Global Arc

An examination of Nabokov's major accomplishments as a Russian/American novelist in the context of the Russian literary tradition and the cultural climate of emigration. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An introduction to major Russian poets from Pushkin to the present. No prior knowledge of Russian literature is assumed. The focus of the course will be on close readings of individual poems, but the intention is, by generalization, to reach an understanding of the development of Russian literature as a whole. Readings in Russian, with discussion in English, and an optional hour for discussion in Russian. Prerequisites: RUS 207 (may be taken concurrently) or permission of instructor. Two 90-minute seminars.

Inspired by utopian ideas of equality and universal brotherhood, communism was conceived as an alternative to capitalism's crises. This attempt to build a new world was costly and brutal: equality was quickly transformed into uniformity; brotherhood morphed into the Big Brother. The course provides an in-depth review of these oscillations between utopian motivations and oppressive practices. It will present central players of Soviet Utopia: from Lenin to Malevich; from Stalin to Eisenstein. Major political texts, key cultural documents and films of the period help us trace the emergence and disappearance of commumist modernity.

On the basis of life and work of several prominent Jewish figures, the course will address history, art and politics of 20th century East-Central Europe. The reading list will include, chronologically, Franz Kafka, Rosa Luxemburg, Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Michael Sebastian, Paul Celan, Marek Edelman, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Ilya Ehrenburg, Joseph Brodsky and American intellectual Susan Sontag. The classes will combine the texts of the authors themselves and about them. Hannah Arendt's texts will be running throught the first half of the semester.

Taking as its foundation modern Church Slavonic, whose grammar and orthography will be studied in detail, this course will look back to the development of Old Church Slavonic as the first Slavic literary language, and, further, to Proto-Slavic. As we describe the development of Church Slavonic, we will also consider the historical development of the various Slavic languages, with special emphasis on Russian, and the influence of Church Slavonic forms on literary Russian. We will also touch on such aspects of Eastern Orthodox culture as liturgy, iconography, and music.

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.