19024 |
RUS 106 Russian Intensive |
Marina Kostalevsky / Jennifer Day |
M T W Th . |
10:30 -12:30 pm |
OLINLC
118 |
FLLC |
8
credits This intensive course is designed as a
continuation for students who have completed Beginning Russian 101. Our focus
on speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills continues through cultural
context, video materials, songs, and literary analysis. This course culminates
in a 4-week June program in St. Petersburg, where students will attend classes
(earning an additional 4 credits) and participate in a cultural program while
living in Russian families. Successful completion of the intensive sequence
qualifies the student to pursue semester or yearlong study in St. Petersburg at
Smolny College of the Liberal Arts, a joint educational venture of Bard and St.
Petersburg University.
19026 |
RUS 207 Continuing Russian II |
Jennifer Day |
M . W . F |
1:25
pm -2:25 pm |
OLINLC
208 |
FLLC |
This course is designed to continue refining and
engaging students’ practice of speaking, reading and writing Russian. Advanced
grammar topics are addressed through a wide variety of texts and contexts, with
emphasis on literary analysis and the modern press. Students expand their
vocabulary and range of stylistic nuance by writing response papers and presenting oral reports. Study
includes a semester-long project that provides an opportunity to build our own
Web design dictionary; to research aspects of modern Russian culture; and to
present findings in a collaborative creative effort, such as a play, “news
broadcast”, or a concert.
19025 |
RUS 312 Nabokov: Puzzle, Pattern, Game |
Jennifer Day |
. . W . . |
9:30 -11:50 am |
OLIN
310 |
ELIT |
As poet, master fiction writer, translator, chess
enthusiast, and lepidopterist, Vladimir Nabokov made it his life’s work to
cultivate a creative understanding able to recognize hidden patterns and
sleights-of-hand, and to play along in his own art. In this course, structured as a seminar, we will approach our
selection of Nabokov’s works as “players” and treasure-seekers, training our
senses to discern what has been so carefully and lovingly hidden. As we search, we will consider such major
interpretive strategies as: life as design and variants on (auto)biography;
memory and its role in art; varieties of translation; aesthetic and ethical
implications of patterns and their manipulation; and the usefulness of
categories such as modern and postmodern in reading Nabokov. Significant attention will be given to the
Russian cultural and literary context that underlies Nabokov’s sense of design
in both his life and art. Students will
read, in addition to poems, short stories, and critical articles, The Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, The
Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Pnin, and Pale Fire, as well as Nabokov’s autobiography, Speak, Memory. Conducted in
English.
19027 |
RUS 325 Body, Mind, and Spirit in Dostoevsky |
Marina Kostalevsky |
. T . Th . |
2:30
pm -3:50 pm |
OLIN
306 |
ELIT |
An
exploration of Dostoevsky’s multifaceted world. Particular attention will be
paid to the way the writer experiments with the themes of body and sexuality,
intellectual pursuit and philosophy, spiritual quest and religion. Readings
include three short stories: “Bobok,” A Gentle Creature,” “Notes from the
Underground;” three novels: “Crime and Punishment,” “The Idiot,” “The Brothers
Karamazov;” as well as Dostoevsky’s letters and excerpts from “A Diary of a
Writer.” Analysis of ideas, devices and structures of these texts will be
supplemented by reference to major critical and theoretical writings. The
course is meant to provide both an approach to Dostoevsky and to existing
scholarship on Dostoevsky’s art and techniques. All readings and discussions in
English.