Global Arc

This interdisciplinary course explores Russian culture through Russia's capital: Moscow. We will travel through this cityscape as historical, cultural, and mythological space - from the past to the present day - in literature, history, art, and film. We will investigate the sites of key landmarks through the lens of urban studies, including the Moscow metro and Red Square, in order to excavate the layers of cultural history which underlie contemporary Russian identity. We will contrast and synthesize the cultural landscape, questioning how understanding the Russian city might reveal certain constants in Russian culture across time and space.

This course is a study of the relationship between Western philosophy and Russian literature, specifically the many ways in which abstract philosophical ideas get `translated' into literary works. Russia does not have world famous philosophers. Yet, most Russian writers were avid readers of philosophy and are often considered philosophers in their own right. On what grounds can, for example, Dostoevsky, such a notorious opponent of "reason," be considered a philosopher? Or what happens when Tolstoy meticulously studies Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or falls in love with Schopenhauer? How are these engagements reflected in his fiction?

Introduction to major dramatic works of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov, Shvarts, and Vampilov. Readings, discussions, oral and written reports in Russian. Two 90-minute seminars. Prerequisite: RUS 207 or instructor's permission.

Born of debates between Westernizers and Slavophiles, Russia's astounding religious-philosophical flowering ran parallel to that in literature, and lived on in Europe and North America in the wake of the Revolution. These thinkers confronted modernity in ways that were both radically innovative, yet firmly grounded in the centuries-old traditions of Eastern Orthodox theology. Topics to be discussed include: personhood, freedom, and evil; iconography and artistic creativity; the transformative power of love; tensions between knowledge and faith; and ethics in a universe in which every person and event is "once-occurrent."

Censorship has been a nearly omnipresent force within Russia for centuries, from the birth of Russian literature to contemporary coverage of the war in Ukraine. This course will analyze the myriad ways in which books and television have been impacted by censorial policy, exploring the history of censorship and searching for its imprint within primary sources. Our core questions include how artists are overwhelmed by censorship; how artists work under censorship; how artists evade censorship; and how artists are influenced by censorship. We will examine movies, literature, podcasts, and academic texts.

Exploration of the theme of madness in the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Garshin. Discussion of various meanings of madness: as romantic inspiration or confinement; as a reaction to a personal loss or a rebellion against the social system; as a search for the meaning of life or a fight against the world's evil; as craziness or holy foolishness. Readings, discussions, oral presentations, and written papers in Russian. Special emphasis is placed on active use of language and expansion of vocabulary. This course is envisioned as both a language and literature course.

Exploration of the quest for moral values in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian cinema of the 1960s to the present. Topics include, among others, the effects of Stalinism; the struggle for freedom of individual conscience under totalitarianism; the artist's moral dilemmas in Soviet and post-Soviet society; materialism versus spirituality. Films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Nikita Mikhalkov, and others. One three-hour seminar. Knowledge of Russian not required.

This course focuses on major works of Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Nabokov) and their cinematic translations - first by important Russian film-makers who stay close to the text and then by leading foreign film-makers who recast the works in new cultural settings. Beyond what they teach us about literature & film, these juxtapositions lead us to confront issues crucial to a world that grows increasingly multicultural and increasingly dependent on visual modes of communication.

This course will focus on Russian Jewish visual and literary culture from the end of the 19th c. through the 20th. We will examine the ways in which it represented Jewish identity; reflected changing notions of selfhood and nationhood; and refracted anti-Semitic predispositions. Most of the course will unpack the impact of the Russian revolution and the transformatoin of a traditional, pious, and provincial Jewish ecosystem into an urban-dwelling, Russian-speaking secular society.

This class is a survey of Eastern European cinema from the 1960s until the present day. We will look at films and directors from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Russia, and former Yugoslavia. Despite the state control, the filmmakers of Communist Europe were often more bold, honest and provocative than their profit-driven Hollywood counterparts. By drawing on political and cultural discourses, the course will offer pointed analyses of most significant East European films that touch upon issues of ethnicity, gender, cultural identity, and overcoming censorship. Screened with English subtitles.