Autumn

A look at contemporary Russian culture through Russia’s invasions, from Afghanistan in 1979 to Ukraine in 2022. Broadly, this course explores the extent to which war and other types of state violence determine cultural life. How do the policies and tactics of war, and the art and literature of wartime, convey ideas about power and the state, traditional vs. modern values, civilizational mission vs. cultural pluralism? Beyond Russian literature and film, we consider voices from Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Chechnya, Syria, Belarus, and Ukraine, asking, What is the cultural impact of Russia’s invasions?

The process of learning in all three quarters of Third-Year Polish is framed by three themes, which most succinctly but aptly characterize Polish life, culture, and history: in the Autumn Quarter--the noble democracy in the Commonwealth of Both Nations, in the Winter Quarter--the fight for independence, and in the Spring Quarter--the newly independent Poland. During the course of the year, students also improve their knowledge of advanced grammar and stylistics. All work in Polish.

What is it that made the fact of anthropogenic climate change “unthinkable” in the 20th century, and what ideas might allow us to think past what Amitav Ghosh calls this “great derangement”? Environmental degradation and disaster provide a steady backdrop to the 20th century in Russia and the Soviet Union. With control over one sixth of the world’s land mass, the Russian and Soviet Empires exploited the seemingly inexhaustible natural resources of the country’s territory via industrialization, collectivization, forced migration and a vast system of prison camps and internal exile. While the Soviet regime promised mastery over nature, and Russian culture valorized the harmonization of humans with the natural world, environmental catastrophe, both sudden and cumulative, proved the folly of those dreams. Though the Soviet narrative of unflagging progress towards an industrialized utopia rendered these follies unmentionable, imaginative literature provides an indelible record of their costs. We will read works by authors who have grappled with this ongoing catastrophe and its implications for relations between human beings and the world. How might the cultural legacies of communism reframe some of the most vital questions for our shared planetary future? We will examine the ecological thinking of writers and filmmakers including Anton Chekhov, Vladimir Vernadsky, Andrey Platonov, Valentin Rasputin, Larisa Shepitko, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Svetlana Alexievich.

When members of Pussy Riot performed their “Punk Prayer” at the Cathedral of Christ Our Savior in Moscow in 2011, heads covered with neon balaclavas, it was as much the scandal of their female bodies in front of the iconostasis as the words of their song that constituted their protest against state and church. This course focuses on similarly scandalous provocations and quieter acts of resistance against normative gender expectations in 19th-century Russian literature. We read narratives of rebellion by individuals and collective actions by groups of women, and consider the surprising agency attributed to women’s cooperative work in Russian literature as well as the heavy burdens placed on women by family, state, and church. Readings include primarily short fiction in a variety of genres (sentimental, romantic, realist, and gothic) by canonized male writers and by women writers of the 19th C who are less often taught and translated, but were widely read in their own day. These works expand our understanding of the narrative possibilities for sexuality and gendered subjectivity in the Russian literary sphere, and of the ways in which possibility itself was made and remade by literary expression. The course also introduces students to methods of literary analysis informed by critical theories of gender, and asks how Russian literary and cultural history may offer new ways of thinking about gendered bodies, performance, and interrelations in the 19th C and today.

Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue and The Double Life of Veronique catapulted the Polish director to the international scene. His subsequent French triptych Blue, White, Red turned out to be his last works that altered his image and legacy to affirm his status as an auteur and a representative of the transnational cinema. We discuss how in his virtual universe of parallel histories and repeated chances, captured with visually and aurally dazzling artistry, the possibility of reconstituting one's identity, triggered by tragic loss and betrayal, reveals an ever-ambiguous reality. By focusing on the filmmaker's dissolution of the thing-world, often portrayed on the verge of vague abstraction of (in)audibility or (un)transparency, this course bridges his cinema with the larger concepts of postmodern subjectivity and possibility of metaphysics. The course concludes with the filmmaker's contribution to world cinema. All along, we read selections from Kieślowski's and Piesiewicz's screen scripts, Kieślowski's own writings and interviews, as well as from the abundant criticism of his French movies. All materials are in English.

What does it feel to be watched and listened to all the time? Literary and cinematic works give us a glimpse into the experience of living under surveillance and explore the human effects of surveillance--the fraying of intimacy, fracturing sense of self, testing the limits of what it means to be human. Works from the former Soviet Union (Solzhenitsyn, Abram Tertz, Andrey Zvyagintsev), former Yugoslavia (Ivo Andrić, Danilo Kiš, Dušan Kovačević), Romania (Norman Manea, Cristian Mungiu), Bulgaria (Valeri Petrov), and Albania (Ismail Kadare).

What makes it possible for the imagined communities called nations to command the emotional attachments that they do? This course considers some possible answers to Benedict Anderson’s question on the basis of material from the Balkans. We will examine the transformation of the scenario of paradise, loss, and redemption into a template for a national identity narrative through which South East European nations retell their Ottoman past. With the help of Žižek’s theory of the subject as constituted by trauma and Kant’s notion of the sublime, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity.

This is a three-quarter sequence designed for fourth- and fifth-year students of Russian. It is also suitable for native speakers of Russian. This sequence covers various aspects of advanced Russian stylistics and discourse grammar in context. This sequence emphasizes the four communicative skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing in a culturally authentic context. It builds transcultural competence by expanding students' knowledge of the language, culture, history, and daily lives of the Russian-speaking people. Vocabulary building is strongly emphasized. We add to the existing skills and develop our abilities to analyze increasingly complex texts for their meaning: to identify various styles and registers of the Russian language and to provide their neutral equivalents in standard Russian. We also work on developing our abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize, discuss abstract topics, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations (in spoken and written format). Classes conducted in Russian. Course-specific grammar issues are covered during drill sessions (weekly) and office hours (by appointment). Oral Proficiency Interviews are conducted in the beginning and the end of the course (Autumn and Spring Quarters). Prerequisite(s): Four years of Russian, or equivalent, or consent of instructor.

This course examines the major aspects of Russian grammar and stylistics essential for heritage learners. Students engage in close readings and discussions of short stories by classic and contemporary Russian authors (e.g., Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Platonov, Bulgakov, Erofeev, Tolstaya), with special emphasis on their linguistic and stylistic differences. All work in Russian.

This course continues RUSS 10103-10203-10303; it includes review and amplification of grammar, practice in reading, elementary composition, and speaking and comprehension. Systematic study of word formation and other strategies are taught to help free students from excessive dependence on the dictionary and develop confidence in reading rather than translating. Readings are selected to help provide historical and cultural background. Conversation practice is held twice a week.