Spring

This course, which is intended for third-year students of Russian, covers various aspects of Russian grammar in context and emphasizes the four communicative skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening comprehension, speaking) in a culturally authentic context. Excerpts from popular Soviet/Russian films and clips from Russian television news reports are shown and discussed in class. Classes conducted in Russian; some aspects of grammar explained in English. Drill practice is held twice a week.

The course will use an urban studies lens to explore the complex history, infrastructure, and transformations of these three cities, now the capitals of Serbia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Croatia. Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnography of the city, we will consider processes of urban destruction and renewal, practices of branding spaces and identities, urban life as praxis, art and design movements, architectural histories and styles, metropolitan citizenship, and the broader politics of space. The course is complemented by cultural and historical media, guest speakers, and virtual tours. Classes are held in English. No knowledge of BCS is required. However, this module can fulfill a language requirement or simply further the study of BCS with additional weekly sections, materials, discussions, and presentations in the target language.

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 strategics 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 practices is held twice a week.

This course introduces modern Russian to students who would like to speak Russian or to use the language for reading and research.  All five major communicative skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening, comprehension, and speaking) are stressed.  Students are also introduced to Russian culture through readings, videos, and class discussions.  This yearlong course prepares students for the College Language Competency Exam, for continued study of Russian in second-year courses, and for study or travel abroad in Russian-speaking countries.  Conversation practice is held twice a week.

The process of learning in all three quarters of Third-Year Polish is framed by three themes, which most succintly 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 new independent Poland.  During the course of the year, students also improve their knowlege of advanced grammar and stylistics.  All work in Polish.

This course includes instruction in grammar, writing, and translation, as well as watching selected Polish movies.  Selected readings are drawn from the course textbook, and students also read Polish short stories and press articles.  In addition, the independent reading of students is emphasized and reinforced by class discussions.  Work is adjusted to each student's level of preparation.

This course teaches students to speak, read, and write in Polish, as well as familiarizes them with Polish culture.  It employs the most up-to-date techniques of language teaching (e.g., communicative and accelerated learning, and learning based on students' native language skills), as well as multileveled target-language exposure.

In this three-quarter sequence introductory course in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) languages and cultures, students are encouraged to concentrate on the language of their interest and choice.  The major objective is to build a solid foundation in the grammatical  pattens of written and spoken BCS, while introducing both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.  This is achieved through a communicative situation-based approach, textbook dialogues, reinforcement by the instructor, screenings of film shorts, TV announcements, documentaries, commercials, and the like.  The course includes a socialinguistic component, an essential part of understanding the similarities and differences between the languages.  Mandatory drill sessions are held twice per week, offering students ample opportunity to review and practice materials presented in class.

Being alienated from myself, as painful as that may be, provides me with that exquisite distance within which perverse pleasure begins, as well as the possibility of my imagining and thinking," writes Julia Kristeva in "Strangers to Ourselves," the book from which this course takes its title. The authors whose works we are going to examine often alternate between nostalgia and the exhilaration of being set free into the breathless possibilities of new lives. Leaving home does not simply mean movement in space. Separated from the sensory boundaries that defined their old selves, immigrants inhabit a warped, fragmentary, disjointed time. Immigrant writers struggle for breath-speech, language, voice, the very stuff of their craft resounds somewhere else. Join us as we explore the pain, the struggle, the failure, and the triumph of emigration and exile. Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Nina Berberova, Julia Kristeva, Alexander Hemon, Dubravka Ugrešić, Norman Manea, Miroslav Penkov, Ilija Trojanow, Tea Obreht.

“What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people…. Do you want to strip the earth of all the trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light?” asks the Devil. Mikhail Bulgakov worked on his novel The Master and Margarita throughout most of his writing career, in Stalin’s Moscow. Bulgakov destroyed his manuscript, re-created it from memory, and reworked it feverishly even as his body was failing him in his battle with death. The result is an intense contemplation on the nature of good and evil, on the role of art and the ethical duty of the artist, but also a dazzling world of magic, witches, and romantic love, and an irresistible seduction into the comedic. Laughter, as shadow and light, as the subversive weapon but also as power’s whip, grounds human relation to both good and evil. Brief excursions to other texts that help us better understand Master and Margarita.