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Monday, November 5, 2001
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
"My room is a wretched, horrid one in the outskirts of the town," writes the narrator of the famous 19th-century Russian novel "Notes from the Underground."
Charles Mills, visiting instructor in Russian at Knox College, wanted to give the 15 students in his class in Russian culture a better idea of the novel's dingy ambiance, and the striking contrast between the narrator's quarters and the luxurious palaces that filled the central section of St. Petersburg, Russia — the setting for Fyodor Dostoevsky's story.
So Mills taught the class for an hour on Tuesday, Oct. 30, in a narrow room in the basement of the 125-year-old former Knox County Jail.
"The typical classroom — modern desks in a room with fluorescent lights — is so unlike the setting in the book that I wanted to try something different," Mills said. (Photo, right: Gregory Lardi (in hat.) Other students from left, Joshua Hart, Brooks Goedeker, Paul Grinis, Darija Clark, Bruce Steinke, Joshua Abrams. More photos below. For publication photos and ID, contact news@knox.edu.)
With just one window, the 8 by 20-foot basement room was "kind of stuffy," Mills conceded. "One student said it was a disturbing experience. But Dostoevsky's work is unsettling, so I felt an unsettling atmosphere would be appropriate."
Mills' class, an Advanced Preceptorial course entitled "Russian Then and Now," will include a three-week trip to Russia in late November and early December.
"One of the things students notice right away is that the Russian university student residences are quite spartan compared to accommodations here," Mills said. "Then you compare those Russian student residences and the rows of dreary Stalinist apartments in St. Petersburg with the palaces that abound in central St. Petersburg. It's the same jarring contrast that would have been felt by the narrator of 'Notes from the Underground.'"
Once across the street from the Knox campus, the 19th-century-era county lock-up is now virtually surrounded by Knox buildings, due to expansion of the campus. The jail was built in 1874 and used by Knox County until 1974, when it was sold to a private owner. The building was given to Knox College in 1995 and renovated for use as offices and classrooms. The cell block area and the basement of the jail were cleaned but left otherwise unchanged.
The cell-block area of the jail has been used for other Knox classes, such as study of the philosopher Foucault's book "Discipline and Punish," and a study of ghost-hunters by a class called Dying and Death.
Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 47 states and 41 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Related Pages
Philosophy Class Spends Night in Jail
Dean Overnights in Jail to Raise Funds
Photo ID: Jennifer Walker, Janeen Kramer in foreground.
Instructor Charles Mills, top right, and class in jail basement
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