Note: This is the 2013–2014 edition of the eCalendar. Update the year in your browser's URL bar for the most recent version of this page, or click here to jump to the newest eCalendar.
Program Requirements
The Minor Concentration Russian Culture is designed primarily as an adjunct to area studies and/or programs in the humanities or social sciences. There are no Russian language requirements.
This program may be expanded into a Major Concentration in Russian.
Complementary Courses (18 credits)
Courses offered by LLC may be accepted subject to approval by the Department.
18 credits selected with the following specifications:
At least 6 credits from Group A
6-12 credits from Group B
Group A
At least 6 credits from:
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RUSS 217 Russia's Eternal Questions (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Exploration of cultural archetypes defining continuity and change from Peter the Great to the present; the Russian national identity, double-faith, Western and Slovophile influences, Mother Russia, superfluous men and the Eternal Feminine, anarchism, the avant-garde, Stalinism. Recurring themes traced in literature, art, film, music, pop culture and the applied arts.
Terms: Fall 2013
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Fall)
Fall
Given in English
Restriction: Permission of the instructor
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RUSS 218 Russian Literature in Revolution (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : The Russian twentieth-century literary dynamic up to the watershed of Stalin's death (1953). Carving out cultural territory against ideological polemics, revolutionary versus traditional values, the explosion of avant-garde experimentation under mounting critical conformism as reflected in major works and authors (Mayakovsky, Babel, Bulgakov, Platonov and others).
Terms: Fall 2013
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Fall)
Fall or Winter
Prerequisite: None, but some background in Russian 20C history is helpful
Given in English
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RUSS 223 Russian 19th Century: Literary Giants 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : The Golden Age of Russian literature: from Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol to the first works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. This course traces the rise of a coherent literary tradition in Russia, exploring authors’ relationships to the burgeoning tradition and to their historical and cultural context.
Terms: Fall 2013
Instructors: Berman, Anna (Fall)
Fall
Given in English
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RUSS 224 Russian 19th Century: Literary Giants 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : This course explores the masterpieces of late nineteenth-century Russian literature. From psychological realism and the novel of ideas to the rise of the great short story; Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leskov, and Chekhov.
Terms: Winter 2014
Instructors: Berman, Anna (Winter)
Winter
Given in English
Group B
6-12 credits from:
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RUSS 229 Introduction to Russian Folklore (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An introduction to Russian folklore and folk belief: "dual-faith," traditional mentality, fairy tales, calendar rituals, folk songs, witches, healers and house spirits. The course will explore classic approaches to folklore studies as well as the influence of folk culture on Russian "high art."
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Taught in English
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RUSS 330 Chekhov without Borders (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Chekhov’s short stories and plays. The genre of the short story and its relationship to realist, modernist, and postmodernist aesthetics. Chekhov’s influence in Russia and abroad.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Fall
Course will be given in English.
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RUSS 337 Vladimir Nabokov (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Cross sampling of short stories and major novels by Vladimir Nabokov; his life-long love affair with language and "aesthetic bliss"; his flouting of convention from Russia's Silver Age to post-McCarthy America. Lolita in and beyond the Russian context.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Given in English.
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RUSS 340 Russian Short Story (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian stories that encompass the major aesthetic and thematic concerns of the short story genre. Recurrent themes of language's power and limits, of childhood and old age, of art and sexuality, and of cultural, individual, and artistic memory.
Terms: Winter 2014
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Winter)
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RUSS 357 Leo Tolstoy (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An in-depth exploration of the literature and thought of Leo Tolstoy. This course will cover his major works of fiction as well as non-fiction essays, diary entries, and letters, with the majority of the semester devoted to his great masterpiece, War and Peace.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
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RUSS 358 Fyodor Dostoevsky (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An in-depth study of the writing and thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Through reading Dostoevsky's major novels as well as some of his short fiction and journalism in the context of his times, this course will explore Dostoevsky's contributions to literature and philosophy.
Terms: Fall 2013
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Fall)
Taught in English
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RUSS 385 Topics in Russian Performance (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Masterpieces of the Russian stage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the emergence of a uniquely Russian dramatic sensitivity against prevailing European trends; the literary word in a public, political and/or avant-garde forum.
Terms: Winter 2014
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Winter)
Fall
At least 2 courses in literature and/or cultural studies.
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RUSS 390 Special Topics in Russian (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Exploration of a significant author, trend, theme or theory in modern Russian culture, including but not limited to the interface between literary works, the graphic and performing arts, ideology and national identity.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Fall
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RUSS 427 Russian Fin de Siècle (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian poetry, prose, drama, book design and the visual arts from the Silver Age to WWI, from Chekhov to Blok and Belyi. The crisis of realism, decadence, symbolism, and its waning traced through the eternal feminine, the devil, the city, poetry as pure creation, and millennial crisis. Not open to students who have taken or are taking RUSS 465.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Course offered in English.
Prerequisite(s): At least 2 courses (6 credits) in literature and/or cultural studies.
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken RUSS 465.
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RUSS 428 Russian Avantgarde (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian poetry, prose, drama, the manifesto, street festivals and the explosion of experiment in the visual arts from WW1 to 1930. The avant-garde anticipates, transcends, responds and then succumbs to revolution.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Prerequisite(s): At least 2 courses (6 credits) in literature and/or cultural studies.
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken RUSS 466.
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RUSS 430 High Stalinist Culture 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Novels, films, art, architecture, pageantry, rhetoric and routine of the Stalinist 1930s-40s, including socialist realism as an aesthetic doctrine, utopian blueprint, target of parody, amalgam of a submerged avant-garde and state-controlled pop culture, precursor of the postmodernist simulacrum, self-proclaimed international style and/or uniquely Russian 20th-century project.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Winter
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Restriction: Not open to students who have taken RUSS 510
Given in English
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RUSS 440 Russia and Its Others (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : In-depth historical approach to cultural construction of Russian national identity and to the concept of the Other as a condition of self-representation: East, West, America, class enemies, dissidents, ethnic and sexual minorities, etc. Introduction to theoretical tools for approaching issues of national identity, alterity, (post)colonialism, exoticism, and orientalism. Not open to students who have taken RUSS 475 in 201301.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Prerequisite(s): At least 2 literature/cultural studies courses at the 200 or 300 level; or permission of the Department.
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken RUSS 475 in 201301.
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RUSS 454 Narratives of Desire (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An exploration of desire as it was narrativized in Russian literature 1860-1900. The course draws on comparative examples from European literature as well as various theoretical approaches for conceptualizing love and desire.
Terms: Winter 2014
Instructors: Berman, Anna (Winter)
Prerequisite(s): At least two literature courses at the 200 or 300 level or permission of the department.
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RUSS 475 Special Topics in Russ Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Examination of a significant author, trend, theme or theory in modern Russian culture, including but not limited to the interface between literary works, the graphic and performing arts, ideology and national identity.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Winter
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
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RUSS 500 Special Topics (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Focus on a critical theme, author or work, as determined by the current research interests of faculty and visiting faculty.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Given in English
Prerequisite: Permission of Department
Faculty of Arts—2013-2014 (last updated Aug. 21, 2013) (disclaimer)
