is the Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. His work ranges over a variety of areas, including literary theory (especially narrative); the history of ideas, both Russian and European; a variety of literary genres (especially satire, utopia, and the novel); and his favorite writers — Chekhov Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He is especially interested in the relation of literature to philosophy and has written numerous books, including Prosaics and Other Provocations: Empathy, Open Time, and the Novel; The Long and Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel (top 5 finalist for the Christian Gauss award of Phi Beta Kappa), and Narrative and Freedom: the Shadows of Time, which won a best book of the year award from the American Comparative Literature Association. Professor Morson has also won a “best book” award from The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and his class on the Russian novel is the largest at Northwestern University.