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Russian Course Descriptions

Russian language classes (unless otherwise stated) are proficiency oriented, and aim at perfecting all four linguistic skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Intermediate and advanced courses are taught in Russian as much as possible. Most classes meet three times per week with an additional weekly class period devoted specifically to oral proficiency. These conversation classes are taught by Russian native speakers.

 

101 ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN I

A structured introduction to the basics of the Russian sound system and grammar, as well as speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension. Some exposure to Russian culture. For beginning students. No prerequisites. Every fall. (4 credits)

 

102 ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN II

Continuation of Russian 101; further development of the same skills. Prerequisite: Russian 101 with a grade of C– or better, or consent of instructor. Every spring. (4 credits)

 

203 INTERMEDIATE RUSSIAN I

In the second year of Russian, students learn to operate in basic social and cultural environments. Conversational skills needed on the telephone, public transport and other daily situations, listening and reading skills such as television, newspapers and movies, and various modes of writing are studied. Prerequisite: Russian 102 with a grade of C– or better, or consent of the instructor. Every fall. (4 credits)

 

204 INTERMEDIATE RUSSIAN II

Continuation of Russian 203; further development of the same skills; added emphasis on reading and discussing simple texts. Students are usually prepared for study in Russia after they have completed Intermediate Russian II. Prerequisite: Russian 203 with a grade of C– or better, or consent of instructor. Every spring. (4 credits)

 

251 NINETEENTH CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION

An introduction to the literary tradition that gave the world Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Readings will include prose, poetry, drama, and literary criticism, and authors representative of the Golden Age of Russian poetry (Pushkin, Lermontov), the Age of the Realistic novel (Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy), as well as the late 19th century masters of the short story. Russian drama is represented by Gogol, Ostrovsky, and Chekhov. Lectures, readings, and discussions in English; Russian majors may read some assignments in Russian. No prerequisites. Alternate years, Spring semester. (4 credits)

 

252 EXPERIMENTS IN LIVING: TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

In the twentieth century, political and artistic revolutions in Russia had repercussions far beyond its borders; we can still feel the effects to this day. How do artists respond to and shape historical events? How did writers in twentieth-century Russia transmute fear, violence, and chaos into art? In this course we will consider novels, stories, and poems, as well as paintings, music, and film reflecting upon the Bolshevik revolution, the Stalinist terror, World War II, the Thaw, glasnost and perestroika, and the turmoil of the post-Soviet era. We will become acquainted with major artistic trends including Symbolism, Futurism, and Socialist Realism; and observe how in each case, matters of style went hand in hand with the desire to change the world. Our readings will convey the fantastic schemes of the utopian thinkers at the turn of the century; artists' responses to and participation in the political, scientific, and sexual experimentation of their time; and the survival of creative expression in the midst of unimaginable hardships. We will discover how and why some cultural figures chose to serve, and others to resist, the state, and what fate had in store for them. We will learn how provocateurs and innovators such as Mayakovsky, Akhmatova, Babel, Zoshchenko, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, Pelevin, and Tolstaya explored the relationship between art and ideology, exile and creativity, laughter and subversion, memory and survival, individual psychology and historical cataclysm. All readings will be in English. Offered in alternate years. (4 credits)

 

255 THE FIERCE AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD: RUSSIAN CULTURE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

Like the legendary knight Ilya Muromets who lay still for decades, then arose and stunned the world with mighty feats, Russia is a force to be reckoned with again. In 2007, Vladimir Putin was Time Magazine's Person of the Year. What do we know about his country, and about the people who chose him as their leader? When you think of Russia, what comes to mind? Slender birch trees or brutish bears? Do you imagine soulful wonder-working icons, finely-wrought samovars, onion-domed cathedrals, opulent palaces, folkloric lacquer boxes, whimsical nesting dolls, delicious pastries, delicate ballet dancers? Or do you picture revolutionary nihilists, vodka-soused ruffians, tyrannical tsars, masters flogging serfs, or a troika racing at breakneck speed toward an unknown destination? Only a country so vast could accommodate such contradictions. Studying Russian culture offers a way to confront the paradoxes of the human condition, in particular, the opposing yet complementary drives to create and to destroy.

 

The great poet Tyutchev declared that "you cannot understand Russia with your mind." In this course we'll take his cue and approach Russia through the senses. Russian culture offers a feast for the eyes, in visual art from icons to popular prints, the work of realist painters and the pioneers of abstract art; decorative art from wood carving to Faberge eggs; churches built without nails and palaces made of ice; boisterous folk dances and the Ballets Russes. Sound, too, plays a major role in Russian culture, from church bells to balalaikas, bawdy chastushkas to Tchaikovsky. We'll discover the cultural significance of tea-drinking, traditional foods, and most of all, alcohol. We will consider the ways in which Russian art and ideas made an indelible impression on world culture. As we examine case studies from medieval times through the end of the tsarist period, we will ask such "burning questions" as: why does art have such a privileged status in Russian society? What exactly is the Russian soul? What is Russia's relationship to the West: does it belong to Europe, to Asia, or does it possess a unique essence and destiny? Russia embraces its duality, and this may account, in part, for the distinctiveness and the vitality of Russian culture. All reading will be in English. Alternate years. (4 credits)

 

256 MASS CULTURE UNDER COMMUNISM (Same as Humanities, Media and Cultural Studies 256)

The politics and sociology of Soviet Russian culture from the October Revolution to the fall of communism. For each period in Soviet history, changes in the production and consumption of culture will be considered with specific examples to be discussed. Topics dealt with in the course include the role of mass media in society, popular participation in "totalitarian" societies, culture as a political tool. Popular films, newspapers and magazines, songs, radio and TV programs, etc., will serve to analyze the policies that inspired them and the popular reactions (both loyal and dissenting) they evoked. No prerequisites. Taught in English. Alternate years. (4 credits)

 

257 TOLSTOY'S WAR AND PEACE

In 1851, a dropout from the university, Lev Tolstoy volunteered to serve in the Caucasus, where he also launched his writing career. Later he examined Napoleon's war with Russia in War and Peace, while gradually gaining fame for his stance against imperialist wars and violence. His doctrine of non-resistance to evil was to inspire his last piece of war writing, Hadji Murad as well as other thinkers from Gandhi to Martin Luther King. Though most of the semester will be devoted to the "non-novel," "loose baggy monster," War and Peace we interrogate it in the oontext of Tolstoy's evolving ideas and 19th-century Russia and Europe. We conclude with a close reading of Hadji Murad, Harold Bloom's "personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction." While pondering Tolstoy and Russia, students are introduced to various critical approaches to literature and various reactions to Tolstoy on both page and on stage. In English. Lectures, discussion, writing, and oral presentation. Alternate years, Fall semester. (4 credits)

 

265 TRANSLATION AS CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION (Same as International Studies 265)

When communication takes place across language barriers, it raises fundamental questions about meaning, style, power relationships, and traditions. This course treats literary translation as a particularly complex form of cross-cultural interaction. Students will work on their own translations of prose or poetry while considering broader questions of translation, through critiques of existing translations, close comparisons of variant translations, and readings on cultural and theoretical aspects of literary translation. Advanced proficiency in a second language required. Alternate years. Next offered Fall 2008. (4 credits)

 

268 NABOKOV (Same as English 268)

The scandal surrounding Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel about the nymphet Lolita finally made him a hugely successful celebrity, allowing him to retire from teaching at Cornell University and move to Switzerland to devote himself to fiction, translation, criticism and lepidoptery. This was only one of the many metamorphoses Nabokov underwent while in exile, moving from Russia to the Crimea, Cambridge UK, Berlin, Paris, Cambridge MA, Ithaca, Hollywood, and finally Montreux. Members of the Russian nobility, the Nabokovs lost everything with the 1917 Revolution except for their immense cultural capital, which Nabokov transformed into a tremendously productive career as a writer, critic, translator and scholar in Russian, French, and English. This course examines both the Russian (in translation) and English novels. A merciful defier of national, linguistic, cultural and theoretical categories, Nabokov remains paradoxically elusive and monumental, a thrilling and exasperating genius. Spring semester. (4 credits)

 

272 POST-NATIONALISM: THE POST-SOVIET SPHERE (Same as International Studies 272)

The USSR's 1991 dissolution ended one of history's great experiments. Socialism sought to dissolve ethnicity and overcome ethnic conflict with a focus on equality. Instead it exacerbated nationalism and created separate identities. But how? Topics include ethno-creation, control, and resistance; ethnic animosities and the USSR's destruction; new states after 1991; "diaspora" populations beyond ethnic homelands; local rebellions; new "native" dictatorships; and recent international organizations. Alternate years. Next offered Spring 2009.(4 credits)

 

363 ORIENTALISM AND EMPIRE: RUSSIA'S LITERARY SOUTH (Same as Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 263)

Since the 18th century to the recent wars with Chechnya, contradictory views of Russian empire building have been reflected in Russian literature. Students first explore recurring Russian ideas of empire, such as "Moscow the Third Rome," and "Eurasianism," as well as the constructs of East/West as factors in Russian identity thinking. The course focuses on the Caucasus region, Russia's "Oriental" south, starting with a brief history of imperial expansion into the area and concentrating on its literary expression in travelogues, Classicist and Romantic poetry, Oriental tales, short stories, and novels. We will ponder general "orientalist" imagery and stereotyping (the noble savage, the brave tribesman, the free-spirited Cossack, the sensual woman, the imperial nobleman/peasant, the government functionary, and "virgin" territory) together with ideas of nation and identity based on this specific region. We will read classics of Russian literature (Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Tsvetaeva), but also lesser known authors, some justly and others unjustly forgotten by the canon (Osnobishin, Elena Gan, Iakubovich, Rostopchina). We will supplement our literary readings with a variety of critical and historical texts, as well as films. In English. Alternate years. Not offered 2008–2009. (4 credits)

 

364 CULTURE AND REVOLUTION (Same as International Studies 364)

This course examines the relationship between cultural and political change during four very different revolutions: in France of 1789, in Russia of 1917, and the more recent events in Iran and South Africa. How do people change when governments are overturned? How do revolutions shape the consciousness of their citizens? Do people understand events as revolutionaries intend them to? To answer these questions, we will examine symbols and political ideologies, mass media outreach, education and enlistment, changing social identities, the culture of violence, popular participation and resistance, as well as other issues. Readings will include such diverse sources as Voltaire and Rousseau, Marx and Lenin, Khomeini and the Koran. We will read contemporary accounts, both sympathetic and antagonistic, and look at popular culture to see how events were understood. Fashion and etiquette, comics and caricatures, movies and plays are among the materials used. Taught in English. Alternate years. Next offered Fall 2008. (4 credits)

 

367 DOSTOEVSKY AND GOGOL

Dostoevsky has had a major impact on writers and thinkers from Nietzsche to Coetzee. He himself paid tribute to Gogol's fantastic imagination. Course readings will range from the absurdist ravings of Gogol's madmen to the existential dilemmas of Dostoevsky's murderers. Discussions will cover the haunted and haunting city of Petersburg, saints, prostitutes, and infernal women, holy fools and Russian Orthodoxy, as well as critical views ranging from Russian Formalists to Freud to Bakhtin's ideas of dialogical speech. Students will explore major 19th century philosophical and cultural currents and a variety of literary movements and genres, and we will also see how our authors have been represented in other media, such as film and painting. From Gogol's Ukrainian and Petersburg tales and Dead Souls, the readings move to Dostoevsky's early humorous works, his major novels, and the course concludes with The Brothers Karamazov. In English. Alternate years. (4 credits)

 

488 SENIOR SEMINAR

Seminars on selected topics in Russian language, literature, or culture, designed to serve as an integrative capstone experience for majors. Recent topics are "Investigating Russian Web and Press" and "Pushkin's Eugene Onegin." The Spring 2007 seminar will be announced at the time of registration for the term. Conducted in Russian. Prerequisite: Three years (204, followed by a semester abroad) of Russian or approval of instructor. Since the topic changes from year to year, we recommend that sufficiently advanced students repeat this course. Every spring. (4 credits)

 

604 TUTORIAL

Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. Limit to be applied toward the major will be determined in consultation with the department. Every semester. (4 credits)

 

614 INDEPENDENT PROJECT

Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Limit to be applied toward the major will be determined in consultation with the department. Every semester. (4 credits)

 

624 INTERNSHIP

Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Limit to be applied toward the major will be determined in consultation with the department. Every semester. (4 credits)

 

634 PRECEPTORSHIP

Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Limit to be applied toward the major will be determined in consultation with the department. Every semester . (4 credits)

 

644 HONORS INDEPENDENT

Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Every semester. (1–4 credits)

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