Global Arc

An introduction to the cinematic tradition of Russia and the Soviet Union. This course will offer close, contextualized, and comparative analysis of major Russian films from the 1920s to the present. We will examine the films in terms of their formal structures and their reception, and in light of the epochal social, political and cultural changes that took place over Russia's last, turbulent century. Filmmakers to be studied include Eisenstein, Vertov, Tarkovsky, Sokurov, Zvyagintsev, and others. No prior knowledge of Russian culture or language is required.

In this course, we will discuss ghost stories written by prominent Russian writers. We will also discuss various representations of the supernatural phenomena in Western and Russian spirit photography, music, and film. We will consider the concept of the apparition as a cultural myth which tells us about the "hidden side" of the Russian historical imagination and about political and ideological conflicts which have haunted Russian society from the 18th c. to our days. The class is designed as a series of *intellectual seances* focused on a certain work considered within a broad historical context. All readings will be in English translation.

This course will investigate the complex inter-relationships between politics, ideology, and aesthetics, and consider whether it is only governments and the policies they make that have the power to coerce artistic production, or whether artists can shape politics and ideology as well. In short: What does it mean for art to be political? The primary historical focus will be on Russian art before, during, and after the Bolshevik revolution, but comparative geo-historical cases will also be considered.

This course explores symbolic mechanisms and daily practices through which post-Soviet identities are constructed in contemporary Russia. We will look closely at such key concepts and institutions as ideology, space, crime, generation, and gender. What are the cultural contexts in which new identities emerge in today's Russia? What are the social, economic and cultural practices that influence this identity-construction process? To what extent does the Soviet cultural legacy still define the post-Soviet identity? Through fiction, film, and academic studies of post-Soviet life, we will analyze how Russia is being transformed.

In this course we will discuss Soviet film in the context of Soviet society. Film was at the center of Soviet culture, the intersection of its ideals with its historical and social realities, its human catastrophes with its inhuman utopias. Despite the pressures put on film makers, the Soviet film industry managed to produce one of the great cinematic traditions of the twentieth century. The course will highlight these achievements, situating them in broader discussions about art, politics, and society.

This is an introductory course, conducted entirely in English, on the classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature. No previous knowledge of Russian language, literature, culture, or history is expected. The focus of the course is on close readings of individual works. At the same time, we will pay close attention to the way a distinctively Russian national tradition takes shape, in which writers consciously respond to their predecessors. All of these works have a firm position in the Russian cultural memory, and they have significantly contributed to Russian national identity.

A survey in English of Russian literature from mid-19th century to Soviet literature. Authors read include, among others, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, and Bely. Two lectures, one preceptorial. Knowledge of Russian not required.

A survey in English of Soviet literature from 1917 to 1965 against the background of major social and political developments. Readings include works by Zamyatin, Babel, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, and other representative authors. Two lectures and preceptorial. Knowledge of Russian not required.

Polish-born Czeslaw Milosz and Russian-born poet Joseph Brodsky both won Nobel Prizes in literature for the United States. In this course, which combines history of literature and intellectual history, we will treat their life stories as emblematic of historical, cultural and political phenomena of the second part of the XXth century. On the basis of close textual analysis of major works by both poets, we will speak, among other, about literary history, World War II, Polish-Russian relations, dominance of English-language poetry, growth of high culture in the United States, the decline of exile.

In this course we will examine the Russian roots of Hollywood film acting by studying Chekhov's major plays and the dramatic traditions, both in Russia and in the U.S., that grew out of Stanislavsky's stagings of those plays.