ELEM BOSNIAN/CROATIAN/SERBIAN
Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.
- W 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Aleksandar Boskovic
CULPA: 1 Info - 4 points
ELEMENTARY CZECH I
Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepare students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.
- TRF 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Christopher W Harwood
CULPA: 4
Info
- 4 points
ELEMENTARY POLISH I
Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.
- MWR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Madeleine Pulman-Jones
Info - 4 points
FIRST-YEAR RUSSIAN I
Grammar, reading, composition, and conversation.
- MTWR 8:50 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
- MTWR 10:10 a.m.-11:15 a.m.
- MTWR 6:10 p.m.-7:15 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Myles Garbarini
Info -
Instructor:
Marina Tsylina
Info -
Instructor:
Tatiana A Krasilnikova
Info - 5 points
ELEMENTARY UKRAINIAN I
Designed for students with little or no knowledge of Ukrainian. Basic grammar structures are introduced and reinforced, with equal emphasis on developing oral and written communication skills. Specific attention to acquisition of high-frequency vocabulary and its optimal use in real-life settings.
- MWR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Yuri Shevchuk
CULPA: 4 Info - 4 points
INTER BOSNIAN/CROATIAN/SERBIAN
Prerequisites: BCRS UN1102 or the equivalent. Readings in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian literature in the original, with emphasis depending upon the needs of individual students.
- TWF 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Aleksandar Boskovic
CULPA: 1 Info - 4 points
INTERMEDIATE CZECH I
Prerequisites: CZCH UN1102 or the equivalent Rapid review of grammar. Readings in contemporary fiction and nonfiction, depending upon the interests of individual students.
- TRF 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Christopher W Harwood
CULPA: 4
Info
- 4 points
INTERMEDIATE POLISH I
Prerequisites: POLI UN1102 or the equivalent. Rapid review of grammar; readings in contemporary nonfiction or fiction, depending on the interests of individual students.
- TRF 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Christopher Caes
Info - 4 points
SECOND-YEAR RUSSIAN I
Prerequisites: RUSS UN1102 or the equivalent. Drill practice in small groups. Reading, composition, and grammar review.Off-sequence
- MTWR 10:10 a.m.-11:15 a.m.
- MTWR 1:10 p.m.-2:15 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Marina Grineva
Info - 5 points
INTERMEDIATE UKRAINIAN I
Prerequisites: UKRN UN1102 or the equivalent. Reviews and reinforces the fundamentals of grammar and a core vocabulary from daily life. Principal emphasis is placed on further development of communicative skills (oral and written). Verbal aspect and verbs of motion receive special attention.
- R 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Yuri Shevchuk
CULPA: 4 Info - 4 points
SLAVIC CULTURES
The history of Slavic peoples - Russians, Czechs, Poles, Serbs, Croats, Ukrainians, Bulgarians - is rife with transformations, some voluntary, some imposed. Against the background of a schematic external history, this course examines how Slavic peoples have responded to and have represented these transformations in various modes: historical writing, hagiography, polemics, drama and fiction, folk poetry, music, visual art, and film. Activity ranges over lecture (for historical background) and discussion (of primary sources).
- TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
- 3 points
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS
An introduction to the study of language from a scientific perspective. The course is divided into three units: language as a system (sounds, morphology, syntax, and semantics), language in context (in space, time, and community), and language of the individual (psycholinguistics, errors, aphasia, neurology of language, and acquisition). Workload: lecture, weekly homework, and final examination.
- MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
William Foley
h-index: 0 Info - 3 points
THIRD-YEAR RUSSIAN I
Prerequisites: RUSS UN2102 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Recommended for students who wish to improve their active command of Russian. Emphasis on conversation and composition. Reading and discussion of selected texts and videotapes. Lectures. Papers and oral reports required. Conducted entirely in Russian.
- MWF 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Tatiana Mikhailova
Info - 4 points
Endangered Languages in the Global City:
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
Of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages – representing migrations and historical
developments thousands of years old – the majority are primarily oral, little documented,
and increasingly endangered under the onslaught of global languages like English. This
course will take the unprecedented, paradoxical linguistic capital of New York City as a
lens for examining how immigrants form communities in a new land, how those
communities are integrated into the wider society, and how they grapple with linguistic and
cultural change. Drawing on sociolinguistics, anthropology, and history, the course will
focus on texts from and encounters with members of three of the city’s fastest-growing but
least-studied communities (Indigenous Americans, Himalayans, Central Asians) before
closing with a series of classes exploring broader questions around mapping, education,
policy, the role of linguists, revitalization and the future of language and mobility.
- TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Ross Perlin
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
Language, Brain and Mind
The ability to speak distinguishes humans from all other animals, including our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Why is this so? What makes this possible? This course seeks to answer these questions. We will look at the neurological and psychological foundations of the human faculty of language. How did our brains change to allow language to evolve? Where in our brains are the components of language found? Are our minds specialized for learning language or is it part of our general cognitive abilities to learn? How are words and sentences produced and their meanings recognized? The structure of languages around the world varies greatly; does this have psychological effects for their speakers?
- MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
William Foley
h-index: 0 Info - 3 points
Voices of (Dis)agreement: Russian Cultur
This content-based course is designed for heritage learners of Russian who have an intermediate level of reading and writing proficiency. In continuation of UN3430-3431
Russian for Heritage Speakers--
that was identified by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in its report
Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century
as a pedagogical model that can be adopted elsewhere in the US and applied to the teaching of other heritage languages—this course is designed to develop heritage learners’ language skills beyond interpersonal mode of communication and to advance their interpretive (reading, listening, viewing) and presentational (speaking) modes of communication through engagement with a range of authentic cultural content, from contemporary short stories to today’s media, documentary films and pop-culture, enabling students to explore diverse tapestry of today’s Russian cultural works and to cultivate their critical thinking and analytical skills. This course targets significant improvement of student speaking skills and substantial enrichment of active and passive vocabularies as well as strengthening their understanding of the language system.
This course is taught in Russian. All readings, documentary films, discussions, and assignments are in Russian.
- M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Alla Smyslova
CULPA: 20
Info
- 2 points
Tricksters in World Culture: Mockery, Su
Trickster in World Cultur
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester. This course is a co-requisite of RUSS UN3232.
- M 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Mark Lipovetsky
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
Tricksters in World Culture: Mockery, Su
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester.
- W 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
- 0 points
Tricksters in World Culture: Mockery, Su
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester.
- W 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
- 0 points
Tricksters in World Culture: Mockery, Su
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester.
- W 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
- 0 points
VVEDENIE V RUSSKUIU LITERATURU
POOR LIZA POOR OLGA POOR ME
Prerequisites: two years of college Russian or the instructor's permission. The course is devoted to the reading, analysis, and discussion of a number of Russian prose fiction works from the eighteenth to twentieth century. Its purpose is to give students an opportunity to apply their language skills to literature. It will teach students to read Russian literary texts as well as to talk and write about them. Its goal is, thus, twofold: to improve the students’ linguistic skills and to introduce them to Russian literature and literary history. In 2007-2008: A close study in the original of the “fallen woman” plot in Russian literature from the late eighteenth century. Conducted in Russian.
- MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Irina Reyfman
CULPA: 5
Info
- 3 points
RUSSIAN FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS
Prerequisites: RUSS V3430 or the instructor's permission. This course is designed to help students who speak Russian at home, but have no or limited reading and writing skills to develop literary skills in Russian. THIS COURSE, TAKEN WITH RUSS V3431, MEET A TWO YEAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. Conducted in Russian.
- MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Alla Smyslova
CULPA: 20
Info
- 3 points
Advanced Ukrainian Through Literature, M
ADV UKRN THRU MED LIT POL
This course is organized around a number of thematic centers or modules. Each is focused on stylistic peculiarities typical of a given functional style of the Ukrainian language. Each is designed to assist the student in acquiring an active command of lexical, grammatical, discourse, and stylistic traits that distinguish one style from the others and actively using them in real-life communicative settings in contemporary Ukraine. The styles include literary fiction, scholarly prose, and journalism, both printed and broadcast.
- MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Yuri Shevchuk
CULPA: 4 Info - 3 points
Experimental Cultures
This seminar course will provide a punctual survey of trends and figures in the experimental cultures of East Central Europe. Formations include the avant-gardes (first, postwar, and postcommunist); experimental Modernisms and Postmodernisms; alternative film, media, and visual culture; and formally inventive responses to exceptional historical circumstances. Proceeding roughly chronologically from early twentieth to early twenty-first centuries, we will examine expressionist/surrealistic painting and drama; zenithist hybrid genres such as cinépoetry and proto-conceptualist writing; mixed-media relief sculpture; post-conceptual art; experimental and animated film; and avant-garde classical music. In terms of theory, we will draw on regional and global approaches to artistic experimentation ranging from Marxist and other theories of value through discourses of the body and sexuality in culture to contemporary affect theory. The course will be taught in English with material drawn primarily from Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Each session will include a lecture followed by discussion.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- 3 points
Holocaust Literature: Critical Thinking
Holocaust Lit: Critical T
How do you write literature in the midst of catastrophe? To whom do you write if you don’t know whether your readership will survive? Or that you yourself will survive? How do you theorize society when the social fabric is tearing apart? How do you develop a concept of human rights at a time when mass extermination is deemed legal? How do you write Jewish history when Jewish future seems uncertain?
This course offers a survey of the literature and intellectual history written during World War II (1939-1945) both in Nazi occupied Europe and in the free world, written primarily, but not exclusively, by Jews. We will read novels, poems, science fiction, historical fiction, legal theory and social theory and explore how intellectuals around the world responded to the extermination of European Jewry as it happened and how they changed their understanding of what it means to be a public intellectual, what it means to be Jewish, and what it means to be human.
The aim of the course is threefold. First, it offers a survey of the Jewish experience during WWII, in France, Russia, Poland, Latvia, Romania, Greece, Palestine, Morocco, Iraq, the USSR, Argentina, and the United States. Second, it introduces some of the major contemporary debates in holocaust studies. Finally, it provides a space for a methodological reflection on how literary analysis, cultural studies, and historical research intersect.
- W 10:10 a.m.-noon
-
Instructor:
Offer Dynes
Info - 3 points
Bible, Literature, Theory
This class aims to introduce the students to the field of Bible and Literature, with special attention to the Hebrew Bible and to Literary Theory. We will read portions of
Genesis, Numbers, Jonah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Esther, Mark,
and
Revelations
, and discuss it in tandem with literary theory as well as 20th Century literary texts. Literary theory, this class will argue, is central for our understanding of the Bible, and, at the same time, the Biblical text is essential for the manner in which we theorize literature. Our discussion will be guided by four loosely interconnected questions: What insights can we gain about the theology of the Biblical text from a literary analysis? What happens to theological ideas once they are dramatized and narrativized? In what way can modern literary adaptations of the Bible contribute to our understanding of the Biblical text? How does the Bible challenge and trouble some of the perceived ideas of literary theory?
The syllabus is divided into three units. The first unit —
Bible and Literature in Theory,
offers a survey of some of the scholarly approaches to the intersection of literature and theology. We will read theory that interrogates the intersection of theological and literary concepts, focusing on omniscience, authorship, temporality, characterization, and plot. The second unit —
Literature as Biblical Exegesis,
shifts the focus to a reading of Biblical texts in tandem with their modern literary and cinematic interpretations, focusing on
Job
and
Esther
. What, we will ask, happen to the Biblical world once it is being refracted through a modern sensibility? How can we take literature seriously as Biblical hermeneutics? The third unit —
Recent Directions,
introduces some of the recent directions in the field, focusing on how literature imagines the relationship between Bible, archeology, and modernity, as well as on the intersection of Biblical literature, fantasy, and science fiction.
- M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Offer Dynes
Info - 3 points
Poets, Rebels, Exiles: 100 Years of Russ
POETS, REBELS, EXILES
Poets, Rebels, Exiles examines the successive generations of the most provocative and influential Russian and Russian Jewish writers and artists who brought the cataclysm of the Soviet and post-Soviet century to North America. From Joseph Brodsky—the bad boy bard of Soviet Russia and a protégé of Anna Akhmatova, who served 18 months of hard labor near the North Pole for social parasitism before being exiled—to the most recent artistic descendants, this course will interrogate diaspora, memory, and nostalgia in the cultural production of immigrants and exiles.
- R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Anna Katsnelson
Info - 3 points
POST COLONIAL/POST SOV CINEMA
The course will discuss how filmmaking has been used as an instrument of power and imperial domination in the Soviet Union as well as on post-Soviet space since 1991. A body of selected films by Soviet and post-Soviet directors which exemplify the function of filmmaking as a tool of appropriation of the colonized, their cultural and political subordination by the Soviet center will be examined in terms of postcolonial theories. The course will focus both on Russian cinema and often overlooked work of Ukrainian, Georgian, Belarusian, Armenian, etc. national film schools and how they participated in the communist project of fostering a «new historic community of the Soviet people» as well as resisted it by generating, in hidden and, since 1991, overt and increasingly assertive ways their own counter-narratives. Close attention will be paid to the new Russian film as it re-invents itself within the post-Soviet imperial momentum projected on the former Soviet colonies.
- T 6:10 p.m.-10 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Yuri Shevchuk
CULPA: 4 Info - 3 points
ADVANCED POLISH
Prerequisites: two years of college Polish or the instructor's permission. Extensive readings from 19th- and 20th-century texts in the original. Both fiction and nonfiction, with emphasis depending on the interests and needs of individual students.
- TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Christopher Caes
Info - 3 points
Music in Time and Time in Music
Music in Time & Time in M
If you have a passion for music, like listening to music, or simply want to explore the realm of Russian melodies, this course is made for you. In the class, we'll focus on the development and strengthening of “four language skills”: speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Russian. You will learn to analyze and interpret lyrics, compare and contrast music across generations, discuss the values of a certain generation of people, and argue the popularity of music genres in specific time periods. Beyond linguistic proficiency, the course will immerse you in a comprehensive exploration of common knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, cultural traditions, and behavioral patterns unique to the people of Russia.
- TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Marina Tsylina
Info - 3 points
Cold War Reason: Cybernetics and the Sys
The Cold War epoch saw broad transformations in science, technology, and politics. At their nexus a new knowledge was proclaimed, cybernetics, a putative universal science of communication and control. It has disappeared so completely that most have forgotten that it ever existed. Its failure seems complete and final. Yet in another sense, cybernetics was so powerful and successful that the concepts, habits, and institutions born with it have become intrinsic parts of our world and how we make sense of it. Key cybernetic concepts of information, system, and feedback are now fundamental to our basic ways of understanding the mind, brain and computer, of grasping the economy and ecology, and finally of imagining the nature of human life itself. This course will trace the echoes of the cybernetic explosion from the wake of World War II to the onset of Silicon Valley euphoria.
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Adam Leeds
h-index: 2 Info - 3 points
READINGS IN CZECH LITERATURE I
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.
- MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Christopher W Harwood
CULPA: 4
Info
- 3 points
FOURTH-YEAR RUSSIAN I
Prerequisites: RUSS UN3101 and RUSS UN3102 Third-Year Russian I and II, or placement test. Systematic study of problems in Russian syntax; written exercises, translations into Russian, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.
- MWF 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Tatiana Mikhailova
Info - 4 points
PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY
Prerequisites: LING UN3101 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).
- TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Meredith Landman
CULPA: 1 h-index: 5 Info - 3 points
SYNTAX
Prerequisites: LING UN3101 Syntax - the combination of words - has been at the center of the Chomskyan revolution in Linguistics. This is a technical course which examines modern formal theories of syntax, focusing on later versions of generative syntax (Government and Binding) with secondary attention to alternative models (HPSG, Categorial Grammar).
- TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Meredith Landman
CULPA: 1 h-index: 5 Info - 3 points
Postmodernism vs. Tyranny: A Romanian Li
The course will examine the legendary Generation of the 1980s (the Blue Jeans generation) in Romanian literature, and its relationship with the Beat generation in American poetry on one hand, and with American Postmodernism in fiction, on the other.
The course will begin with a focus on Romanian literature of the 1980s and the suffocating atmosphere in which young writers were forced to live, their day-to-day struggles with the dictatorship and censorship, as well as their strong determination to preserve their inner freedom and the essential independence of the literary text. The discovery of the Beat poets, for example, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder etc., was a game-changer for Romanian poetry, introducing a fresh breath of air and a new poetic attitude. Like the Beat poets in San Francisco, who fought against the conservative establishment during the Vietnam War, the poets of the 1980s generation used the power of language against the Communist dictatorship, creating a poetry that was a mixture of European surrealism and the avantgarde, and the spirit of the U.S. Beat poets. The course will examine the work of the foremost Romanian poets of the period, including Traian T. Coșovei, Mariana Marin, Magda Cârneci, Florin Iaru, and Ion Stratan.
In the same historical period, the prose writers of the 1980s became interested in the philosophy of language, writing sophisticated texts under the influence of the literature of the Left Bank, the Nouveau Roman, the Oulipo group, etc. The new Postmodern American writers were also a huge influence on their works. John Barthes, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, and Thomas Pynchon, among others, were key figures for Romanian writers of that period. We will first examine the Postmodern philosophical ideas as expressed by Gianni Vattimo, Guy Scarpetta, Jean Francois Lyotard, Francis Fukuyama etc., then move on to the literary concepts that define postmodernity, as discussed in the work of theorists like Ihab Hassan, Matei Calinescu, Gerald Graff, Douwe Fokkema etc. Finally, the course will consider the short stories and novels by Mircea Nedelciu, Gheorghe Craciun, Ioana Parvulescu, Cristian Teodorescu, Gheorghe Iova, etc.
The course will be conducted in English. All required readings will be posted on Courseworks.
- R 10:10 a.m.-noon
-
Instructor:
Mircea Cartarescu
Info - 1 points
Women and Resistance: Ukraine, Belarus,
A graduate seminar which invites students to re-read contemporary history of Eastern Europe through the lens of women’s resistance. Women are no less effective history agents than men, but they usually act outside of dominant power structures, opposing and subverting them through imaginative strategies of resistance in the everyday. Focused on the Soviet Union and the contemporary states of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, this course explores female resistance channeled through visual and performance art, fiction and documentary, poetry and film. Structured in reverse chronological order, it begins with current manifestations of women’s resistance, from artistic interventions in the War in Ukraine to Pussy Riot’s punk performances and the political activism of the Belarus Free Theater. It then investigates the genealogy of these contemporary forms of resistance in underground feminist and dissident activism during the late Soviet period, a whole range of resistance articulations through the female experiences of WW2, the GULAG and Stalinist purges, and female agency in subverting gender norms since the Bolshevik sexual Revolution of the 1920s.
All reading will be available in English
.
Open to graduate students. Advanced undergraduates can register with instructor’s permission. No Russian, Ukrainian or Belarusian required.
- W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Valentina Izmirlieva
CULPA: 14 Info - 4 points
The Art of the Russian Poem: 20th - 21st
The goal of this seminar is twofold: 1) To introduce students to the variety of styles, tropes and forms of Russian lyrical poetry in the 20th -21st cc.; 2) To develop and practice analytical skills. The material will include poems by both famous and lesser known poets, with an accent on the latter. For each class students will be required to familiarize themselves with readings either justifying an analytical approach or providing a sample for the analysis, and to be prepared to analyze 4-5 original texts. Each seminar will provide examples of a given subgenre of Russian lyrics, spreading from the early 20th c. to the present-day poetry (some units are spread for two or three classes, e.g. – 2 and 3, 10-12). Intentionally, texts for the analysis represent different trends and groups, spreading from Neo-Classical modernism to contemporary performative poetry. Having practiced the analysis of poetic texts during entire semester, for their final project, students will have to produce a comprehensive analysis of a lyrical poem (optionally, a poetic cycle) of their choosing placing it in the context of Russian poetic traditions.
- W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
- 4 points
PROSEMINAR IN LITERARY STUDIES
The theory and practice of literary criticism. Required of all candidates for the M.A. degree in Russian, Czech, Ukrainian, South Slavic, and Polish Literature.
- M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Jessica E Merrill
CULPA: 2 Info - 4 points
DIR RSCH 20TH-C RUSSIAN LIT I
Prerequisites: the department's permission.
-
Instructor:
Mark Lipovetsky
Wikipedia Info - 2-4 points