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Course Description Course Requisites Schedule of Readings Screenings
Russian Studies
COURSE REQUIREMENTSThis is a lecture and discussion course, which places a premium on class participation and preparation. I will not summarize what you have been reading and seeing outside class, but discuss its contents, significance and implications. You will be called upon in class to make contributions to the discussion, and your participation, as well as your attendance at class and the movies, will be part of your grade. Thus, there is not a choice of either doing the reading or coming to lectures; they are complementary. Keep up on the syllabus readings. For every unit, there will be core readings for which everyone is responsible. Students will lead the discussion for many of these readings. There are also supplementary readings, which are not required for everyone, but will be assigned to individuals for class presentation. Some units will require students to find materials for the class. The course syllabus is available on the campus web, and on the Macalester Moodle site. The moodle version is the authoritative syllabus for the class, and the only one that I will update. You are responsible for assignments as they are listed on Moodle. Approximately ten movies have been assigned, which students are required to watch. Viewings are scheduled for Wednesday evenings, 7PM in the Humanities 401 screening room (there will be some weeks without a film, and some showings in H402). If you cannot make the scheduled screening, you are responsible for viewing the film on your own in Media Services. GRADINGThere will be five sets of grades for the semester: four short quizzes on the readings; a take-home midterm; an independent project due at the end of the semester; and your class work. In general, the base grade of the class is a B, which you will earn by attending class and doing the assignments conscientiously, with a significant degree of understanding and analysis. Grades go down as any of these factors are absent. An A will be awarded for the polished presentation of materials that shows considerable evidence of original thought. I pay great attention not only to the content, but to the form and format of your work. How well structured is your presentation; is your language grammatical and fluent; how clearly do your ideas come across; how well do you support them? Each student will be assigned to present at least one reading or film to the class, which will comprise a significant part of their classroom grade. The object of the presentations is to be concise; to highlight the main themes without getting lost in the details. For most readings, this should take no more than ten minutes; for the video summaries, fifteen to twenty minutes will suffice. COURSE TEXTSMost texts for the class will be taken from MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA (1995), which is to be bought in the Ruminator Textbook Annex. Supplementary materials will be placed on reserve, and most will be linked directly to Moodle in PDF format. Many of the background materials will be accessed from the website Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. You will need to establish a user id and a password. Before you use the links in the syllabus, open www.soviethistory.org in your browser and sign in. To view the videos online, you will need to download RealPlayer software. For subjects assigned from www.soviethistory.org, read the introductory essays and view the videos, listen to the music, and browse the images. If an additional article should be read for that subject, I will list it on the syllabus. |
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