Russian Course Descriptions
Russian 120
- First-Year Russian
Full course for one year. Essentials of grammar and readings in
simplified texts. The course is conducted in Russian as much as
possible. Conference.
Russian 220
- Second-Year Russian
Full course for one year. Readings, systematic grammar review,
verbal drill, and writing of simple prose. The course is conducted
in Russian and is intended for students interested in active use of
the language. Prerequisite: Russian 120 or placement based on
results of the Russian language exam. Conference.
Russian 266
- Russian Short Fiction
Full course for one semester. Intended for lower-division students,
this course is devoted to close readings of short stories and
novellas by such nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers as
Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Babel,
Bulgakov, Nabokov, Askyonov, and Tolstaya. Our approach is twofold.
First, we attempt "open" readings, taking our texts as
representatives of a single tradition in which later works are
engaged in a dialogue with their predecessors. Second, we use the
readings as test cases for a variety of critical approaches. Meets
English departmental requirement for 200-level genre courses.
Prerequisite: students who wish to take the course for Russian
credit must have completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the
instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 300
- Advanced Russian
Full course for one semester. Grammar review; reading, composition,
and conversation. The course aims to increase reading comprehension
and to activate Russian written and oral skills through the study
and analysis of diverse texts, vocabulary enhancement, structured
composition exercises, and oral practice. Conducted in Russian.
Does not fulfill upper-division foreign language literature
requirement for majors in the Division of Literature and Languages.
Prerequisite: Russian 220 or placement based on the Russian
language examination. Conference.
Russian 333
- Russian Religious Culture
Full course for one semester. This course investigates the central
figures and ideas constitutive of Russia’s religious culture, as
manifested in the work of explicitly religious philosophers and the
iteration and refraction of their thought in a selection of
literature and texts. Readings will draw on the writings of Theofan
the Recluse, Georgij Skovoroda, Vasilij Rozanov, Nikolaj Fyodorov,
Nikolaj Berdjaev, Vladimir Solovyov, Sergej Bulgakov, and Lev
Shestov, and will include consideration of the Slavophile and
Panslavist polemics concerning the nature and role of religion in
Russian culture, including Kireevskij’s concept of "integrality,"
Khomjakov’s sobornost or "collegiality," Leont’ev’s
Byzantinism and transcendental egoism, and Pavel Florensky’s
hermeneutic theology. Literary texts will include writings by
Herzen, Dostoevsky, and Belyj. Prerequisite: for Russian
credit--completion of Russian 220 or consent of the instructor; for
religion credit--completion of Religion 201 or consent of the
instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Literature 333 and Religion
333. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 339
- Masculinities in Russian Culture
Full course for one semester. The course examines how modern
Russian literature and arts represent and imagine normative
manhood. Employing theoretical frameworks from such fields as
anthropology, sociology, and literary theory, we will approach the
cultural elite’s notions of normative and defective masculinity as
historically variable cultural constructs. We will focus on
distinct types of masculinity characteristic of the several
historical trends and fashions: dueling, dandyism, nihilism,
decadence, and revolutionary activity. Special attention will be
paid to Stalinist and Postcommunist scenarios of masculinity.
Besides theoretical and historical works, the reading includes a
diverse set of texts (mostly literary but also cinematic and
visual) that represent and interpret the patterns of masculinity
that were or are prominent in Russia. From this perspective, we
will discuss the classics (including Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev,
Chernyshevsky, Chekhov, Babel, and Platonov) as well as
non-canonical and marginal literary products. Prerequisite:
students who wish to take the course for Russian credit must have
completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor.
Conference. Cross-listed as Literature 339. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 354
- Seminar in Nineteenth-Century Russian Poetry
Full course for one semester. Drawing largely on works from the
Golden Age of Russian poetry, this course investigates a variable
set of topics, which may range from the elegaic tradition to
narrative poetic genres, from the philosophical ode to the romance;
it includes study of the distinctive features of neo-classical,
baroque, pre-romantic, and romantic poetics. In any given year,
students may expect to encounter the works of Derzhavin, Karamzin,
Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Baratynskii, Batiushkov, Lermontov, Tiutchev,
Nekrasov, and Fet. Collateral readings include works on
versification, genre, and literary history. Prerequisite: two years
of Russian or consent of the instructor. Conference.
Russian 355
- Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry
Full course for one semester. An introduction to modern Russian
poetry and poetics, this course traces the main developments in
Russian poetry over the last 100 years, devoting detailed study and
analysis to varying key figures. In any given year the object of
study may be a single poet’s work (such as Osip Mandelstam), a
genre (such as the sonnet or the epic), a cycle (such as the
"Hamlet" cycle or the "St. Petersburg cycle"), or a poetic movement
(such as Acmeism). The aim of the course is to acquaint students
with the range of achievement in that area of twentieth-century
literature that Russians consider to be the most important part of
their literary culture. Frequent written assignments. Conducted in
Russian. Prerequisite: at least two years of Russian or consent of
the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 371
- Russian Literature from its Beginnings through Gogol
Full course for one semester. Intended to introduce the Russian
modes of prose writing in relation to their Western European
models, this course seeks to map the specificities of Russian
pre-modern literary culture. The nature of narrative is studied
with respect to medieval literary conventions versus modern
literary conventions. The eighteenthcentury is examined in terms of
the imitative nature of the narrative that perpetually looks back
to the Western European world on the material of the epistolary
text, travelers’ tales, adventure tales, and the sentimental novel.
The nineteenth-century readings of novellas by Pushkin, Lermontov,
and Gogol emphasize narrative techniques as they are rooted in the
conventions of "someone else’s voice" and in the narrator’s
world-view conveyed from an estranged position. Prerequisite:
students who wish to take the course for Russian credit must have
completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor.
Lecture-discussion. Cross-listed as Literature 371.
Russian 372
- Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction
Full course for one semester. This survey of Russian fiction,
including works by Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,
Leskov, and Chekhov, studies the development of thematic and
generic conventions and the emergence of Realism in its multiple
forms. Readings in English. Prerequisite: students who wish to take
the course for Russian credit must have completed Russian 220 or
obtain the consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as
Literature 372.
Russian 373
- Modern Russian Literature from Chekhov to the Present
Full course for one semester. Survey of the modern Russian and
Soviet short story and novel, exploring the evolution of these
genres in relation to historical and cultural developments and
considering a variety of critical approaches. Readings will include
the prose of Chekhov, Gorkij, Belyj, Babel, Olesha, Pasternak,
Bulgakov, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, and Trifonov. Prerequisite:
students who wish to take the course for Russian credit must have
completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor.
Lecture-conference. Cross-listed as Literature 373. Not offered
2005-06.
Russian 384
- Special Topics in Film: Postwar East European Cinema
Full course for one semester. We will screen films by the directors
Andrej Wajda and Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland), Miklós Jancsó
(Hungary), Vera Chytilová and Milos Forman (the former
Czechoslovakia), and Kira Muratova and Sergei Paradzhanov (the
former Soviet Union). In our discussion of the films, we will
attend both to each director’s unique vision and to the shared
context of Eastern Bloc political and social history. Prerequisite:
students who wish to take the course for Russian credit must have
completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor.
Conference. Cross-listed as Literature 384. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 385
- Topics in Russian Culture: A.S. Pushkin's Evgenii Onegin
Full course for one semester. This course will focus on Evgenii
Onegin, Aleksander Pushkin’s novel in verse, which is
considered both the greatest work of Russian poetry and the
beginning of the nineteenth-century Russian novel. We will read the
complete Russian text of Evgenii Onegin and discuss it
against the background of its literary sources, mainly Russian and
European pre-Romantic and Romantic literature (such as Rousseau,
Richardson, and Byron). Special attention will be paid to the
cultural and historical contexts of the novel and its
versification, narrative structure, generic specificity, and
relationship to Russian poetic traditions. We will read the
selection of critical works about the novel, including Vladimir
Nabokov’s commentary, and analyze the attempts to render Evgenii
Onegin in such media as opera and film. We will read and
discuss Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate, the English-language
novel written in the genre of Onegin. Extensive reading in
Russian. Prerequisite: Russian 220 or reading competence in
Russian. This course satisfies the Russian department’s requirement
for a course in Russian poetry. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 388
- The Soviet Experience
Full course for one semester. The course will explore Soviet
history, literature, and culture from a specific perspective:
reviewing society’s efforts to organize lives and experience as
reflected in literature and the arts. Topics include conceptions of
time and space (reforms of calendar, organization of industrial
time, city and house planning, communal living); family, sexuality,
and gender; Stalinist terror and forms of resistance to terror; and
the revision of historical experience. In addition to selected
literary texts, the course will examine architectural designs,
legal codes, personal letters, diaries, memoirs, and art.
Prerequisite: students who wish to take the course for Russian
credit must have completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the
instructor. Lecture-conference. Cross-listed as Literature
388.
Russian 389
- Postcommunist Russian Literature, Film, and Society
Full course for one semester. The course will begin with a
consideration of the political, economic, and cultural background
against which the current developments in Russia are taking place.
We will then explore recent literary texts and other artistic
productions with a view to what they reveal concerning such themes
as the new nationalisms, constructions of gender, and the
confrontation with the Soviet and Russian past. Prerequisite:
students who wish to take the course for Russian credit must have
completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor.
Conference. Cross-listed as Literature 389.
Russian 400
- Advanced Russian: Language, Culture and Style
Full course for one semester. This course expands and deepens the
student’s understanding of expressive nuances of Russian through a
study of select lexical, morphological, syntactical, and
phonological features and through an examination of their
contextual usage in appropriate target texts--both
belles-lettristic and mass media--and corresponding cultural
matrices. Case study materials include neo-classical, romantic,
realistic, and modernist poetic and prose texts; "pulp" fiction;
journalism; and Russian "rap" lyrics. Reading, writing, and
discussion are conducted in Russian, though theoretical materials
will include English-language sources. Prerequisite: Russian 220 or
Russian 300 or equivalent proficiency. Conference.
Russian 402
- Russian Stylistics
Full course for one semester. The course concentrates on Russian
word formation and stylistics, with readings drawn from nineteenth-
and twentieth-century poetic and prose texts. Weekly writing
assignments are in Russian. Prerequisite: Russian 220 or equivalent
proficiency. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 404
- Special Topics in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature: Gogol and Dostoevsky
Full course for one semester. This course will examine
representative works by Nikolaj Gogol and Feodor Dostoevsky,
studying them as closed literary systems on the one hand, and as
specimens of developing narrative techniques of the novel as rooted
in conventions of voice, genre, and "ideology." Nineteenth- and
twentieth-century critical responses will be consulted. The first
half of the semester will be devoted to Gogol’s fiction and
relevant critical essays, while the second half of the semester
will focus on selected novellas and novels of Dostoevsky.
Prerequisite: students who wish to take the course for Russian
credit must have completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the
instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Literature 404. Not offered
2005-06.
Russian 408
- Russian Decadent and Symbolist Culture in a European Context
Full course for one semester. The course investigates Russian
Decadent and Symbolist literature in a broad European context. We
will study the philosophical foundations of Decadent culture
(Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Solov'ev); the preoccupation with
"degeneration," common in the European science of the fin-de-siècle
(Krafft-Ebing, Weininger); the "aestheticism" (J. K. Huysmans,
Oscar Wilde); and the interpretations of sexuality (André Gide,
Thomas Mann). The Russian component of the reading includes the
works of Zinaida Gippius, Viacheslav Ivanov, Fedor Sologub, Mikhail
Kuzmin, Evdokiia Nagrodskaia, Aleksandr Blok, and Andrei Bely. This
course will emphasize a research component: a research paper will
be due at the end of the semester. Prerequisite: students who wish
to take the course for Russian credit must have completed Russian
220 or obtain the consent of the instructor. Conference.
Cross-listed as Literature 408. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 413
- Twentieth-Century Russian Critical Theories
Full course for one semester. Examination of the main trends of
twentieth-century Russian literary criticism and theory, including
works produced by the Russian Formalist school, by linguistic and
structural criticism, and by Marxist and semiotic approaches to
literature and culture. The course will consider the origin and
development of different methodologies and will look at their
application to specific works of Russian and Western literature.
Readings will include works by Shklovsky, Eikhenbaum, Tynjanov,
Jakobson, Bakhtin, Lotman, and Ginzburg. Prerequisite: students who
wish to take the course for Russian credit must have completed
Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor. Conference.
Cross-listed as Literature 413. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 421
- Russian Romanticism in its West European Context
Full course for one semester. This course examines and
contextualizes the philosophical and aesthetic ideas and artistic
conventions that characterize Russian literature from the period
roughly between 1780 and 1840 within the Western European cultural
movements of sentimentalism and romanticism. The readings are
organized around a set of central issues: the renegotiation of the
boundary between poetry and philosophy, the conception of the human
personality, cultural pluralism, the sublime, romantic irony, and
romantic nationalism. Texts include the writings of Radishchev,
Karamzin, Pushkin, Odoevsky, Pavlova, Gogol, Lermontov, and
Turgenev, among the Russians; and Rousseau, Sterne, Burke, Goethe,
Schiller, Hoffman, Tieck, Constant, and Byron, among the Western
Europeans. Prerequisite: students who wish to take the course for
Russian credit must have completed Russian 220 or obtain the
consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Literature
421. Not offered 2005-06.
Russian 470
- Thesis
One-half or full course for one year.
Russian 481
- Independent Study
One-half or full course for one semester. Prerequisite: approval of
instructor and division.
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