For Fyodor Dostoevsky, real ideas were things felt and not simply thought. This could explain why one might think that a novel like the Brothers Karamazov--his last and arguably greatest work-- has a philosophical, theological, or ideological value that would lend passion to what one already happens to believe. This course attempts a close reading of the novel that appreciates but ultimately exceeds its status as a source for social psychology, for theories of carnival and dialogue, Christian dogma, anti-theodicy, ethics, and political philosophy. After their initial encounter with what is, before anything else, a thrilling murder mystery, students examine the novel's contexts in a few of Dostoevsky's shorter works and in his notebooks, alongside secondary readings by Mikhail Bakhtin, Robert Belknap, Harriet Murav, Caryl Emerson, James Rice, Rene Girard, Gary Saul Morson, and others. This course satisfies the Single-Text requirement for all Literary Studies majors.