Russian

The major writers and trends in Russian literature from the death of Stalin to the present. Emphasis on the rethinking of the role of literature in society and on formal experimentation engendered by relaxation of political controls over literature. A knowledge of Russian is not required.

This seminar explores space race, architecture and cinematography of the Cold War in a bi-polarized world with special emphasis on cultural memories, curatorial practices, and object-based learning. Being extracted from literature and journalism, tested on the territory of mass media and popular culture, Cold War phenomenon operates with the illusional nature of canonic cultural codes, empowering visional metaphors with the military instrumental and vocabulary of forms. Operating with the concept of synthetic, anti-biological and quasi-transparent Nylon Curtain versus the solidity of the iron barrio might allow us to look at the Cold War phenomenon even more critically and to contextualize it within the broader fabric of contemporary arts and its transcultural agenda.

A close study of the major works in the original.

"Contemporary Russian Culture and Society" examines major topics in present-day Russian culture (literature (prose and poetry); language; philology and literary criticism; theater; cinema; architecture; childhood and education). This graduate seminar will be conducted in Russian; texts of various genres will be read and discussed; also included will be projects, film screenings, and guess lectures.

The course explores a particular period in Soviet cultural history - from the end of the Second World War to the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia - as a time of consolidation of a peculiar "Soviet Civilization." It was a period when the new social and cultural order has neither needed mass terror for its maintenance, nor shown clear signs of decay. The course's aim is to explore various aspects of this vanished civilization: from its fundamental philosophical ideas, literature, and art, to popular culture and categories of cultural consciousness.

The course explores the cultural phenomena of the 1920s. Poetic texts by Osip Madelstam, Ann Akhamtova, Vladimir Maiakovsky, Boris Pasternak, and Nikolai Zabolotsky - will be examined alongside with the major writings of Russian Formalists (Yuri Tynianov, Boris Eichenbaum, Grigorii Gukovsky), as well as juxtaposed with contemporary art and architecture. This graduate seminar will be conducted in English.

This language course is designed to provide those MA and PhD students who want to be able to present and discuss their research in Russian with an opportunity to develop discipline-specific vocabulary and syntax that are typical of the Russian academic discourse. The course targets mostly productive language skills in both oral and written modes and is conducted in Russian.

This course offers a historical survey of the Russian novel in the epoch of modernism, from the beginning of the twentieth century through the 1970s. The theoretical focus of the ocurse concerns the evolution of modernist aesthetic, and the way this process was reflected in the fundamental features of the genre and their transformation. While the course is focused on novels of Russian modernism, each work of Russian literature is considered alongside its Western counterpart or counterparts. It belongs to strategic aims of the course to show Russian twentieth-century literature as an integral part of mdernism at large and its historical development.

Grammar, reading, composition, and conversation.

Grammar, reading, composition, and conversation.

This course is designed to help students who speak Russian at home, but have no or limited reading and writing skills to develop literary skills in Russian. THIS COURSE, TAKEN WITH RUSS V3431, MEET A TWO YEAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. Conducted in Russian.

This course is designed to help students who speak Russian at home, but have no or limited reading and writing skills to develop literary skills in Russian. THIS COURSE, TAKEN WITH RUSS V3430, MEET A TWO YEAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. Conducted in Russian.

Must be taken concurrently with RUSS V1101x-V1102y.

Must be taken concurrently with RUSS V1101x-V1102y.

Drill practice in small groups. Reading, composition, and grammar review. This course number has been changed to RUSS 2101

Drill practice in small groups. Reading, composition, and grammar review. This course number has been changed to RUSS 2102

Study fascinating selections of lyric poetry from a span of two centuries and explore a number of approaches to it: re-creation of the reader's response at the time of writing, psychological interpretations, poets' responses to each other, and still others. Spans the smooth surface of Russian poetry to the volcanic activity at its heart. Readings of poetry in Russian, other readings and class discussions in English.

Close study, in the original, of representative works by Bely, Sologub, Pasternak, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Olesha, Mandel'stam, Akhmatova, Solzhenitsyn, Terts, and Brodsky.

The course is devoted to the reading, analysis, and discussion of a number of Russian prose fiction works from the eighteenth to twentieth century. Its purpose is to give students an opportunity to apply their language skills to literature. It will teach students to read Russian literary texts as well as to talk and write about them. Its goal is, thus, twofold: to improve the students’ linguistic skills and to introduce them to Russian literature and literary history. In 2007-2008: A close study in the original of the “fallen woman” plot in Russian literature from the late eighteenth century. Conducted in Russian.

A close study in the original of representative works of Russian literature from Pushkin to Solzhenitsyn.

A close study, in the original, of representative works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Leskov, and Chekhov.

A close study, in the original, of representative works by Bunin, Tsvetaeva, Mayakovsky, Babel, Pasternak, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, and Pelevin.

Review of principles of phonetics and intonation. Intensive drill for the development of correct speech habits. Attention to expressive reading and poetry recitation. Conducted entirely in Russian.

A close study, in the original, of the major works. Class discussion conducted in English.

A close study, in the original, of the major works. Class discussion conducted in English.

A close study, in the original, of the major works. Class discussion conducted in English.

A close study, in the original, of selected texts from five representative lyric poets, Tiutchev, Fet, Blok, Tsvetaeva, and Brodsky. Attention given to metrics, formal analysis of style and structure, and the literary and philosophical contexts. [Class discussion in English.]

A close study, in the original, of the major works. Class discussion conducted in English.

A close study, in the original, of the representative Soviet writers, including Babel, Olesha, Zamyatin, and Andrei Bitov. Class discussion conducted in English.

A close study, in the original, of several representative Russian plays, with emphasis on problems of translation, literary technique, and dramatic presentation. Class discussion conducted in English.

Examines with Nabokovian scrutiny—and with special emphasis on bilingualism, translation, and untranslatability—some of the writer’s major works in their Russian and English versions, including his double take on Lolita.

Supervised research culminating in a critical paper.

An optional supplement to RUSS V3339 (Masterpieces of 19th-Century Russian Literature) or   RUSS V3340 (Masterpieces of 20th-Century Russian Literature). Intensive work in Russian grammar in order to perfect writing skills.

W4333: Systematic study of problems in Russian syntax; written exercises, translations into Russian, and compositions. W4334: Discussion of different styles and levels of language, including word usage and idiomatic expression; written exercises, analysis of texts, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.

W4333: Systematic study of problems in Russian syntax; written exercises, translations into Russian, and compositions. W4334: Discussion of different styles and levels of language, including word usage and idiomatic expression; written exercises, analysis of texts, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.

The course will focus on conversational, stylistic and cultural aspects of the language. Script writing, promotional trailers, film reviews.

This course examines the interaction of religious thought, praxis, and literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the Russian Empire sought to define it place in the world, many Russian writers and thinkers turned to religious experience as a source of meaning. A varied body of work emerged as they responded to the tradition of Russian Orthodoxy. The goals of this course are to acquaint students with key texts of Russian religious thought and to give students the knowledge and tools required for critical inquiry into the religious dimension of Russian literature and culture.

Exploration of the changing image of woman in Russia from the beginnings of Russian history to the present as reflected in literary texts, historical documents, art, and film. Special attention to the Soviet and post-Soviet periods and to the question of the relevance of Western Feminist theory to Russia.

An introduction to Russian poetry, through the study of selected texts of major poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, primarily: Pushkin, Lermontov, Pavlova, Tiutchev, Blok, Mandel'shtam, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Prigov and Brodsky. Classes devoted to the output of a single poet will be interspersed with classes that draw together the poems of different poets in order to show the reflexivity of the Russian poetic canon. These classes will be organized according either to types of poems or to shared themes. The course will teach the basics of verisification, poetic languages (sounds, tropes), and poetic forms. Classes in English; poetry read in Russian.

Readings of selected 19th-century texts. Some attention to theatrical background. Parallel reading lists in translation and in the original.

Major writers and trends in Russian Literature from the death of Stalin to the present. Emphasis on the rethinking of the role of literature in society and on formal experimentation engendered by relaxation of political controls over literature.

The course will examine key events of Russian cultural history from the 1870s until today from the point of view of the concept of medium. it will begin with some theoretical definitions and proceed with a closer look at optical, audio and print media and their role in promoting mass culture, avant-garde experiments of the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet propaganda and dissident practices, and post-Soviet uses artistic and political uses of new media. Works by Mayakovsky, II'f and Petrov, Erenburg, Shklovsky. Critical readings by Marshall McLuhan, Lev Manovich, Katherine Hayles, and Boris Groys.

The aesthetic innovations and theoretical explorations of Russian and Soviet film culture constitute one of the richest traditions in world cinema. At the same time, Russian and Soviet cinema provides a unique lens through which to view the tumultuous changes that took place throughout Russia during the twentieth century. We will study a wide variety of Russian films from the pre-revolutionary era; the exciting, world-renowned decade of radical cinematic experimentation in the twenties; the periods of Socialist Realism, WWII, the Thaw, Stagnation, and Perestroika; and, finally, we will look at how these various aesthetic and ideological approaches to filmmaking inform the cinema and media practices of the post-Soviet era. Directors include: Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, Abram Room, Dziga Vertov, Vasiliev Brothers, Grigory Alexandrov, Mikhail Kalatozov, Leonid Gaidai, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, Mikita Mikhalkov, Aleksei German, Andrei Zviagintsev, and others. We will also consider the vital contributions of Russian and Soviet film theorists to the global discourse of film studies, reading the theoretical works of Eisenstein, Vertov, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky and others within their historical and cultural contexts. The course will also address innovations and advances in film style that originated in the film culture of non-Russian territories and republics.

"Soviet Avant-garde Architecture and Film" is a cross-disciplinary class, focused on progressive artistic discourse with the emphasis on politically and ideologically charged media of cinematography and architecture in 1917 - 1933. During these years, USSR became the black box and the laboratory for the most redical experiments in visual cultures. The essential goal of this experimental academic activity is to re-think the legacy of the Soviet Avant-Garde as a powerful domain and to contextualize it within the borader fabric of contemporary cultures.

The course is devoted to reading shorter prose works by Ivan Turgenev. The reading list includes stories from his collection Sketches of a Hunter as well as such masterpieces as The Diary of a Superfluous Man, First Love, and Asia. Classes are conducted entirely in Russian.

Systematic study of problems in Russian syntax; written exercises, translations into Russian, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.

Discussion of different styles and levels of language, including word usage and idiomatic expression; written exercises, analysis of texts, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.

The course is devoted to reading and discussing of Tolstoy's masterpiece. Classes are conducted entirely in Russian.

This is a language course designed to meet the needs of those foreign learners of Russian as well as heritage speakers who want to further develop their reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills and be introduced to the history of Russia.

This course is designed to meet the needs of advanced students of Russian across several fields - the humanities, social sciences, law, arts, and others - who want to further develop their speech, comprehension, reading, and writing and be introduced to the contemporary Russian media. This addition to our series of courses in Advanced Russian through cultural content provides training for research and professional work in Russian.

This is a content-based language course that is designed to develop students' ability to understand fluent Russian speech and express their opinions on various social and cultural topics in both oral and written form.

The course is designed to provide advanced and highly-motivated undergraduate and graduate students of various majors with an opportunity to develop professional vocabulary and discourse devices that will help them to discuss their professional fields in Russian with fluency and accuracy. The course targets all four language competencies: speaking, listening, reading and writing, as well as cultural understanding. Conducted in Russian.

This course focuses on the study and analysis of Mikhail Lermontov's, "A Her of Our Time" - one of the most influential Russian novels of the 19th century - in its broader social, artistic, and intellectual context. Students will trace the development of the so-called "superfluous man," a strikingly ubiquitous character type whose recurrent appearance throughout the broader history of Russian literature makes him one of the most recognizable national characters.

Comparative phonetic, intonational, and morphological structures of Russian and English, with special attention to typical problems for American speakers of Russian.

The Russian verb (basic stem system, aspect, locomotion); prefixes; temporal, spatial, and causal relationships; word order; word formation.

This course will examine major developments in Soviet society after WWII through the prism of the Cold War. Organized thematically and chronologically, it will focus selectively on specific episodes of Soviet-American relations by drawing on a variety of media. Students will read, discuss and evaluate a broad range of primary and secondary sources and think critically about historical writing, the relationship bewtween art and politics, mass culture and propaganda, spy novels, memoirs and travelogues. Films by Sergi Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, and John Frankenheimer. Prose and poetry by Andrei Voznesensky, Viktor Pelevin, Svetlana Alexievich, Vasily Aksyonov, Viktor Nekrasov and others.

A historical survey of trends of Russian musical modernism in the context of Russian cultural history of the first half of the twentieth century. Works by Chaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Mosolov, Shostakovich and Schnittke will be considered alongside notable events of contemporary literature, visual art, and aethetic theory. Knowledge of Russian not required.

Workshop in literary translation from Russsian into English focusing on the practical problems of the craft. Each student submits a translation of a literary text for group study and criticism. The aim of the class is to produce translation of publishable quality.