Russian

Closed to students with any knowledge of Russian. Sound system of Russian and elementary structures. Emphasis on the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Continuation of RUSS 1013. 

Significant aspects of Russian culture from the 10th to the end of the 19th century. Topics include Russian Icon Painting and Architecture, Russian culture between Europe and Asia; Ivan the Terrible as cultural type; women in Russian culture; serfdom and slavery; Russia's contribution to the development of terrorism and revolution; the reforms of Peter the Great; Russian Orthodoxy, etc. Conducted in English. Open to students of all years.

Significant aspects of Russian and Soviet culture in the 20th century. Topics include Russian avant garde painting; the Bolshevik Revolution and apocalyptism; class and corruption; Socialist Realism; Stalin and Stalinism; women's roles under the Soviets; Eisenstein and Soviet cinema; the artificial famine and the Gulag; literature and censorship; Soviet sport and society; Glasnost and culture; etc. Conducted in English. Open to students of all years. No prerequisites.

More complex grammatical structures and more advanced texts.

Continuation of RUSS 2013. 

Through the study of advanced grammar, oral discussion of contemporary topics and written assignments, the students' competence in Russian is improved and their skills in idiomatic and written usage are developed.

Continuation of RUSS 3013.

Includes the Golden Age of Russian Literature (Pushkin, Lermontov); the great realists (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev); and the emergence of Russian Drama (Chekhov). Themes followed include the superfluous man; nihilism and politics in literature; the Russian female protagonist from Karamzin's Poor Liza to Dostoevsky's prostitute Sonya; etc. Conducted in English. Open to students who have completed at least 30 ch of university courses or by permission of instructor.

Includes Futurism, Symbolism, Acmeism and Russia's Silver Age; literature and Revolution; housing and homelessness in Soviet literature; women's writing; Socialist realism (boy meets girl, boy gets tractor); censorship and oppression; experimental prose of the ‘20s; aspects of Soviet cinema; Russia's ‘New Wave' meets America's Beatniks; Bulgakov's magical fable; etc. Conducted in English. Open to students who have completed at least 30 ch of university courses or by permission of instructor.

The development of a particular genre in Russian literature and an examination of various works in that area.

Allows students to pursue special questions in an area of Russian and Eurasian Studies of particular interest to them.

Studies religious works of Spanish and Russian writers such as Unamuno and Tolstoy. Examines their religious thought and their criticism of the established Spanish Roman Catholic Church and Russian Orthodox Church respectively. Outlines the situation of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia as well as the situation of the Catholic Church in Spain in the 19th and the 20th Centuries. Analyzes the position of these writers towards their respective Churches and the creation of their own moral codes through the texual analysis of some of their most relevant works. The course will be offered in English and is open to students who have successfully completed at least 30 credit hours at university level. Students who take this course to fulfill a Major or Honours requirement in Spanish will submit a required work in Spanish.

An intensive study of the life and work of a particular author or a number of authors. 

Despite their enormous contributions at many historical points, women writers still struggle for full acceptance in the Russian literary canon, witness special sections even today in most Russian bookstores for “Feminine Literature”. This course will examine the work of a range of better and lesser known Russian women writers from the late 18th to the early 21st centuries, in poetry, prose, drama and memoir. Writers to be studied include Catherine the Great, the “Russian Amazon”, Nadezhda Durova a cross-dressing cavalry maiden during the Napoleonic campaign, the giants of the Silver Age Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva, ostensible socialist-realists like Vera Panova, Natalia Baranskaia and I. Grekova, dissident figures such as Evgeniia Ginzburg and Natalia Gorbanevskaia, and older and younger contemporary writers such as Ludmila Petrushevskaia, Tatiana Tolstaia, and Marina Palei. Works and authors will be studied in historical and cultural context, and connections to other arts, in particular visual arts, film and popular music will also be explored. The course and all readings are in English. Open to students who have completed at least 30 ch of university courses or by permission of the instructor. Students with credit for RSST 4003 Russian Women Writers may not take this course for credit.