Art History-Russian [AHIS]
W4661. Avant-Gardes and Postmodernisms in Twentieth-Century Russian Art. 3 pts. Staff
G8671. The Russian Avant-Garde. 3 pts. Staff
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Comparative Literature-Czech [CLCZ]
W4020. Czech Culture before Czechoslovakia. 3 pts. C. Harwood
An interpretive cultural history of the Czechs from earliest times to the founding of the first Czechoslovak republic in 1918. Emphasis on the origins, decline and resurgence of Czech national identity as reflected in the visual arts, architecture, music, historiography, and especially the literature of the Czechs.
W4030. Postwar Czech Literature. 3 pts. C. Harwood
A survey of postwar Czech fiction and drama. Knowledge of Czech not necessary. Parallel reading lists available in translation and in the original.
W4035. The Writers of Prague. 3 pts. C. Harwood
Readings in English. A survey of the Czech, German and German-Jewish literary cultures of Prague from 1910 to 1930. Emphasis on Hašek, Čapek, Kafka, Werfel, and Rilke.
W4038. Prague Spring of '68 In Film and Literature. 3 pts.
The course explores the unique period in Czech film and literature during the 1960's that emerged as a reaction to the imposed socialist realism. The new generation of writers (Kundera, Skvorecky, Havel, Hrabal) in turn had an influence on young emerging film makers, all of whom were part of the Czech new wave.
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Comparative Literature-Polish [CLPL]
W4020. North America in the Mirror of Polish Literature. 3 pts. A. Frajlich-Zajac
The course will consider the reflection of American culture in Polish literature. All aspects of American life will be viewed through the lenses of the Polish writers, bringing into focus their perception of a different political, historical, and esthetic experience.
W4120. The Polish Short Story In a Comparative Context. 3 pts.
The course examines the beginnings of the Polish short story in the 19th century and its development through the late 20th century, including exemplary works of major Polish writers of each period. It is also a consideration of the short story form--its generic features, its theoretical premises, and the way these respond to the stylistic and philosophical imperatives of successive periods.
W4300. Unbound and Post-Dependent: The Polish Novel After 1989. 3pts.
This seminar is designed to offer an overview of Post-1989 Polish prose. The literary output of what is now called post-dependent literature demonstrates how political transformations influenced social and intellectual movements and transformed the narrative genre itself. The aesthetic and formal developments in Polish prose will be explored as a manifestation of a complex phenomenon bringing the reassesment of national myths, and cultural aspirations. Works by Dorota Maslowska, Andrzej Stasiuk, Pawel Huelle, Olga Tokarczuk, Magdalena Tulli and others will be read and discussed. Knowledge of Polish not required.
G6020. Renaissance Poetry In Poland: From Latin To Polish. 3 pts.
Prerequisites: Working knowledge of Latin or Polish. Focuses specifically on poetry and the developement of modern Polish literary language, style, and culture from its Lain and neo-Latin influences. Authors may include Ioannes Visliciensis (Jan z Wislicy), Hussovianus (Hussowczyk), Dantiscus (Dantyszek), Andrzej Krzycki (Cricius), Sarbevius (Sarbiewski), Biernat of Lublin, Jan Kochanowski (Cochanovius), Mikolaj Rej, Sep-Szarzynski, and others.
W6210. Polish Avant-Gardism. 3 pts.
An investigation of avant-gardism in literature and the arts in Poland from the end of the 19th century to WW II. Texts as they originally appeared in journals and first editions, with the goal of developing a feel for the vibrant interdisciplinary modernist culture of pre-Communist Poland.
G6240. Bruno Schulz. 3 pts.
Prerequisites: Knowledge of Polish and/or substantial background in Jewish literature required. A seminar dedicated to the close analysis of all Schulz's extant fiction, criticism, and visual works with attention to his letters and critical writing on Schulz from Polish, Jewish, and other perspectives.
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Comparative Literature-Russian [CLRS]
W4011. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and the English Novel. 3 pts. L. Knapp.
A close reading of works by Dostoevsky (Netochka Nezvanova; The Idiot; "A Gentle Creature") and Tolstoy (Childhood, Boyhood, Youth; "Family Happiness"; Anna Karenina; "The Kreutzer Sonata") in conjunction with related English novels (Bronte's Jane Eyre, Eliot's Middlemarch, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway). No knowledge of Russian is required.
W4012. Russian, French, and American Novels of Adultery. 3 pts. L. Knapp.
Adultery is a driving concern of the works read. Authors include Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov; Lafayette, Flaubert; Hawthorne, Chopin. As we study the nineteenth-century novels that define the novel of adultery as a literary category, as well as some precursors and later offshoots, we articulate a morphology of the novel of adultery. We also focus on the narrative technqiues used to represent the consciousness of the protagonists, in an effort to determine how the subject matter and the poetics of the novel of adultery interact. No knowledge of Russian is required; all works read in English.
W4015. Dostoevsky and Nabokov: Narratives of Transgression and Madness. 3 pts. D. Martinsen.
A close reading of works by Dostoevsky (The Double, Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, "The Meek One," The Brothers Karamazov) and Nabokov (Despair, Lolita). Paying particular attention to narrative strategies, the course will prepare students to apply their knowledge of Dostoevskian plot, thematics, and literary technique to two novels by the great Dostoevsky-denier Nabokov
W4020. Slavic Literary Theory. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
The contributions to modern critical thought of Russian Formalism, Prague Structuralism, East European structural poetics and semiotics of culture. The characteristic features of those movements are examined in comparison with kindred critical developments in the West. Readings in English.
W4029. Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century In Russia and Elsewhere. 3 pts.
An examination of nineteenth-century novels and novellas by women: the focus will be on Russian writers (Gan, Zhukova, Pavlova, Tur, Vovchok, Khvoshchinskaia, Kovalevskaia), but we will include relevant works by novelists from other traditions (Germaine de Staël, George Sand; Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot; Harriet Beecher Stowe; Olive Shreiner). We will discuss broader issues relating to the theory, form and poetics of the novel, as well as ask questions about the nature of realism, about the politics of literary history and canonization, about the feminine imagination. All works may be read in English. (No knowledge of Russian or French is required.
W4032. Emancipation of the Self in (Early 20th Century) Russia and the European Modern. 3 pts. J. Wermuth-Atkinson
A survey of the conceptual commonalities in 20th century Russian and Western European literature, art, architecture, theater, and music. Emphasis will be on the views of the Self, the relationship between matter and psyche, and the reality and appearance, discussed in the context of Russian Symbolism, analytical psychology, and the Modern.
G4035. Word and Image In Russian Culture 1720-1920. 3 pts.
Reading knowledge of Russian and some reading ability in French are desirable. Examination of the possible relationships of the verbal and the visual in 18th- and 19th-century Russian literature and culture. Considers the Byzantine heritage, the "symbols and emblems" of the Petrine baroque, the allegories of court culture, the notion of the picturesque, the "visibility" of "classical" Russian literature and turn-of-the-century culture, and the very possibility of illustrating words with images. The course is comparative, placing Russian examples against a European background to explore what is universal and what is specific about the interplay of word and image in Russia.
W4155. History of Russian & Soviet Film. 3 pts. R. Borislavov
This
course surveys developments in Russian film history and style from the
prerevolutionary beginnings of cinema through the Soviet and post-Soviet
experience. We will be studying both the aesthetic qualities of the
films and their historical and cultural contexts. Students will be
exposed to a wide range of visual media, including experimental films of
the 1920s, films on Russia's experience of World War II, Soviet
classics, late Soviet and contemporary Russian films. Readings will
include theoretical articles and selections from Russian film history
and criticism. All readings are in English and the films will be
screened with English subtitles.
W4309. Nineteenth Century Narrative Dilemmas. 3 pts. D. Martinsen.
This course will explore narrative strategies developed by Russian authors as they created a literary tradition that would change the world. Starting with Pushkin's first completed prose work, we will explore how narrative frames, structures, genre, and authorial choices contribute to textual explorations of identity, responsibility, love, violence and revenge. Texts covered willinclude: Pushkin's "Tale of Belkin," Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time," Gogol's "The Diary of a Madman,""The Nose,""The Overcoat," Dostoevsky's "The Double and Demons," Tolstoy's "War and Peace," and Leskov's "The Enchanted Wanderer." No knowledge of Russian required.
W4431. Theatricality and Spectacle In the History of Russian Culture. 3 pts.
A survey of Russian cultural history focused on the problems of theater and performance, and their place in the system of power in the structure of everyday life. Along with the history of Russian theater, various manisfestions of theatricality, from the 18th century Court Festivals to the Moscow Olympiad of 1980, will be studied. Readings include milestones of Russian drama (plays by Pushkin, Gogol, Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov), theater manifestos by Stanislavsky, Meierhold, Evreinov, as well as selected issues in contemporary cultural, architectural and visual theory. All the readings will be in English.
G6110. The Discourse of Self in Russia and the West. 3 pts. R. Stanton
The evolution of self-narrative in Russian literature, including both fiction and non-fiction, in comparison with canonical Western texts. Emphasis on the aesthetic and ethical tensions inherent in the project of self-narration, the ways in which major Russian and Western authors addressed these problems, and parallels between personal and national self-definition.
G6201. Bakhtin. 3 pts. Staff
An examination of the literary and cultural theory of Mikhail Bakhtin.
G6401. Russian Futurism and Its Influence. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Exploration of the poetics and philosophy of language of the Russian Futurists in comparison with Italian Futurism and other trends in the Russian and Western avant-garde. Examination of the impact of the Russian avant-garde rebellion on literature and aesthetic ideas of the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet period. Prerequisite: reading knowledge of Russian.
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Comparative Literature-Slavic [CLSL]
W4001. Contemporary East European Literature: When the Wall Came Down. 3 pts. Staff
A course focusing on the changes in the literary situation in East European countries that have accompanied and followed the end of communist rule. The reading list includes works by representative authors from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.
W4003. Central European Drama In the Twentieth Century. 3 pts.
Focus will be on the often deceptive modernity of modern Central and East European theater and its reflection of the forces that shaped modern European society. It will be argued that the abstract, experimental drama of the twentieth-century avant-garde tradition seems less vital at the century's end than the mixed forms of Central and East European dramatists.
W4004. Introduction to Twentieth-Century Central Europena Fiction. 3 pts. I. Sanders.
This course introduces stuents to the works of literature that offer a unique perspective on the temptestuous twentieth century, if only because these works for the most part were written in "minor" languages (Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Serbian), in countries long considered part of the European backwaters, whose people were not makers but victims of history. Yet the authors of many of these works are today ranked among the masters of modern literature. Often hailing from highly strasfied, conservative societies, many Eastern and Central Europena writers became daring literary innovators and experimenters. To the present day, writers from this "other" Europe try to escape history, official cultures, politics, and end up redefining them for their readers. We will be dealing with a disparate body of literature, varied both in form and content. But we will try to pinpoint subtle similarities, in tone and sensibility, and focus, too, on the more apparent preoccupation with certain themes that may be called characteristically Central European.
W4005. Constructions of Gender and Sexuality in Russian and East European Writing. 3 pts. Staff
An exploration of the ways gender and sexual identities have been articulated and constructed in a number of Russian and East European literary texts (from the late nineteenth century to the present). The reading list includes representative works from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, and the former Yugoslavia.
W4025. Literature and Ideology: Balkan Modernism. 3 pts. Valentina Izmirlieva
A survey of the twentieth-century literature of Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, and Romania (in translation), with a focus upon the role of literature in modern Balkan politics. The course explores “the Balkans” – the cultural entity, the political phenomenon, the ideological construct – from the vantage point of the best modernist and postmodernist texts created in the region. The reading list includes poetry by Constantine Cavafy, novels by Ivo Andric and Ismail Kadare, short-stories by Danilo Kis read in conjunction with his fathers by choice, Jorge Luis Borges and Bruno Schultz, films by two of Europe’s most acclaimed directors of the 1990s: Emir Kusturica and Theo Angelopolus.
W4075. Soviet and Post Soviet, Colonial and Post Colonial Film. 3 pts. Y. Shevchuk.
The course will discuss how film making has been used as a vehicle of power and control in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet space since 1991. A body of selected films by Soviet and post-Soviet directors that exemplify the function of film making as a tool of appropriation of the colonized, their cultural and political subordination by the Soviet center will be examined in terms of post-colonial theories. The course will also focus on the often over looked work of Ukrainian, Georgian, Belarusian, Armenian, etc. national film schools and how they particpated in the communist project of forstering as well as resisting it.
W4110. Fiction In Film In East Central Europe. 3 pts.
The course will examine some of the most significant achievements of the Polish, Czech and Hungarian cinema in the communist era and in most cases, their literary antecedents.
W4203x. The History, Literature, and Film of Dissent in East Central Europe. 4 pts. B. Abrams, C. Harwood.
The course is an interdisciplinary investigation of the cultural and political phenomenon of Eastern European
dissent in the 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the collapse of communism in the region. Using sources ranging from political essays to drama, other fiction, and film, students will explore the development of the region's oppositional movement's ideas and ideals. The actual prefix of the course, for registration purposes, is
HSSL W4203x.
W4995. Central European Jewish Writers. 3 pts.
Examines prose and poetry by writers generally less accessible to the American student written in the major Central European languages: German, Hungarian, Czech and Polish. The problematics of assimilation, the search for identity, political commitment and disillusionment are major themes, along with the defining experience of the century: the Holocaust; but because these writers are often more removed from their Jewishness, their perspective on these events and issues may be different. The influence of Franz Kafka on Central European writers, the post-Communist Jewish revival, defining the Jewish voice in an otherwise disparate body of works.
G6100. Comparative Grammar of Slavic Languages. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Comprehensive survey of the development of Slavic phonology and grammar, from its reconstructed Proto-Slavic state to modern Slavic languages. General theoretical questions, such as methodological problems of historical reconstruction, the nature of the proto-language, hypotheses concerning the origin and early migrations of the Indo-Europeans and Slavs, would also be discussed. Prerequisites: knowledge of at least one Slavic language; no special linguistic training is required.
G6112. The Tale of Prince Igor's Campaign In the Context of European Medieval Poetry. 3 pts.
Prerequisites: Ability to read one of the five texts in the original. Study of the tale of Prince Igor's Campaign's symbolic language, imagery, and narrative technique in relation to European medieval epic poetry, particularly in comparisonwith Beowulf, Snorri Struluson's Edda, The Song of Roland and the poem of My Cid.
MUSLIM/CHRISTIAN-BALKAN NARRTV CLSL6200. 3 pts.
Instructor Valentina Izmirlieva
This course explores the tangled relations of Muslims and Christians in the Balkans through the stories they tell of each other and the foreign narratives about themselves that they import, absorb, and resist. The course defines "narrative" broadly and probes creative storytelling across media and genres, asking methodological questions about narration and narrative inquiry and developing students' skills for reading both narrative texts and the complex social contexts that produce and sustain them. Its introductory part, "Cities of the Book: Geographies of Conflict and Coexistence," will familiarize students with the region through case studies of three cities that have served as symbols of Balkan conflict and convivencia: Sarajevo, Thessaloniki, and Istanbul. The second part, "(Broken) Mirrors and Bridges (to Nowhere)," focuses on four novels by highly visible fiction writers from the region (Pamuk, Pavić, Andrić, and Kadare). In the third part, "My Neighbor, My Enemy," students—drawing from a range of heterogeneous narratives—are invited to consider whether Muslim-Christian violence is indeed inevitable, how interreligious hatred can be countered, and what effective strategies exist for cultivating "neighborliness" in multi-religious societies. No knowledge of Balkan languages required.
G8020-G8021. Directed Research In Slavic Cultures. 3 pts.
Departmental permission.
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Comparative Literature and Society [CPLS]
G6160. The New Post-Coloniality: Overcoming The West. 3 pts. Nepomnyashchy, Armstrong
Postcolonial studies started with a South Asia model. This model needs to be displaced, expanded, and altered with reference to other “colonial” histories and spaces. This seminar will approach such an intersectional project with reference particularly to Eastern Asia and the post-Soviet world. Through the exploration of texts from literature, literary theory, history, and the social sciences, the course addresses relations and representations of power and inequality across space and time. Visit the Center for Comparative Literature and Society for more information.
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Czech [CZCH]
W4003. Introduction to Czech Literature. 3 pts. Staff
W4333. Readings in Czech Literature I. 3 pts. C. Harwood.
Prerequisites: Two years of college Czech or the equivalent. A close study in the orginal of representative works of Czech literature. Discussion and writing assignments in Czech aimed at developing advanced language proficiency.
W4334. Readings in Czech Literature II. 3 pts. C. Harwood.
Prerequisites: Two years of college Czech or the equivalent. A close study in the original of representative works of Czech literature. Discussion and writing assignments in Czech aimed at developing advanced language proficiency.
G8001-G8003. Directed Research in Czech Literature. 3-4 pts. Staff
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History [HIST]
W3320. History of Ukraine in the Twentieth Century. 3 pts. M. Von Hagen
W3335. A History of Czechoslovakia, 1918-1992. 3 pts. B. Abrams
W3361. History of the Soviet Union. 3 pts. M. Von Hagen
W3863. East Central European Intellectuals and Communism. 3 pts. B. Abrams
W3967. Personality and Society in Nineteenth-Century Thought. 3 pts. R. Wortman
W4280. Religion in Russia: Culture, History, Institutions. 3 points. V. Izmirlieva
From Prince Valdimir's Rus' to the Post-Soviet Russia of Vladimir Putin, religion has remained a key factor in the making and remaking of Russian polity and culture. This course will explore how Orthodox Christianity - whether privileged or persecuted - came to dominate the Russian religious scene, while also addressing the share of Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, and other religious traditions in shaping Russian institutions, discourses and lived experiences. Popular religion, cutting across various confessions and producing peculiar hybrids, will be of special interest, and so will be the proliferations of schisms within established religious groups. Students will draw from a variety of primary and secondary sources - chronicles, saints' lives, travel narratives, memoirs, letters, legal documents, icons and other ritual objects, newspaper accounts and photographs, films and fiction texts, as well as a large body of scholarly works - to examine how Russia's religious past and its rewriting into competing "histories" have been used over time as "legacies" shaping the present and the future. Knowledge of Russian is not required, although ability to consult original Russian sources is expected from students who pursue a degree in Russian history or Russian literature and culture.
W4343. Imperial Russia, 1801-1917. 3 pts. R. Wortman
G4339. History of Modern Poland. 3 pts. J. Micgiel
G6000. Creative Dissidence in Post Stalin Period. 3 pts. C. Nepomnyashchy.
This course surveys primary texts of the Soviet literary and artistic dissidence during the post-Stalin period, placing aesthetic praxis in dialogue with the theory and practice of human rights both in their historical development as they are currently construed. Readings will focus on literary texts and memoirs produced during the late Soviet period, most of which were denied publication in their country of origin. Important dissident events performed in other art forms, including the fine arts, music, architecture, and cinema will also be considered.
G8327. An Introduction to the Literature of East Central European History. 3 pts. B. Abrams
G8364. Colloquium on Soviet Social History. 4 pts. M. Von Hagen
G8445. Legacies of Empire and the Soviet Union. 4 pts.
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History-Political Science [HSPS]
G8445. Legacies of Empire and the Soviet Union. 4 pts. Harriman Institute Faculty.
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Hungarian [HNGR]
W4028. Modern Hungarian Prose Fiction in Translation. 3 pts. I. Sanders
Exploration of themes and styles in 20th-century Hungarian prose fiction. Topics include turn-of-the-century modernism, "populist and urban" literature in the inter-war years, post-1945 reality in fiction, comparative literature memoirs and reportage, late-century minimalist and postmodernist trends.
W4050. The Hungarian New Wave: Cinema in Kádárist Hungary. 3 pts. I. Sanders
Hungarian cinema, like film making in Czechoslovakia, underwent a renaissance in the 1960's, but the Hungarian new wave continued to flourish in the 70's and film remained one of the most important art forms well into the 80's. This course examines the cultural, social and political context of representative Hungarian films of the Kadarist period, with special emphasis on the work of such internationally known filmmakers as Miklos Jancso, Karoly Makk, Marta Meszaros, and Istvan Szabo. In addition to a close analysis of individual films, discussion topics will include the "newness" of the new wave in both form and content (innovations in film language, cinematic impressionism, allegorical-parabolic forms, auteurism, etc.), the influence of Italian, French, German, and American cinema, the relationship bewtween film and literature, the role of film in cultures of Communist Eastern Europe, the state of contemporary Hungarian cinema. The viewing of the films will be augmented by readings on Hungarian cinema, as well as of relevant Hungarian literary works.
G4030. Twentieth-Century Hungarian Poetry in Translation. 3 pts. I. Sanders
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International Affairs [INAF]
U4525. Postwar Politics of East Central Europe. J. Micgiel
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Slavic and General Linguistics [SLLN, CLLN, LING]
Slavic Linguistics:
SLLN G4005. Introduction to Old Church Slavonic. 3 pts. A. Timberlake, V. Izmirlieva
An abridged course in Old Church Slavonic phonology and morphology, with some attention to the role of Church Slavonic in shaping the lexicon of modern Russia.
SLLN G6005. History and Structure of the Old Church Slavonic Language. 3 pts. B. Gasparov, V. Izmirlieva
RUSS G6021. The Structure of Modern Standard Russian. 3 pts. B. Gasparov, A Timberlake
CLSL 6100. Comparative Grammar of Slavic Languages. 3 pts. Staff.
RUSS G6225. History of the Russian Literary Language. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Prerequisite: Slavic Linguistics G4005, Introduction to Old Church Slavonic. A survey of styles and genres of the Russian written language at major epochs in their development from Kievan Rus through the early twentieth century.
SLLN G8020-G8021. Directed Research in Slavic Linguistics. 3 pts. Staff
General Linguistics:
LING W3101. Introduction to Linguistics. 3 pts. B. Gasparov, A. Timberlake.
Parameters of the structure of language: phonology, grammar, semantics, concepts and methods of theoretical linguistics and their role in the study of cognitive, communicative and social functions of language.
LING W4108. Language History. 3 pts. Staff.
Prerequisites: LING W3101. Language, like all components of culture, is structured and conventional yet can nevertheless change over time. This course examines how language changes, firstly as a self-contained system that changes organically and autonomously, and secondly, as contextualized habits that change in time, in space, and in communities.
LING W4170. Language and Symbol. 3 pts. B. Gasarov.
Prerequisite: LING W3101. Reading and discussing scholarly literature on various aspects of the meaning, structure, and functioning of signs in language, art, and society. All the reading for the course is drawn from original scholarly literature, some of it of highly specialised nature. At some points (for instance, while discussing dimensions of the linguistic signs, or parameters of structural poetics), theoretical reading will be supplemented by brief practical assignments.
LING W4190. Discourse and Pragmatics. 3 pts.
Prerequisite: LING W3101. How discourse works, how language is used: oral vs. written modes of language, the structure of discourse, speech acts and speech genres, the expression of power, authenticity, and solidarity in discourse, dialogicity, pragmatics, mimesis.
LING W4202. Cognative Linguistics. 3pts.
Prerequisite: LING W3101, previously or concurrently. Reading and discussion of scholarly literature on the cognative approach of language, including: usage oriented approaches to language, frame semantics, construction grammar, theories of conceptual metaphor and mental spaces; alongside of experimental research on language acquisition, language memory, prototypical and analogous, and the role of visual imagery in language processing.
LING W4204 Linguistic Theory. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Prerequisite: LING W3101, previously or concurrently. A survey of theoretical approaches to meaning in twentieth -century linguistics and philosophy of language. The course involves reading and discussion of original scholarly literature on semantics by authors such as: de Saussure, Jakobson, Chomsky, Wittgenstein, Fillmore, Derrida; reading is accompanied by practical work aimed at testing different aspects of meaning and linguistic models. Among models discussed in the course are strcutural semantics and semiotics, generative grammar.
LING W4376. Phonetics and Phonology. 3 pts.
Prerequisite: LING W3101. An investigation of the sounds of human language, from the perspective of phonetics (articulation and acoustics, including computer-aided acoustic analysis) and phonology (the distribution and function of sounds in individual languages).
LING W4800 Language and Society. 3 pts.
Prerequisite: LING W3101. How language structure and usage and varies according to special factors such as social history and socioeconomic factors, illustrated with study modules on langauge contact, language standardization and literacy, quantitative sociolinguistic theory, and the history, present and future of language usage in the former Soviet Union.
LING W4903. Syntax. 3 pts. Staff.
Prerequisite: LING W3101. Syntax - the combination of words - has been at the center of the Chomskyan revolution in Linguistics. This course examines contemporary syntactic theories, focusing on later versions of generative syntax (Government and Binding, Minimalism), with secondary attention to alternative models (HPSG< Categorial Grammar).
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Polish [POLI]
W4003. History of Polish Literature. 3 pts. Staff
A knowledge of Polish is not required, but students knowing the language are expected to read in the original and are given special assignments. A general survey of Polish literature from the Renaissance to the First World War and the establishment of an independent Polish state. Lectures and assigned readings.
W4030. Post-World War II Polish Literature. 3 pts. Staff
Readings in English translation. Students with a knowledge of Polish are expected to do some work in the original. An introduction to major developments in Polish prose, fiction, poetry, and drama since the end of World War II and the establishment of the present government.
W4031. Professional Polish for Heritage Speakers. 3 pts.
Addresses the need of heritage speakers to speak, read, understand, and write in Polish at the highest level of functional proficiency. It serves students from all departments across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.
W4040. Mickiewicz. 3 pts. A. Frajlich-Zajac
The major works of Adam Mickiewicz. Students with sufficient knowledge of Polish are required to do the readings in the original. Parallel reading list for readers and non-readers of Polish.
W4042. Bestsellers of Polish Prose: Literature and Film. 3 pts. A. Frajlich-Zajac
A close study of the twentieth-century Polish novel during the prewar period. Readings from major works of Kuncewiczowa, Choromański, Wittlin, Unilowski, Kurek, Iwaszkiewicz, Gombrowicz, and Schulz. The development of the Polish novel will be examined against the background of new trends in European literature and film, and the use of various narrative devices will be studied. A reading knowledge of Polish is desirable but not required.
W4044. Twentieth-Century Polish Drama and Theater. 3 pts. Staff
A reading knowledge of Polish is desirable but not required. Primarily the plays of such avant-garde dramatists as Witkiewicz, Gombrowicz, Mrożek, and Różewicz, and the theater work of Grotowski.
W4048. Masterpieces of Nineteenth-Century Polish Poetry. 3 pts. A. Frajlich-Zajac
Analysis of the major works of the nineteenth-century poets, including Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Krasiński, Fredro, and Norwid. Parallel reading lists for readers and non-readers of Polish. Students with sufficient knowledge of the language are required to read in the original.
W4050. Contemporary Polish Poetry. 3 pts. A. Frajlich-Zajac
Prerequisite: reading knowledge of Polish. Survey of the major contemporary Polish poets, schools, and genres. Lectures, assigned readings, and class discussion of poems. Additional reading list and anthology selections in English for supplemental reading and for comparison.
W4110. The Polish Novel. 3 pts. Staff.
A consideration of the evolution of the novel form in Polish literature from the Baroque memoir through the Enlightenment, Positivism, modernism, and the avant-gardists of the Twentieth Century. Reading knowledge of Polish desirable but not required. Papers and discussion in English.
G4049. Twentieth-Century Polish Poetry. 3 pts. A. Frajlich-Zajac
Students
will be able to learn about the Polish literary scene and it's dynamics and most of all read and analyze the most representative texts of the particular poets. The main goal of the course will be reading and comprehension of the text in original.
G4111. Polish Drama. 3 pts. Staff.
A survey of Polish drama from the Renaissance through the radical experiments of the recent period. Current performances in New York will be incorporated in the course. Knowledge of Polish is desirable but not required.
G8001-G8002. Directed Research in Polish Literature. 3-4 pts. Staff
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Political Science [POLS]
W3517. The Politics of Eastern Europe. 3 pts. J. Micgiel
W3531. The Politics of East Central Europe. 3 pts. J. Micgiel
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Russian [RUSS]
W4001. Conversations About Russian Cinema. 3 pts. M. Kashper
Two years of college Russian or the instructor's permission. The course will focus on conversational, stylistic and cultural aspects of the language. Script writing, promotional trailers, film reviews. The course is conducted entirely in Russian.
W4006. Modern Russian Religious Thought. 3 pts. L. Knapp
Knowledge of Russian is not required. The concepts of God, man, nature, history, and culture. Readings from Chaadayev, Khomyakov, Solovyov, Fyodorov, Florensky, Bulgakov, Shestov, Lossky, Frank, and others. The relationship to Eastern Christian thought and Western philosophy.
W4014. Introduction To Russian Poetry and Poetics. 3 pts. Staff
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, Tsvetaeva, 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.
W4015. Highlights of Russian Drama from the Eighteenth Century to Chekhov. 3 pts. R. Belknap
Parallel reading lists in English and Russian. Graduate Russian majors must use the Russian. Emphasis on drama as literature, with some attention to Western drama and to Russian theatrical production.
W4016. Twentieth-Century Russian Drama and Theater. 3 pts. R. Belknap
Parallel reading lists in English and Russian. Graduate majors must read in the original. Emphasis on literary texts, the history of literary movements, and on competing theatrical and dramatic theories.
W4025. The Russian Memoir. 3 pts. R. Belknap
A sampling of family, political, travel, prison, literary, theatrical, military, court, religious, and other memoirs from several centuries, with attention to the characteristics of the different subgenres and literary periods; the interplay between the memoir and other literary genres.
W4027. Poetry and Prose of the 1860s. 3 pts. Staff
Readings, lectures, and discussion on the fiction, lyric, drama, and journalism of a crucial decade. A longer reading list is provided for those who cannot read Russian.
W4036. Russian Women in Literature and Culture. 3pts. C. Nepomnyashchy
A knowledge of Russian is not required. A comparative study of Western and Russian feminist thought and practice. Literary and historical documents are studied, with emphasis on women’s social position, their literary image and their contributions to culture.
W4050. Post-Soviet Russian Literature. 3 pts. Staff
Survey of the work of the major writers to have entered Russian literature in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The reading list includes Vladimir Makanin, Mikhail Kuraev, Viktor Pelevin, Viktor Erofeev, Vladimir Sorokin, Tatiana Tolstaia, Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Nina Sadur, Svetlana Vasilenko, Valeriia Narbikova, Nina Iskrenko, Evgenii Kharitonov, and others.
W4056. The Brothers Karamazov. 3pts. R. Belknap
Prerequisite: the ability to read sixty pages of Dostoevsky's Russian per week. A careful reading of the text in the original, with attention to historical, literary, religious, political, psychological, and other questions.
G4075. Survival and Renewal: Russian Poetry of the Soviet Period. 3 pts.
Examines how Russian poetry continued to evolve in the Soviet period even as the government attempted to control all means of literary expression and exploit the popularity of verse as vehicle for party propaganda. Russian Poets of 1930-90.
W4200. Russian Theater Hands On. 3 pts. M. Kashper
The study and staging in the original of a Russian play. Concentrates of exploration of character and style through language, phonetics, detailed textual analysis, and oral presentation.
W4331. Chteniia po russkoi literature: Turgenev. 3 pts. I. Reyfman.
Prerequisites: Three years of college Russian and the instructor's permission. Conducted in Russian.
W4332. Chteniia po russkoi literature: Gogol. I. Reyfman.
Prerequisites: Three years of college Russian and the instructor's permission. Conducted in Russian.
W4338. Chteniia po russkoi literature: Voina i mir. 3 pts. I. Reyfman.
The course is devoted to reading and discussing of Tolstoy's masterpiece. Classes are conducted entirely in Russian.
W4344. Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through History. 3 pts. F. Miller
Prerequisites: Three years of college Russian or the equivalent. A language course designed to meet the needs of those foreign learners of Russian as well as heritage speakers who want to develop further their reading, speaking, and writing skills and be introduced to the history of Russia.
W4345. Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through History. 3pts. F. Miller.
Three years college Russian or the equivalent. 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.
W4346. Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Russian Folklore and the Folkloric Tradition. 3 pts. F. Miller. Prerequisites: Three years of college Russian and the instructor's permission. Reading and discussion of the principal genres of traditional and contemporary Russian folklore and readings about Russian folk customs. Conducted in Russian.
W4347. Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Contemporary Social Sciences. 3pts. A. Smyslova.
Prerequisites: Five semesters of college level Russian or four semesters of college level Russian and participation in a study abroad program in a Russian speaking country and the instructor's permission. This course is designed to meet the needs of advanced undergraduate and graduate students across several fields -- the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, fine arts, business, law and others -- who wish to focus on acquisition of high-proficiency reading skills that will allow them to conduct research using written Russian-language academic sources.
W4348. Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through the Media. 3 pts. I. Kun.
Prerequisite: Three Years of college Russian or the equivalent. 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.
W4349. Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through Song. 3 pts. I. Kun.
This is a concept based course 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.
G4331-G4332. Language Pedagogy Workshop, I and II. 2 pts.
Designed to help graduate students teaching the Russian language understand theories and practices of foreign language teaching. Introduction to the teaching-learning process, specifics of teaching Russian as a less commonly taught language, hands on experience of planning class time, developing class activities, speaking and writing skills at the beginning level, grading, composing quizzes and tests.
G4431y. Reading Practicum. 3 pts.
A close reading of a major work of Russian literature with special attention paid to pronunciation, intonation and style.
W4432. Contrastive Phonetics and Grammar of Russian and English. 3 pts. F. Miller
Prerequisite: four years of college Russian and instructor’s permission. Comparative phonetic, intonational, and morphological structures of Russian and English, with special attention to typical problems for American speakers of Russian.
W4433. Specific Problems in Mastering and Teaching Russian. 3 pts. F. Miller
Prerequisite: four years of college Russian and instructor’s permission. The Russian verb (basic stem system, aspect, locomotion); prefixes; temporal, spatial, and causal relationships; word order; word formation.
W4434. Practical stylistics [in Russian]. 3 pts. Staff
Prerequisite: Four years of college Russian or the equivalent. Practice in the varieties of narrative and expository writing. Development of vocabulary and syntactic structures appropriate for abstract discourse.
W4676. Russian Art Between East and West. 3 pts. E. Valkenier
This course aims to be more than a basic survey that starts with icons and ends with the early modernists. Taking an inderdisciplinary approach, it aims to highlight how the various cultural transmissions interacted to produce, by the 1910s, an original national art that made an innovative contribution to the world of art. It discusses the development of art not only in terms of formal, aesthetic analysis, but also in the matrix of changing society, patronage system, economic life and quest for national identity. Several guest speakers will discuss East-West problematic in their related fields - for example in literature and ballet. Some familiarity with Russian history and literature will be helpful, but not essential. Assigned reading in English.
W4910. Literary Translation. 3 pts. R. Meyer
Prerequisite: four years of college Russian or the equivalent. Workshop in literary translation from Russian 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 translations of publishable quality. May count as a literature course for the M.A. or Ph.D. degree.
W4911y. Introduction to Simultaneous Interpretation: Russian-English. 3 pts. L. Visson
Prerequisites: Three years of college Russian or the equivalent. Enrollment limited. A hands-on introduction to the principles and techniques of simultaneous interpretation. Students will work in the language laboratory, primarily from Russian to English. Background reading on the history, practice, and techniques of simultaneous interpretation will supplement practical work from cassettes and CDs. Students must have a
portable cassette tape recorder.
G6000. Stalin culture. 3 pts. C. Nepomnyashchy
G6009. Gogol. 3 pts. Staff
A close study in the original of the major works.
G6021. Structure of Modern Standard Russian. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
A survey of Russian morphosyntax, with emphasis on modern approaches to the description of Russian grammar.
G6026. Nineteenth-Century Russian Opera: Musical and Literary Discourses. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Prerequisite: either a reading knowledge of Russian or the ability to read scores. Six Russian operas: Glinka’s Ruslan and Liudmila, Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh are examined as an interplay between trends in Western musical theater and Russian popular musical culture (romances, folk songs, liturgical music). Emphasis on music’s relation to its literary sources and contemporary ideological discourses.
G6032. Russian Modernism (aka Modernist Russian Prose). 3 pts. Staff
A knowledge of Russian is not required. The major writers and trends of Russian modernism, set in cultural context (alongside music, art, and politics), with an emphasis on prose fiction. Garshin, Kuprin, Andreev, Gorky, Bely, Pasternak, Bunin, Remizov, and others. (Ph.D. students in Russian literature should be prepared to read in the original.)
G6033. The Road(s) to Socialist Realism. 3 pts. R. Stanton
A knowledge of Russian is not required. The major writers, movements, and aesthetic debates in Russian prose from 1917-1934, set against the context of politics and culture at large. Special attention to the role of literature in reflecting and shaping social and political values. (Ph.D. students in Russian literature should be prepared to read in the original.)
G6039. Literature, Politics and Tradition after Stalin. 3 pts. C. Nepomnyashchy, R. Stanton
A knowledge of Russian is not required. 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. (Ph.D. students in Russian literature should be prepared to read in the original.)
G6040. Eighteenth Century Russian Literature. 3 pts. I. Reyfman.
A survey of eighteenth century Russian poetry, prose and drama in the original. The reading list includes Feofan Prokopovich, Vasily Trediakovsky, Mikhailo Lomonosov, Alexsandr Sumarokov, Alexsandr Radishchev, Gavrila Derzhavin, and Nikolai Karamzin.
G6041. Contemporary Russian Culture and Society. 3 pts. T. Smoliarova.
"Contemporary Russian Culture and Society" examines major topics in present day Russian culture (literary (prose and poetry); language; philology and literary criticism; theater; cinema; architecture; childhood and education). This graduate seminar will be conducted in Russian; texts in various genres will be read and discussed; also included will be projects, film screenings, and guest lectures.
G6042. In Search of a Vanished Civilization: Soviet Culture, 1940s - 1970s. 3 pts. B. Gasparov.
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.
G6104. Old Russian Literature. 3 pts. V. Izmirlieva
A survey of the principal genres of original and translated literature, with class readings and explication of assigned texts.
G6105x. Old Russian Literature II. 3 pts. V. Izmirlieva
Surveys major works of the Russian literary cannon, from the late Muscovite period through the seventeenth century. Emphasis on the rhetoric of empire and Muscovite imperial ideology, the emergence of literary subjectivity and the transformation of medieval genres. No knowledge of Old Church Slavonic is required, but good reading comprehension of Russian is a must.
G6107. Russian Literary Theory and Criticism, I. 3 pts. Staff
A chronological and generic approach to the major writers and movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
G6108. Russian Literary Theory and Criticism, II. 3 pts. Staff
A chronological and generic approach to the major writers and movements of the twentieth century.
G6109. Introduction to Russian Folk Literature. 3 pts. F. Miller
An introduction to the principal genres, with assigned and in-class readings.
G6110. Don Juan and Casanova In Russia. 3 pts.
Explores the Russian versions of the Don Juan and Casanova myths through a range of theatrical, lyrical, musical, and critical texts. Topics include: libertinism and decadence; desire, memory and memoirs; sexual/textual seduction; the Russian practice of 'the Don Juan list'; appropriation, inversion, and parody. Works by Casanova, Pushkin, A.K. Tolstoi, Bal'mont, Briusov, Blok, Gumilev, Akhmatova, Amfiteatrov, Zaitsev, Tsveateva, Nabokov, Kazakov, Korkiia.
G6118. The Russian Decameron: Early Russian Prose Fiction. 3 pts. I. Reyfman
A survey of Russian prose fiction in the original from its beginnings to the end of the eighteenth century. Emphasis on the emergence of a new hero/heroine: adventurous, upwardly mobile, and preoccupied with sex. The reading list includes anonymous seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century tales, prose works by Mikhail Chulkov, Nikolai Karamzin, Aleksandr Klushin, and Mikhail Sushkov, as well as eighteenth-century page-turners by Matvei Komarov, and Ivan Novikov.
G6119. Eighteenth-Century Russian Poetry. 3 pts. I. Reyfman
A survey of Russian poetry from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century.
G6120. Nineteenth-Century Russian Poetry. 3 pts. R. Gustafson
The major themes and modes of Russian poetry from preromanticism up to “pure art.” Selections from Batiushkov, Zhukovsky, Baratynsky, Yazykov, Lermontov, Tiutchev, Karolina Pavlova, Nekrasov, and Fet.
G6121. Russian Symbolist Poetry. 3 pts. R. Gustafson
A survey of the major poets, with readings and class discussion of representative lyrics and selected essays.
G6140. The Classic Russian Novel. 3 pts. L. Knapp
Selected novels of Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky will be read closely, with special attention to the development and flowering of the Russian novel, to the question of what a novel is (in the Russian context), and to the cultural work of these novels. Readings will also include seminal works of criticism, selected works on the theory of the novel, and additional novels from the Russian and European traditions that are relevant to the novels studied in the course. Students must be able to read the major texts in Russian.
G6150. Studies in Russian Culture [in Russian]. 3 pts. I. Reyfman
The questions of national identity; a consideration of the Slavophile-Westernizer debate from the early eighteenth century to the present.
G6160. Neglected Masterpieces. 3 pts. I. Reyfman
A study in the original of works that rarely receive attention in traditional courses of Russian literature. The list of readings includes works by Krylov, Vladimir Odoevsky, Kozma Prutkov, Leskov, and others.
G6161. Chekhov and the Short Story. 3 pts. C. Popkin
A detailed consideration, in the original, of Chekhov's corpus of short stories, with particular attention to how they work and how they work together. Of special concern will be the relationship of this physician/writer's work to late nineteenth-century scientific discourses and epistemological dilemmas.
G6162. Chekhov and the Drama. 3 pts. C. Popkin
A close reading, in the original, of Chekhov's plays, with particular attention to the interplay of formal innovation and thematic preoccupation.
G6190. Early Russian Drama. 3 pts. I. Reyfman
A survey of Russian drama in the original from its beginnings to the early nineteenth century. The reading list includes Simeon Polotsky, Aleksandr Sumarokov, Mikhail Kheraskov, Denis Fonvizin, Vasilii Kapnist, Aleksandr Griboedov, and Aleksandr Pushkin.
G6200. Tsvetaeva and Others. 3pts. L. Knapp
A close reading of the poetry and prose of Marina Tsvetaeva. We will focus on defining what is unique about Tsvetaeva's poetic voice. To this end, we will read not only Tsvetaeva's work but also relevant texts by the poets whose presence is most palpable in her work (Homer, Sappho, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Briusov, Akmatova, Mandel'shtam, Pasternak, and Rilke).
G6202. Pushkin. 3pts. R. Gustafson
The thematic and structural development of the major verse forms—narrative, dramatic, and lyric.
G6204. Reading Turgenev. 3 pts. C. Popkin
A close study, in the original, of a number of Turgenev's works, major and "minor," with an eye to the methodological problems inherent in characterizing an author's oeuvre. We will consider the ways he has been read and situated in the tradition in an effort to identify--or generate--productive modes of reading Turgenev.
G6213. Mandelshtam: The Poet and His Language. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Examination of various aspects of Mandelshtam’s oeuvre, with special attention to his development, from his early relations to post-symbolism to his gradual incorporation of the ideas and discourses of the post-revolutionary epoch.
G6214. Tolstoy. 3pts. R. Gustafson
The thematic and structural development of Tolstoy’s fiction and its relationship to his moral and aesthetic principles.
G6215. Tolstoy's War and Peace. 3 pts.
A close reading of Tolstoy's War and Peace in the original, along with related works of fiction, criticism, and philosophy. Our aim is to penetrate the stylistic, generic, philosophical, and human complexities of this novel.
G6216. Dostoevsky. 3 pts. R. Belknap
A knowledge of Russian is not required. The major works, their structure, implications, and background.
G6217. Pasternak. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
A comprehensive examination of various genres of Pasternak’s writings and their relations to the poet’s aesthetics, philosophical, and religious views.
G6219. Sinyavsky. 3pts. C. Nepomnyashchy
Prerequisite: a reading knowledge of Russian. Examination of the literary and theoretical works of Andrei Sinyavsky, with particular attention to those works the writer published under the pseudonym Abram Terts.
G6225. History of the Russian Literary Language. 3 pts. B. Gasparov
Prerequisite: Slavic Linguistics G4005, Introduction to Old Church Slavonic. A survey of styles and genres of the Russian written language at major epochs in their development from Kievan Rus through the early twentieth century.
G6431. Russian Women Novelists and the Rise of the Russian Novel. 3 pts.
A close reading of novels and novellas written by Russian women in the nineteenth-century, with attention to broader questions of the theory, form and poetics of the novel, of the politics of literary history, of the feminie imagination. Works by Gan, Pavlova, Tur, Khvoschinskaya, Vovchok, Kovalevskaya, and others, with some attention to the novels of their feminine counterparts in England and France and of their masculine counterparts in Russia.
G6330. Between 1812 and 1848: Russian Romanticism and Its European Contexts. B. Gasparov
A study of Russian Romanticism in the context of its Western European counterparts.
G6501. Acmeism. 3 pts. V. Izmirlieva
A survey of Acmeist aesthetics and a study in the original of major works of the Russian Acmeists: Innokentii Annenskii, Nikolai Gumilev, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelshtam, Mikhail Kuzmin, and Vladislav Khodasevich.
G6505. Post-Stalin Soviet and Russian Contemporary Culture. 3 pts. Staff
The interplay between literature within contemporary Soviet and post-Soviet Russian society as reflected in works of fiction and film of the period. The psychology of Stalinism, the search for personal integrity in the face of a corrupt modern society, materialism versus spirituality in the modern world, and other related topics.
G6512. Utopian Fiction In Russia and Europe. 3 pts.
The development of Utopian fiction in Russia and Europe. Plato, More, Dostoevsky, Zamyatin, Platonov, and Marx.
G6515. Russian Literature and Culture in the Silver Age. 3pts. Staff
G6601. Vladimir Solovyov: Poet and Philosopher. 3 pts. Staff
A study of the relationship between the major literary and philosophical texts, with reference to the relevant psychological, aesthetic and theological issues. Attention to the biographical and historical context and significance.
G8001. Proseminar In Literary Studies. 3 pts.
Required of all candidates for the M.A. degree in Russian, Czech, Ukraine, and Polish literature. Introduction to the theory and practice of literary criticism.
G8036-G8037. Directed Research in Old Russian Literature and Folklore. 3 pts. Staff
G8038-G8039. Directed Research in Russian Literature of the Nineteenth Century. 3 pts. Staff
G8040-G8041. Directed Research in Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century. 3 pts. Staff
G8042-G8043. Directed Research in the Modern Period. 3 pts. Staff
G8044-G8045. Directed Research in Russian Literature of the Eighteenth Century. 3 pts. Staff
G9000. Master’s Research Instruction. 3 pts. Staff
Prerequisite: Russian G8001. Required for all M.A. candidates in the Slavic Languages department. Instruction in the preparation of the master’s essay.
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Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian [BCRS]
W4015. Ideology, History, Identity: South Slavic Writers from Modernism to Postmodernism and Beyond. 3 pts. R. Gorup
Explores the issue of Yugoslav identity through the representative texts of major Serbian writers, such as Milos Crnjanski, Ivo Andric, Danilo Kis, Milorad Pavic, and Borislav Pekic.
W4040. Linguistic and Ethnic Conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia. 3 pts. R. Gorup
The course surveys the history of literacy in the area of the former Yugoslavia, the codification of Serbo-Croatian, and the problems of the implementation of the standard. Linguistic conflicts in the area foreshadowed ethnic conflicts and the dissolution of the country. The course material is presented within the context of sociolinguistics and sociology of language.
W4100. Central Europe and the Orient in the Works of Yugoslav Writers. 3 pts. R. Gorup
Explores the topic through the analysis of the works of Vladan Desnica, Miroslav Krleza, Ivo Andric, and Mesa Selimovic. Parallel reading lists are available in English and Serbian/Croatian.
G8001-G8002. Directed Research in Serbo-Croatian Literature, I and II. 3-4 pts. R. Gorup
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Slavic Cultures [SLCL]
W4001. Slavic Peoples, Their Languages and Cultures. 3 pts. Staff
A survey of Slavic peoples, their languages and cultures, followed by a concentration on the history, economic and social organization, culture and civilization of Kievan Rus and its interaction with the outside world.
W4120. Exploring East European Identities through Literature and Film. 3 pts. Staff
An advanced introduction to East European literature and culture through a discussion of the articulations of East European identity-shaping experiences in several major twentieth-century films and literary texts. Readings include Joseph Roth, Stanislaw Wyspiański, Bruno Schulz, and Danilo Kiš. Readings in English.
G8020-G8021. Directed Research in Slavic Cultures. 3 pts. Staff
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Slavic Literatures [SLLT]
W4001. Contemporary East European Literature 4 pts. Staff
Knowledge of language is not required. A seminar focusing on the changes in the literary situation in East European countries that have accompanied and followed the end of the Communist rule. The reading list includes works by representative authors from Poland, the Czech Republlic, Slovakia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.
W4003. Central European Drama. 3 pts. I. Sanders
The aim of this course is to focus on the (often deceptive) modernity of the modern Central European (i.e., Austrian, Swiss, Hungarian, Polish, Czech) theater. Rrepresentative turn-of-the century, early twentieth-century, as well as post-1945 plays will be examined.
G4027. Within Empires: Literatures of the South Slavs from Beginning to Realism. 3 pts. R. Gorup Readings and discussion of the most important literary texts from Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Macedonia from the beginning of South Slavic literacy to the 19th century. Topics include religion, literature, art, architechture, and music; empires and wars, issues of history and identity. Major figures include: Vuk Stefanović-Karadžić, Petar Petrović Njegoš, Ivan Mažuranić, Hristo Botev and others. The course is intended for both non-native speakers and native speakers of South Slavic Languages; no knowledge of South Slavic languages required.
G4028. In the Shadow of Empires: Literatures of the South Slavs from Realiam to Today. 3pts R. Gorup Readings and discussion of the most important literary works of South Slavic writers from the second half of the 19th century to the present. Major writers include: Ivan Cankar, Miroslav Krleza, Ivo Andric, Milos Crnjanski, Mesa Selimovic, Danilo Kis, Dubravaka Ugresic, David Albahari, and others. Knowledge of South Slavic languages not required.
W4030. Orthodoxy, Text, Ritual: The Slavic Middle Ages. 3 pts. V. Izmirlieva
A general introduction to the medieval literature of Slavia Orthodoxa, focusing on the relation between medieval text and ritual context. Close reading of selected works against a broad cultural background. Attention to ritual time and space and ritual performance, Eastern Orthodox monasticism and the cult of saints, manuscript vs. printed culture, orthodoxy vs. heteropraxis. Readings are in English (with a parallel reading list in the OCS for the most daring).
G9001. Doctoral Research Seminar. 3 pts. C. Nepomnyashchy
The seminar provides strategic training in how to conduct scholarship in the field, how to conceptualize and plan a dissertation, how to write and defend a dissertation brief, and how to launch research on a dissertation, as well as in related aspects of the profession (including preparing fellowship and grant proposals, publications and conference papers based on dissertation work in progress). Required of students in their fourth year of the doctoral program.
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Ukrainian [UKRN]
W4021. Introduction to Ukrainian Literature and Culture: Beginnings through the Nineteenth Century. 3 pts. Staff
This course examines the history of the shaping of a distinct Ukrainian literary and cultural tradition and introduces the major figures of the national canon. Some examples from other arts (opera, film, etc.) are also used during the course. Taught in English, but some familiarity with at least one Slavic language is required.
W4022. Introduction to Ukrainian Literature and Culture: The Twentieth Century. 3 pts. Staff
This course examines the turbulent history of Ukrainian literature and culture in the twentieth century, through the abortive renaissance of the 1920s, the short-lived thaw of the 1960s and some contemporary controversies. Some examples from other arts (film, theater, painting) are also used during the course. Taught in English, but some familiarity with at least one Slavic language is required.
G4030. The Missing Link: Cinema and the Emergence of Modern Ukraine. 3 pts.
This course discusses the influence of cinema on the formation of modern Ukrainian identity. An overview of Ukrainian cinema history will be followed by analyses of major Ukrainian Soviet and post-Soviet films and the tension between their Ukrainian and Soviet aspects. Special emphasis on the most recent Ukrainian cinema and its quest to liberate itself from the legacies of the Soviet empire.
W4037. The Aura of Soviet Ukrainian Modernism. 3 pts. M. Andryczyk.
This course studies the renaissance in Ukrainian culture of the 1920s - a period of revolution, experimentation, vibrant expression and polemics. Focusing on the most important developments in literature, as well as on the intellectual debates they inspired, the course will also examine the major achievements in Ukrainian theater, visual art and film as integral components of the cultural spirit that defined the era. Additionally, the course also looks at the subsequent implementation of socialist realism and its impact on Ukrainian culture and on the cultural leaders of the renaissance. The course treats one of the most important periods of Ukrainian culture and examines its lasting impact on taday's Ukraine. This period produced several world-renowned cultural figures, whose connections with 1920s Ukraine have only recently begun to be discussed. The course will be complemented by film screenings, presentations of visual art and rare publications from this period. Enitrely in English with a parallel reading list for those who read Ukrainian.
W4040. Twentieth-Century Ukrainian Prose. 3 pts. Staff
Prerequisite: a reading knowledge of Ukrainian or fluency in another Slavic language. Survey of the major works from the turn of the century through the 1990’s with a brief overview of nineteenth-century Ukrainian prose and its connection to later developments.
W4058. The Ukrainian Cultural Renaissance: 1917-1934. 3 pts. Staff
A course focusing on the literary and cultural politics in Ukraine during the period of relative liberalization and the national revival in 1917-1934. The reading list includes fiction, poetry, drama, films, manifestoes and theoretical and polemical writings by Mykola Khvyl’ovyi, Valerian Pidmohyl’nyi, Mykola Kulish, Mykhail’ Semenko, Pavlo Tychyna, Mykola Zerov, Maksym Ryl’s’kyi, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Les’ Kurbas and others.
W4060. Cultural Currents and Their Political Context in Twentieth-Century Ukraine. 3 pts. Staff
Prerequisite: a reading knowledge of Ukrainian or fluency in another Slavic language. A survey of the major cultural currents in twentieth-century Ukraine in the context of contemporary political developments, with emphasis on five separate fields: literature, film, theater, music, and art. All readings in English; a knowledge of Ukrainian not required.
W4070. Twentieth-Century Ukrainian Drama. 3 pts. Staff
Prerequisite: a reading knowledge of Ukrainian or fluency in another Slavic language. The main developments in Ukrainian drama from the turn of the century to the present. A discussion of the authors and their works within the context of the various styles active in Ukrainian literature and against the background of the stylistic movements and events in the literature of the West.
W4100. Literatures and Identities In Post-Soviet Ukraine. 3 pts.
The course seeks the connection between literary production and identity construction in present-day Ukraine. Major literary trends and the most representative texts since 1991 are studied, with emphasis on cultural hybridity, bilingualism, and decentralization. Readings include works by Yuri Andrukhovych, Yuri Vynnychuk, Oksana Zabuzhko, Solomea Pavlychko and others.
G8001-G8002. Directed Research in Ukrainian Literature, I and II. 3-4 pts. Staff
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Pedagogy [PEDG]
G4000. Practicum in Foreign Language Pedagogy. 3 pts. P. Aquilina
Registration is by permission of foreign language departments only. Designed to offer training in foreign language pedagogy to teaching assistants (TAs) in the foreign language departments.
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