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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
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)
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3.00 Credits
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)
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3.00 Credits
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)
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4.00 Credits
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)
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4.00 Credits
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 wonderworking 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 takhis 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 theRussian 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)
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3.00 Credits
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 andmagazines, 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)
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4.00 Credits
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 Pe ace we interrogate it 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 Tolstoand 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)
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4.00 Credits
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)
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4.00 Credits
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)
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4.00 Credits
The USSR's 1991 dissolution ended one of history's great experiments. Socialism sought to dissolve ethnicity andovercome 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.(4credits)
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