99122

RUS 101   Beginning Russian

Marina Kostalevsky

M T W Th .

3:00 -4:00 pm

OLINLC 210

FLLC

A course for students with little or no previous knowledge of Russian that introduces the fundamentals of the spoken and written language as well as Russian culture. We will emphasize conversation, reading, and written proficiency and encourage creative expression in autobiographical and fictional compositions. Audio-visual materials will be an integral part of the learning process. In addition to regular class meetings, students are required to attend a one-hour-per-week tutorial. Beginning Russian will be followed by an intensive 8-credit course in the spring semester and a 4-credit summer language and culture program in St. Petersburg, Russia.   

 

99119

RUS 206   Continuing Russian

Tamara Mikhailova

M . W . F

10:30 - 11:50 am

OLINLC 118

FLLC

This course is designed to continue refining and engaging students' practice of speaking, reading, and writing Russian. Students will expand their vocabulary and range of stylistic nuance by writing regular response papers and presenting oral reports. Increasing oral proficiency is a primary aim of this course, as well as developing reading and viewing strategies appropriate to the widest variety of written texts and Russian television and film. We will focus on the syntax of the complex Russian sentence and on grammatical nuances. The class will be conducted in Russian.  

 

99123

RUS 409   Russian Poetry

Marina Kostalevsky

. . W . .

9:30 - 11:50 am

OLINLC 210

FLLC

This course offers a historical study of Russian versification, the technical aspects of poetry, structural analysis of poetic texts, and translation of selected poems. Poets studied include Pushkin, Lermontov, Baratynsky, Tyutchev, Fet, Blok, Akhmatova, Mandelstam,  Tsvetaeva, Tarkovsky, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Brodsky, and Rein. Conducted in Russian.

 

99048

ECON 214   Economic Transition

From Socialism To A Market-Based System

Tamar Khitarishvili

M . W . .

3:00 -4:20 pm

ALBEE 106

HIST

Cross-listed: Russian and Eurasian Studies, GIS   The course investigates the challenges that former socialist-block countries experienced since the early 1990s in their attempt to turn their economies into well-functioning market-based systems. We will study a range of topics, including privatization, price liberalization, inflation, unemployment, changes in the composition of output, foreign direct investment (FDI), national debt and budget deficits, informal economy, and the fight against corruption, among other topics. Particular attention will be paid to the role of institutional factors in explaining the divergent performance of countries in this seemingly homogenous group.

 

99159

HIST 140   Intro to Russian Civilization

Gennady Shkliarevsky

M . W . .

3:00 -4:20 pm

OLIN 203

HIST

Cross-listed: Medieval Studies, Russian and Eurasian Studies   This course examines the origins and evolution of Russian civilization from the founding of the first Eastern Slavic state through the eighteenth century, when Russia began to modernize by borrowing from Western culture. Among the topics to be considered are the ethnogeny of early Russians, the development of state and legal institutions, the relationship between kinship and politics, the role of religion in public and private spheres, economic organization, social institutions, family, gender relations, sexuality, popular culture, and the impact of the outside world (both Orient and Occident) upon Russian society. The sources include a variety of Russian cultural expressions (folk tales, literature, art, film, music), original documents, and scholarly texts.

 

99160

HIST 279   East Central Europe after WWII

Gennady Shkliarevsky

. T . Th .

4:00 -5:20 pm

OLIN 201

HIST

Cross Listed:  GIS;  Russian and Eurasian Studies   The course will cover the history of East Central Europe from 1945 to the present. After a brief summary of the history of the region before and during World War II, the course will concentrate on the region’s evolution since the war. In addition to surveying the period and examining the turning points in its evolution (for example, the Berlin uprising of 1953, the Hungarian revolution and reforms in Poland in 1956, the "Prague spring" of 1968, the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the revolutions at the end of the 1980s), we will explore a variety of specific topics, including political systems, economic organization, ethnic conflicts, and gender relations. Readings will include a textbook, specialized studies, original sources, and works of fiction.

 

99121

LIT 2404   Fantastic Journeys and the Modern World

Jonathan Brent

. . W . .

4:30 – 6:50 pm

OLIN 202

ELIT

Cross-listed:  Russian & Eurasian Studies;  Related interest:  STS   The modern world has been characterized in many ways, as a time of unimaginable freedom, as well as existential angst, exile, loss of the idea of home, loss of the idea of positive heroes; a triumphant embracing of the “new” and the future, as well as the troubling encounter with machines and the menace of totalitarianism.   It was a time when barriers of all sorts began to crumble—barriers between past and present, foreground and background, high and low culture, beauty and ugliness, good and evil.  Artists and writers responded in many different ways across the world. The writers we will read in this class represent the fulcrum of creativity in America, Central or Eastern Europe and Russia.  Each lived at a different axis of modernity—where East met West, where the Russian Revolution provided a vibrant but terrifying image of liberation, where modern technological innovation produced endless possibilities of satirization of both the old world and the new, where ethnic and genocidal violence was developing under the surface of this innovation into the foreseeable European Holocaust. These writers have something powerful and unique to say about the advent of the modern period in the fantastic parallel worlds they created where machines take on lives of their own, grotesque transformations violate the laws of science, and inversions of normality become the norm.  Through their fantastic conceptions a vision of modernity emerges which questions the most basic presumptions of western civilization—in art, morality, politics, the psyche and social life—a vision for which the West still has no satisfying response. All readings are in English. We will read The Marvelous Land of Oz (L. Frank Baum), The Metamorphosis (Kafka), RUR (Capek), War with the Newts (Capek), Street of Crocodiles (Schulz), Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hour Glass (Schulz), Envy (Olesha) The Bedbug (Mayakovsky). There will be 4 short papers for the course & one final paper.