Global Arc

Horror has clawed its way into critical recognition, but continues to challenge our understandings of genre, technique, and the purpose of art. Diverse and often entwined with the sibling genres of science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, and magical realism, this paradoxical art form presents us with conundrums. In this course, we will examine the horror genre through works of literature and film, with a focus on Russian-language works in dialogue with key works of the English-language tradition.

The seminar is designed for the actors (12-16 undergraduates) in an adaptation of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" which will be mounted in February 2012. Time will be divided among Pushkin's novel-in-verse, the Stalinist stage, the Pushkin Jubilee, Russian folklore, dream psychology, and the duel of honor. The definitive playscript will emerge throughout the semester.

Polish-American poet Czeslaw Milosz won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1980. This year, the centenary of his birth is commemorated all around the world. In this seminar, which combines textual analyses, history of literature and intellectual history, we will speak on the basis of his major works (and some of his contemporaries - Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott), about World War II, Polish-Russian relations, global dominance of English-language poetry, growth of high culture in the United States, and the decline of exile.

The course will match some of the best known Polish literary texts with their best screen adaptations. We will have elements of history of literature, textual analysis and theory of genres, history of film production, and theories of adaptation. The main body of the course will be devoted to the film adaptations by Andrzej Wajda. The first part of the course will deal with the classics of Polish literature and their film adaptations. The second part will look at more recent literature and analyze political uses of film adaptations. All readings and movies will be in English.

This Junior Seminar is designed to prepare students to undertake independent research in the Slavic field. We will workshop both methodological approaches and develop the core research skills necessary to complete the English-language research paper. We will identify successful research questions and workshop works-in-progress. Additionally, this seminar will introduce students to the expectations for citations in English for Russian-language sources.

The course will examine the emergence of rock music in the period leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its enduring cultural and political significance in post-Soviet Russia (including recent protest movements) while developing students' appreciation of colloquial Russian. We will encounter a number of fascinating people and artists, charting their musical development, their forays into other genres (particularly film), and their political impact. Assignments will be listening to the music while studying the original Russian lyrics (with glosses and translations).

Topics include: Russian literature and the city; Russian literature and the intellectual; the search for moral value in post-Communist literature; satire; Russian literature and music; 20th-century Russian poetry, Russian emigre literature.

Topics include: Russian literature and the city; Russian literature and the intellectual; the search for moral value in post-Communist literature; satire; Russian literature and music; 20th-century Russian poetry, Russian emigré literature.

An introduction to Pushkin's works with attention to a number of genres (lyric, long poem, drama, short story). Readings in Russian with discussions in Russian or English, depending on students' preference. Two 90-minute classes. Prerequisite: RUS 207 or instructor's permission.

The course is primarily about War and Peace, framed by some earlier and later fiction and by Tolstoy's essays on art and religion. Tolstoy's radical ideas on narrative have a counterpart in his radical ideas on history, causation, and the formation of a moral self. Together, these concepts offer an alternative to "The Russian Idea," associated with Dostoevsky and marked by mysticism, apocalypse, and the crisis moment. To refute this idea, Tolstoy redefined the tasks of novelistic prose. Seminar.