Ukrainian

Designed for students with little or no knowledge of Ukrainian. Basic grammar structures are introduced and reinforced, with equal emphasis on developing oral and written communication skills. Specific attention to acquisition of high-frequency vocabulary and its optimal use in real-life settings.

Prerequisites: UKRN UN1102 or the equivalent. Reviews and reinforces the fundamentals of grammar and a core vocabulary from daily life. Principal emphasis is placed on further development of communicative skills (oral and written). Verbal aspect and verbs of motion receive special attention.

This course presents and examines post-Soviet Ukrainian literature. Students will learn about the significant achievements, names, events, scandals and polemics in contemporary Ukrainian literature and will see how they have contributed to Ukraine’s post-Soviet identity. Students will examine how Ukrainian literature became an important site for experimentation with language, for providing feminist perspectives, for engaging previously-banned taboos and for deconstructing Soviet and Ukrainian national myths. Among the writers to be focused on in the course are Serhiy Zhadan, Yuri Andrukhovych, Oksana Zabuzhko and Taras Prokhasko. Centered on the most important successes in literature, the course will also explore key developments in music and visual art of this period. Special focus will be given to how the 2013/2014 Euromaidan revolution and war are treated in today’s literature. By also studying Ukrainian literature with regards to its relationship with Ukraine’s changing political life, students will obtain a good understanding of the dynamics of today’s Ukraine and the development of Ukrainians as a nation in the 21st century. The course will be complemented by audio and video presentations. Entirely in English with a parallel reading list for those who read Ukrainian.

The course will trace the appearance of the avant-garde on the territory of the Russian Empire with a focus on Ukrainian art as compared to Russian. Examining the art aspiring not only to reflect but to alter the reality originating both in the center and the periphery, the class will explore the array of strategies employed by art for that end. The foundational theories of avant-garde, non-conformism, and dissident art will be studied alongside the most celebrated and influential examples of innovative and radical art from the region. Beginning with socially minded realist practices, the class will consider the impact of the collapse of the Russian and then Soviet Empires on art and reflect on how the societal upheavals affect the understanding of the function and the definition of art. The appearance of Socialist Realism and the versions of opposition to it will be studied, from dissident undermining to neglect and escapism of the second avant-gardes. Ukrainian art of recent decades will be studied in the context of several revolutions (Granite, Orange, Euromaidan) that defined its contemporary history.

The class is offered for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Knowledge of Russian or Ukrainian is not required.