RUSS 125 - The Adultery Novel In and Out of Russia

Institution:

University of Pennsylvania

Subject:

Description:

Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Platt. All readings and lectures in English. The course examines a series of 19C and 20C novels (and a few short stories) about adultery, film adaptations of several of these novels, and several original adultery films in their own right. Our reading will teach us about novelistic traditions of the period in question, about the relationship of Russian literature to the European models to which it responded, as well as about adaptation and the implications of filmic vs. literary representation. Course readings may include: Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and other works. Films may include: Frears' Dangerous Liaisons, Vadim's Dangerous Liaisons, Nichols' The Graduate, Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes, and others. Students will apply various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its aesthetic, social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution, Freudian/ Psychoanalytic interpretations of family life and transgressive sexuality, and Feminist work on the construction of gender. In our coursework we will apply various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution, Freudian/ Psychoanalytic interpretations of family life and transgresssive sexuality, Feminist work on the construction of gender. In general, we will see the ways in which human identity is tied to gender roles, and the complex relationship tying these matters of the libido and the family to larger issues of social organization.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.upenn.edu

Phone Number:

(215) 898-5000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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