The monograph explores traditions of expressing the body and sexuality (designated as "silence" and "burlesque") throughout Russia's literary history, with a particular focus on how these traditions affect the literary modernization during the Silver Age (1890-1921) and subsequent émigré writing.

Alexei Lalo, Ph.D. (2010) in Comparative Literature, University of Texas at Austin, teaches Russian literature at UT-Austin. He has published extensively on North American and Russian literature and culture, including a book on Thomas Pynchon (Minsk, 2001).