The College Catalogue

First-Year Seminars

For a full description of first-year seminars, see the First-Year Seminar section.

22 {1022} c. “It Happens Rarely, Maybe, but It Does Happen”—Fantasy and Satire in East Central Europe. Every other fall. Fall 2012. Raymond Miller.

Courses in Russian for Majors and Minors

101 {1101} c. Elementary Russian I. Every fall. Fall 2012. Michael Klimov.

Emphasis on the acquisition of language skills through imitation and repetition of basic language patterns; multimedia material (seeing and making short film clips); the development of facility in speaking through interactive dialogues and understanding simple Russian. Conversation hour with native speaker.

102 {1102} c. Elementary Russian II. Spring 2013. Michael Klimov.

Continuation of Russian 101. Emphasis on the acquisition of language skills through imitation and repetition of basic language patterns; multimedia material (seeing and making short film clips); the development of facility in speaking through interactive dialogues and understanding simple Russian. Conversation hour with native speaker.

Prerequisite: Russian 101 or permission of the instructor.

203 {2203} c. Intermediate Russian I. Every fall. Fall 2012. Raymond Miller.

A continuation of Russian 101, 102. Emphasis on maintaining and improving the student’s facility in speaking and understanding normal conversational Russian. Writing and reading skills are also stressed. Conversation hour with native speaker.

Prerequisite: Russian 102 or permission of the instructor.

204 {2204} c. Intermediate Russian II. Spring 2013. Raymond Miller.

A continuation of Russian 203. Emphasis on maintaining and improving the student’s facility in speaking and understanding normal conversational Russian. Writing and reading skills are also stressed. Conversation hour with native speaker.

Prerequisite: Russian 203 or permission of the instructor.

291–294 {2970–2973} c. Intermediate Independent Study in Russian. The Department.

Prerequisite: Russian 305 and permission of the instructor.

299 {2999} c. Intermediate Collaborative Study in Russian. The Department.

Upon demand, this course may be conducted as a small seminar for several students in areas not covered in the above courses (e.g., the Russian media or intensive language study).

Prerequisite: Russian 305 and permission of the instructor.

305 {3055} c. Advanced Reading and Composition in Russian. Every fall. Fall 2012. Raymond Miller.

Intended to develop the ability to read Russian at a sophisticated level by combining selected language and literature readings, grammar review, and study of Russian word formation. Discussion and reports in Russian. Conversation hour with native speaker.

Prerequisite: Russian 204 or permission of the instructor.

307 {3077} c. Russian Folk Culture. Every other year. Spring 2014. Raymond Miller.

A study of Russian folk culture: folk tales, fairy tales, legends, and traditional oral verse, as well as the development of folk motives in the work of modern writers. Special emphasis on Indo-European and Common Slavic background. Reading and discussion in Russian. Short papers.

Prerequisite: Russian 305 or permission of the instructor.

309 {3099} c. Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature. Fall 2012. Kristina Toland.

A survey of Russian prose of the nineteenth century. Special attention paid to the development of Russian realism. Writers include Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol’, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy.

Prerequisite: Russian 305 or permission of the instructor.

310 {3100} c. Modern Russian Literature. Every other spring. Spring 2013. The Department.

An introduction to twentieth-century Russian literature from Symbolism to Postmodernism. Reading of poetry by Blok, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Evtushenko, and Okudzhava, along with short prose by Zamiatin, Babel, Zoshchenko, Kharms, Shalamov, Aksenov, Shukshin, Petrushevskaya, Tolstaya, Ulitskaya, Sadur, and Pelevin. Close readings of the assigned works are viewed alongside other artistic texts and cultural phenomena, including the bard song, film, conceptual and sots-art, and rock- and pop-music.

Prerequisite: Russian 305 or permission of the instructor.

316 {3166} c. Russian Poetry. Fall 2013. The Department.

Examines various nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian poets, including Pushkin, Lermontov, Blok, and Mayakovsky. Earlier history of Russian verse is also discussed. Includes study of Russian poetics and the cultural-historical context of each poet’s work. Reading and discussion are in Russian. Short papers.

Prerequisite: Russian 305, or permission of the instructor.

401–404 {4000–4003} c. Advanced Independent Study and Honors in Russian. The Department.

Individual research in Russian studies. Major sources should be read in Russian. A two-semester project is necessary for honors in Russian.

Prerequisite: One course in Russian higher than 305 and permission of the instructor.

405 {4029} c. Advanced Collaborative Study in Russian. The Department.

Prerequisite: One course in Russian higher than 305 and permission of the instructor.

In English Translation

216 {2216} c - IP. Birth of the Modern: Romanticism in East-Central Europe, 1790–1848. Spring 2014. Raymond Miller.

Explores the impact of the Romantic movement in Europe east of Germany. Topics and themes include the discovery of national history and folk culture; the cult of the poet and the creation of “national” literatures; Pan-Slavism and the birth of Romantic nationalism among the Slavic peoples. Special emphasis on the problematic reception of Romanticism in Russia, and the connection there between Romantic literature and the development of the realist novel after 1848. Authors include Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Adam Mickiewicz, and other writers from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

220 {2220} c - IP. Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature. Every other fall. Fall 2013. Raymond Miller.

Traces the development of Russian realism and the Russian novel in the context of contemporary intellectual history. Specific topics include the Russian response to Romanticism; the rejection of Romanticism in favor of the “realistic” exposure of Russia’s social ills; Russian nationalism and literary Orientalism; the portrayal of women and their role in Russian society; the reflection of contemporary political controversies in Russian writing. Authors include Pushkin, Gogol’, Lermontov, Belinsky, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. Russian majors are required to do some reading in Russian.

221 {2221} c - IP, VPA. Soviet Worker Bees, Revolution, and Red Love in Russian Film. Fall 2012. Kristina Toland.

Explores twentieth-century Russian society through critical analysis of film, art, architecture, music, and literature. Topics include scientific utopias, eternal revolution, individual freedom versus collectivism, conflict between the intelligentsia and the common man, the “new Soviet woman,” nationalism, the thaw and double think, stagnation of the 1970s, post-glasnost sexual liberation, and black hole post-soviet film. Works of Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky, Kandinsky, Chagall, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Pasternak, Brodsky, Akhmatova, Solzhenitsyn, Petrushevskaya, and Tolstaya. Weekly film viewings. Russian majors are required to do some reading in Russian. (Same as Gender and Women’s Studies 220 {2510}.)

Note: May be counted towards a minor in film studies.

223 {2223} c. Dostoevsky and the Novel. Spring 2013. Raymond Miller.

Examines Fyodor Dostoevsky’s later novels. Studies the author’s unique brand of realism (“fantastic realism,” “realism of a higher order”), which explores the depths of human psychology and spirituality. Emphasis on the anti-Western, anti-materialist bias of Dostoevsky’s quest for meaning in a world growing increasingly unstable, violent, and cynical. Special attention is given to the author’s treatment of urban poverty and the place of women in Russian society. (Same as Gender and Women’s Studies 221 {2221}.)

251 {2251} c - IP, VPA. Russia’s “Others”: North Caucasus, Siberia, and Central Asia through Film and Literature. Spring 2013. The Department.

Films, music, short stories, folklore, and art are analyzed for the construction of national identity of Asian peoples from the Caucasus to the Siberian Bering Straits—Russia and the Former Central Asia (the “stans” and Mongolia). Themes: Multicultural conflicts along the Silk Road, the transit zone linking West to East. Changing roles of Asian women as cornerstone for nations. Survival and role of indigenous peoples in solving cultural, economic, and geopolitical issues facing the twenty-first century. Arrival of “outsiders”: from early traders and Siberian settlers to exiled convicts; from early conquerors to despotic Bolshevik rulers, from Genghis Khan to Stalin. Impact of Soviet collectivization, industrialization, and modernism on traditional beliefs, the environment, subsistence indigenous cultures, and Eastern spiritualities (Islam, shamanism). Questions how film and literature both tell and shape the story of “nations.” Films include S. Bodrov’s Prisoner of the Mountains (Caucasus) and Mongol; V. Pudovskin’s Storm Over Asia, A. Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala, N. Mikhalkov’s Close to Eden, A. Konchalovsky’s Siberiade, G. Omarova’s Schizo. (Same as Gender and Women’s Studies 243.)

Note: May be counted towards a minor in film studies.