SLAVIC 116. Literature and the Dream of Agriculture in Russia and Beyond. 3-5 Units.
Why do city people think if they started farming, they could heal themselves and their society? How do writers make agriculture seem exciting, or farms seem beautiful? While agriculture is ancient and world-wide, literature and political movements that posited it as a way for urbanites to be happier and more virtuous and societies to reach utopia thrived especially in the 19th-century Russian Empire. These movements influenced Soviet Communism, nationalisms (including Zionism), and American communes in the 1970s. In this class, we read fiction, poetry, memoirs, and essays about city people's embrace of farming. We compare the Eastern European case to the United States in the 20th century and we look at 21st-century back-to-the-land writing and films. This class is offered in partnership with the Stanford Farm, where we will spend a few days working (assuming pandemic restrictions permit).
SLAVIC 118N. Other People's Words: Folklore and Literature. 4 Units.
What happens when you collect and use other people's words? This class considers folklore and literature based on it, focusing on the theme of objects that come to life and threaten their makers or owners. We read Russian fairy tales and Nikolai Gogol's stories, the Golem legend and Ovid's and Shaw's Pygmalion, and Svetlana Aleksievich's Voices from Chernobyl, a collection of the words of survivors who reflect on life after a human invention has destroyed many of its keepers. We read essays by Jacob Grimm, Roman Jakobson, Vladimir Propp, Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, and others, to understand what folklore can mean and how the oral and the recorded word can interact. Students collect living folklore from a group of their choosing and analyze it using the theories we study in class (or other theories, if you want); wherever you are, you will tailor your research to the communities to which you have access. This course fulfills the second-level Writing and Rhetoric Requirement (WRITE 2) and emphasizes oral and multimedia presentation. You will develop skills to produce shorter and longer prerecorded presentations.
SLAVIC 121. Ukraine at a Crossroads. 3-5 Units.
Literally meaning "borderland," Ukraine has embodied in-betweenness in all possible ways. What is the mission of Ukraine in Europe and in Eurasia? How can Ukraine become an agent of democracy, stability, and unity? What does Ukraine's case of multiple identities and loyalties offer to our understanding of the global crisis of national identity? In this course, we will consider the historical permeability of Ukraine's territorial, cultural, and ethnic borders as an opportunity to explore the multiple dimensions of its relations with its neighbors. In addition to studying historical, literary, and cinematic texts, we discuss nationalism, global capitalism, memory politics, and propaganda in order to understand post-Euromaidan society. All required texts are in English. No knowledge of Ukrainian is required. NOTE: To satisfy a WAYS requirement, this course must be taken for at least 3 units. In AY 2020-21, a `CR¿ grade will satisfy the WAYS requirement.
Same as: SLAVIC 221
SLAVIC 128. Literature of the former Yugoslavia. 3-5 Units.
What do Slavoj Zizek, Novak Djokovic, Marina Abramovic, Melania Trump, Emir Kusturica, and the captain of the Croatian national football team have in common? All were born in a country that no longer exists, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1992). This course will introduce masterpieces of Yugoslav literature and film, examining the social and political complexities of a multicultural society that collapsed into civil war (i.e. Bosnia, Kosovo) in the 1990s. In English with material available in Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian.
Same as: COMPLIT 128, REES 128
SLAVIC 129. Russian Versification: History and Theory. 3-4 Units.
A survey of metric forms, rhyming principles and stanzaic patterns in the Russian poetry of the 18th - 21st centuries. Taught in Russian. Prerequisite: Two years of Russian.
Same as: SLAVIC 329
SLAVIC 145. Survey of Russian Literature: The Age of Experiment. 3-5 Units.
This course discusses the transition from predominantly poetic to predominantly prosaic creativity in the Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century Russian literature and the birth of the great Russian novel. It covers three major Russian writers -- Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Gogol -- and examines the changes in the Russian literary scene affected by their work. An emphasis is placed on close reading of literary texts and analysis of literary techniques employed in them. This course meets the Slavic Department Writing-in-the-Major (WIM) requirement. Taught in English.
Same as: SLAVIC 345
SLAVIC 146. The Great Russian Novel: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. 3-5 Units.
The two giant novels we will read and discuss closely were above all urgent actions taken in the heat of present crisis. War and Peace (1865-1869), Leo Tolstoy's epic family saga of Russia's historic resistance to Napoleon and the modern "will-to-power," and The Brothers Karamazov (1878-1880), Dostoevsky's tragicomic investigation into the roots of familial perversion, crimes of individual thought and collective performance, fascinate us with the striking contrasts of their novels' aesthetic responses and innovations. The final focus of the course will be on several of Anton Chekhov's short stories that re-play the themes of the Russian novel with compressed indirectness, pushing the great realist novel's dominance firmly into "history.".
Same as: SLAVIC 346
SLAVIC 147. Modern Russian Literature and Culture: The Age of War and Revolution. 3-5 Units.
The Age of Revolution: Readings in Russian Modernist Prose of the 1920-30s: What makes Russian modernist prose special? Or is there anything special about Russian modernist prose? This course aims to answer these questions through close readings of works by Babel, Mandelstam, Zoshchenko, Platonov, Olesha and Bulgakov. Aesthetic issues such as hero, plot, and narrative devices will be addressed with the aid of contemporaneous literary theory (Shklovsky, Tynianov, Eikhenbaum, Bakhtin). Novels and theory will be read in English. NOTE: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit.
Same as: SLAVIC 347
SLAVIC 148. Slavic Literature and Culture since the Death of Stalin. 3-5 Units.
The course offers a survey of Soviet and post-Soviet literary texts and films created by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian artists and marginalized or repressed by the Soviet regime. The first part of the course will focus on the topics of opposition and dissent, generational conflict, modernization, Soviet everyday life, gender, citizenship and national identity, state-published and samizdat literature, "village" and "cosmopolitan" culture, etc. The second part of it will be devoted to the postmodernist aesthetics and ideology in the dismantlement of totalitarian society, as well in the process of shaping post-Soviet identities. The reading materials range from the fictional, poetic, and publicistic works written by Noble-prize (Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, Alexievich) and other major writers of the period to the drama, film, and popular culture.
Same as: REES 348, SLAVIC 348
SLAVIC 155. St. Petersburg: Imagining a City, Building a City. 1-2 Unit.
St. Petersburg, the world's most beautiful city, was designed to display an 18th-century autocrat's power and to foster ties between Russia and the West - on the tsar's terms. It went through devastating floods and a deadly siege; it birthed the "Petersburg myth," poems and prose that explore the force of the state and the individual's ability to resist. This class addresses the struggle between the authorities and the inhabitants; the treacherous natural environment; the city as a node in national and international networks of communication; the development of urban transportation networks; and the supply of goods. NOTE: This course is required of students attending the overseas seminar to St. Petersburg in September 2018.Class times to be determined upon the availability of all enrolled students. Please contact instructor(s) via email if you have any questions.
Same as: URBANST 156
SLAVIC 156. Vladimir Nabokov: Displacement and the Liberated Eye. 3-5 Units.
How did the triumphant author of "the great American novel" <em>Lolita</em> evolve from the young author writing at white heat for the tiny sad Russian emigration in Berlin? We will read his short stories and the novels <em>The Luzhin Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Lolita</em> the film, and <em>Pale Fire</em>, to see how Nabokov generated his sinister-playful forms as a buoyant answer to the "hypermodern" visual and film culture of pre-WWII Berlin, and then to America's all-pervading postwar "normalcy" in his pathological comic masterpieces <em>Lolita</em> and <em>Pale Fire</em>. Buy texts in translation at the Bookstore; Slavic grad students will supplement with reading and extra sessions in original Russian.
Same as: COMPLIT 115, COMPLIT 315, SLAVIC 356
SLAVIC 15N. "My Life Had Stood - A Loaded Gun": Dostoevsky, Dickinson, and the Question of Freedom.. 3-5 Units.
As far apart as Dickinson and Dostoevsky are in terms of national contexts, gendered possibilities of life, and their choice of minimalist or maximalist forms, their experiences of constriction and freedom bore significant similarities. Dostoevsky penned his vow to love life on the day that he was manacled as a political prisoner and marched off to thirteen years of forced labor and exile in Siberia. He exploded back on the Petersburg literary scene in the early 1860's with three block-busters, <em>Notes from the Underground</em>, <em>Memoirs from the House of the Dead</em>, and <em>Crime and Punishment</em>, establishing himself forever as Russia's most controversial explorer of the violence of human thought. In these same years Emily Dickinson was sequestering herself in her family's Amherst house for the remainder of her life, yet she announced her rebel's credo in these enigmatic lines: <em>"My Life Had Stood, a Loaded Gun</em> - until the Day..." In this class we will explore the idea that Emily Dickinson and Fyodor Dostoevsky may be seen as original shifters of modern literary art and philosophy. We will unpack the agonizing relationship of freedom, action, and language that both authors explore. Classes will be organized around presentations, debates in pairs, the exploration of "scandalous scenes," and finally a symposium in which students will present and contribute to each other's paper projects. There are no prerequisites for this course apart from a desire to read poems and novels closely and in tandem.
SLAVIC 160. Cultural Hybridity in Central-Eastern Europe. 2-5 Units.
Historically shaped by shifting borders and mixing of various cultures and languages, identities in-between have been in abundance in Central-Eastern Europe. This course offers a comprehensive study of the oeuvre of several major Central-European authors of modernity: the Ukrainian-Russian Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), the Czech-German-Jewish Franz Kafka (1883-1924), the Austrian-Galician-Jewish Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), the Ukrainian-Galician Olha Kobylyans¿ka (1863-1942), the Russian-German Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), the Jewish-Polish-Galician Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), and the Polish-Argentinean Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969). Performing their selves in two or more cultures, these writers were engaged in identity games and produced hybrid texts with which they intervened into the major culture as others. In the course, we will apply post-structuralist and post-colonial concepts such as minor language, heterotopia, in-betweenness, mimicry, indeterminacy, exile, displacement, and transnationalism to the study of the writers oeuvres. We will also master the sociolinguistic analysis of such multi-lingual phenomena as self-translation, code-switching, and calquing and examine various versions of the same text to uncover the palimpsest of hybrid identities.
Same as: COMPLIT 231B, SLAVIC 360
SLAVIC 179. Literature from Medieval Rus' and Early Modern Russia. 3-5 Units.
This course traces the history of Russian literature before the eighteenth century. It is divided into two sections. The first section examines literature from Kyivan Rus' (up to the thirteenth century), the medieval conglomerate to which Belarus, Russia and Ukraine all trace their cultural heritage. The second section examines old Russian literature specifically, from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. We pay close attention to the development of literary genres, moral/religious and aesthetic features and their relationship, and the beginnings of Russian belles lettres. Our approach to the texts will be two-fold. On the one hand, we will spend some time situating the sources within their historical contexts. On the other hand, we will explore the interpretive possibilities of premodern literature using formal analysis and critical theory. Knowledge of an East Slavic language is required.
Same as: SLAVIC 379
SLAVIC 181. Philosophy and Literature. 3-5 Units.
What, if anything, does reading literature do for our lives? What can literature offer that other forms of writing cannot? Can fictions teach us anything? Can they make people more moral? Why do we take pleasure in tragic stories? This course introduces students to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. It addresses key questions about the value of literature, philosophical puzzles about the nature of fiction and literary language, and ways that philosophy and literature interact. Readings span literature, film, and philosophical theories of art. Authors may include Sophocles, Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Proust, Woolf, Walton, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Students master close reading techniques and philosophical analysis, and write papers combining the two. This is the required gateway course for the Philosophy and Literature major tracks. Majors should register in their home department.
Same as: CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ILAC 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81
SLAVIC 183. Jews in the Contemporary World: The American Jewish Present & Past in Popular Culture, Film, & TV. 4-5 Units.
(HISTORY 185B is 5 units; HISTORY 85B IS 3 units.) Who are American Jews as depicted in popular media -- film, television, etc. -- since the Second World War? How are their religion, politics, mores, and practices represented and what ways, if at all, do such portraits reflect historical trends among Jews and society in general? What can be learned from film or tv about Jewish identity, notions of Jewish power and powerlessness, communal cohesiveness and assimilation, sexuality and the wages of intermarriage or race?.
Same as: CSRE 185B, HISTORY 185B, HISTORY 385C, JEWISHST 185B, REES 185B
SLAVIC 187. Classical Russian Poetry. 3-5 Units.
A survey of Russian poetry from Lomonosov to Vladinmir Solov'ev. Close reading of lyrical poems. Prerequisite: 3rd Year Russian Language.
Same as: SLAVIC 387
SLAVIC 188. 20th century Russian Poetry: From Aleksandr Blok to Joseph Brodsky. 3-4 Units.
Developments in and 20th-century Russian poetry including symbolism, acmeism, futurism, and literature of the absurd. Emphasis is on close readings of individual poems. Taught in Russian.
Same as: SLAVIC 388
SLAVIC 195. Russian and East European Theater. 3-5 Units.
Evolution of modernist Russian/Eur. dramaturgy, theatrical practices, landmark productions from Chekhov-Meyerhold-Grotowski to present; re-performance of classics; techniques of embodiment. Taught in English.
Same as: SLAVIC 395
SLAVIC 196. Readings in Yiddish Literature 1. 2-4 Units.
Yiddish literature, at a second-year language level. Readings chosen based on student interest; contact instructor with questions.
Same as: SLAVIC 396
SLAVIC 197. Readings in Yiddish Literature 2. 2-4 Units.
Yiddish literature, at a second-year language level. Continuation of SLAVIC 196. Readings chosen based on student interest; contact instructor with questions.
Same as: SLAVIC 397
SLAVIC 198. Writing Between Languages: The Case of Eastern European Jewish Literature. 1-5 Unit.
Eastern European Jews spoke and read Hebrew, Yiddish, and their co-territorial languages (Russian, Polish, etc.). In the modern period they developed secular literatures in all of them, and their writing reflected their own multilinguality and evolving language ideologies. We focus on major literary and sociolinguistic texts. Reading and discussion in English; students should have some reading knowledge of at least one relevant language as well. ***This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit***.
Same as: JEWISHST 148, JEWISHST 348, SLAVIC 398
SLAVIC 199. Individual Work for Undergraduates. 1-5 Unit.
Open to Russian majors or students working on special projects. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
SLAVIC 221. Ukraine at a Crossroads. 3-5 Units.
Literally meaning "borderland," Ukraine has embodied in-betweenness in all possible ways. What is the mission of Ukraine in Europe and in Eurasia? How can Ukraine become an agent of democracy, stability, and unity? What does Ukraine's case of multiple identities and loyalties offer to our understanding of the global crisis of national identity? In this course, we will consider the historical permeability of Ukraine's territorial, cultural, and ethnic borders as an opportunity to explore the multiple dimensions of its relations with its neighbors. In addition to studying historical, literary, and cinematic texts, we discuss nationalism, global capitalism, memory politics, and propaganda in order to understand post-Euromaidan society. All required texts are in English. No knowledge of Ukrainian is required. NOTE: To satisfy a WAYS requirement, this course must be taken for at least 3 units. In AY 2020-21, a `CR¿ grade will satisfy the WAYS requirement.
Same as: SLAVIC 121
SLAVIC 222. Andrei Platonov's "Chevengur": Text and Contexts. 3-5 Units.
'The power of devastation [Platonov's texts] inflict upon their subject matter exceeds by far any demands of social criticism and should be measured in units that have very little to do with literature as such,' wrote Joseph Brodsky. The graduate course examines Andrei Platonov's ultimate novel "Chevengur" together with political and cultural discourses that framed its production. Primary and secondary readings are in Russian.
SLAVIC 225. Communist and Capitalist Fantasies: Science Fiction in the Soviet Union and the United States. 3-5 Units.
What can science fiction tell us about life and art in the 20th century, in the Soviet Union and the United States? Speculative fiction (including sci-fi, fantasy, utopia, dystopia) combines irony and idealism, belief in science and skepticism about it. It appealed to people living under communism and capitalism. The course will relate fiction to the specific culture and politics in both countries, while also drawing transnational connections. We ask why writers and readers, filmmakers and viewers loved this art so much, despite living in what seemed to be very different places. Soviet and Eastern-European writers and filmmakers will include Mikhail Bulgakov, Stanis¿aw Lem, and Andrei Tarkovsky. The Americans may include Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, and Octavia Butler. Additional readings in Marx, Lenin, and H.G. Wells.
SLAVIC 226. Bakhtin and his Legacy. 3-5 Units.
"Quests for my own word are in fact quests for a word that is not my own, a word that is more than myself," writes Mikhail Bakhtin towards the end of his life. It was this ceaseless pursuit of another word that allowed Bakhtin, one of the most distinguished literary critics of the twentieth century, to author several influential literary theory concepts, many of which deal with the ideas of multiplicity, diversity and unfinalizability. The seminar explores these core concepts through close reading of key texts in English and investigates their reverberations in the writings of other thinkers such as Kristeva, de Man and Derrida.
SLAVIC 230. 18th Century Russian Literature. 3-4 Units.
For graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Russian literature of the long 18th century, from the late 1600s to 1800. Readings in the Baroque, Neoclassicism and Sentimentalism. Major works are examined in their literary and historical context and also in relation to the principal subcultures of the period, including the court, academy, church and Old Believer diaspora.
SLAVIC 231. Tarkovsky. 3-5 Units.
The relatively slim body of work produced by the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky helped redefine the possibilities of the art of cinema. Older and younger generations of directors continue to be inspired by his trademark long shot, unconventional narrative techniques, everence for landscape and nature, and by general spatio-temporal discontinuity. The course provides a systematic examination of the director's complete oeuvre (seven feature films and his works for radio and opera) along with his main theoretical treatise Sculpting in Time.
SLAVIC 325. Readings in Russian Realism. 3-5 Units.
For graduate students or upper-level undergraduates. What did Realism mean for late imperial Russian writers? What has it meant for twentieth-century literary theory? As we seek to answer these questions, we read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Chekhov, alongside their brilliant but less often taught contemporaries such as Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Leskov, Garshin, Korolenko, Gorky, Andreev, and Bunin. Taught in English; readings in Russian. Prerequisite: Three years of Russian.
Same as: REES 210
SLAVIC 327. Boris Pasternak and the Poetry of the Russian Avant-garde. 3-4 Units.
An emphasis is made on close reading of the poetry of Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Taught in Russian. Prerequisite: 3rd Year Russian Language.
SLAVIC 329. Russian Versification: History and Theory. 3-4 Units.
A survey of metric forms, rhyming principles and stanzaic patterns in the Russian poetry of the 18th - 21st centuries. Taught in Russian. Prerequisite: Two years of Russian.
Same as: SLAVIC 129
SLAVIC 345. Survey of Russian Literature: The Age of Experiment. 3-5 Units.
This course discusses the transition from predominantly poetic to predominantly prosaic creativity in the Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century Russian literature and the birth of the great Russian novel. It covers three major Russian writers -- Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Gogol -- and examines the changes in the Russian literary scene affected by their work. An emphasis is placed on close reading of literary texts and analysis of literary techniques employed in them. This course meets the Slavic Department Writing-in-the-Major (WIM) requirement. Taught in English.
Same as: SLAVIC 145
SLAVIC 346. The Great Russian Novel: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. 3-5 Units.
The two giant novels we will read and discuss closely were above all urgent actions taken in the heat of present crisis. War and Peace (1865-1869), Leo Tolstoy's epic family saga of Russia's historic resistance to Napoleon and the modern "will-to-power," and The Brothers Karamazov (1878-1880), Dostoevsky's tragicomic investigation into the roots of familial perversion, crimes of individual thought and collective performance, fascinate us with the striking contrasts of their novels' aesthetic responses and innovations. The final focus of the course will be on several of Anton Chekhov's short stories that re-play the themes of the Russian novel with compressed indirectness, pushing the great realist novel's dominance firmly into "history.".
Same as: SLAVIC 146
SLAVIC 347. Modern Russian Literature and Culture: The Age of War and Revolution. 3-5 Units.
The Age of Revolution: Readings in Russian Modernist Prose of the 1920-30s: What makes Russian modernist prose special? Or is there anything special about Russian modernist prose? This course aims to answer these questions through close readings of works by Babel, Mandelstam, Zoshchenko, Platonov, Olesha and Bulgakov. Aesthetic issues such as hero, plot, and narrative devices will be addressed with the aid of contemporaneous literary theory (Shklovsky, Tynianov, Eikhenbaum, Bakhtin). Novels and theory will be read in English. NOTE: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit.
Same as: SLAVIC 147
SLAVIC 348. Slavic Literature and Culture since the Death of Stalin. 3-5 Units.
The course offers a survey of Soviet and post-Soviet literary texts and films created by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian artists and marginalized or repressed by the Soviet regime. The first part of the course will focus on the topics of opposition and dissent, generational conflict, modernization, Soviet everyday life, gender, citizenship and national identity, state-published and samizdat literature, "village" and "cosmopolitan" culture, etc. The second part of it will be devoted to the postmodernist aesthetics and ideology in the dismantlement of totalitarian society, as well in the process of shaping post-Soviet identities. The reading materials range from the fictional, poetic, and publicistic works written by Noble-prize (Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, Alexievich) and other major writers of the period to the drama, film, and popular culture.
Same as: REES 348, SLAVIC 148
SLAVIC 356. Vladimir Nabokov: Displacement and the Liberated Eye. 3-5 Units.
How did the triumphant author of "the great American novel" <em>Lolita</em> evolve from the young author writing at white heat for the tiny sad Russian emigration in Berlin? We will read his short stories and the novels <em>The Luzhin Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Lolita</em> the film, and <em>Pale Fire</em>, to see how Nabokov generated his sinister-playful forms as a buoyant answer to the "hypermodern" visual and film culture of pre-WWII Berlin, and then to America's all-pervading postwar "normalcy" in his pathological comic masterpieces <em>Lolita</em> and <em>Pale Fire</em>. Buy texts in translation at the Bookstore; Slavic grad students will supplement with reading and extra sessions in original Russian.
Same as: COMPLIT 115, COMPLIT 315, SLAVIC 156
SLAVIC 36. Dangerous Ideas. 1 Unit.
Ideas matter. Concepts such as revolution, tradition, and hell have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like immigration, universal basic income, and youth play an important role in contemporary debates in the United States. All of these ideas are contested, and they have a real power to change lives, for better and for worse. In this one-unit class we will examine these "dangerous" ideas. Each week, a faculty member from a different department in the humanities and arts will explore a concept that has shaped human experience across time and space. Some weeks will have short reading assignments, but you are not required to purchase any materials.
Same as: ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ENGLISH 71, ETHICSOC 36X, FRENCH 36, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, RELIGST 36X
SLAVIC 360. Cultural Hybridity in Central-Eastern Europe. 2-5 Units.
Historically shaped by shifting borders and mixing of various cultures and languages, identities in-between have been in abundance in Central-Eastern Europe. This course offers a comprehensive study of the oeuvre of several major Central-European authors of modernity: the Ukrainian-Russian Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), the Czech-German-Jewish Franz Kafka (1883-1924), the Austrian-Galician-Jewish Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), the Ukrainian-Galician Olha Kobylyans¿ka (1863-1942), the Russian-German Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), the Jewish-Polish-Galician Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), and the Polish-Argentinean Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969). Performing their selves in two or more cultures, these writers were engaged in identity games and produced hybrid texts with which they intervened into the major culture as others. In the course, we will apply post-structuralist and post-colonial concepts such as minor language, heterotopia, in-betweenness, mimicry, indeterminacy, exile, displacement, and transnationalism to the study of the writers oeuvres. We will also master the sociolinguistic analysis of such multi-lingual phenomena as self-translation, code-switching, and calquing and examine various versions of the same text to uncover the palimpsest of hybrid identities.
Same as: COMPLIT 231B, SLAVIC 160
SLAVIC 370. Pushkin. 3-5 Units.
Pushkin's poems, prose, and drafts in dialogue with contemporaries and cultural milieu. Emphasis on innovation and controversy in genre, lyrical form and personal idiom, shaping a public discourse. Taught in English.
SLAVIC 379. Literature from Medieval Rus' and Early Modern Russia. 3-5 Units.
This course traces the history of Russian literature before the eighteenth century. It is divided into two sections. The first section examines literature from Kyivan Rus' (up to the thirteenth century), the medieval conglomerate to which Belarus, Russia and Ukraine all trace their cultural heritage. The second section examines old Russian literature specifically, from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. We pay close attention to the development of literary genres, moral/religious and aesthetic features and their relationship, and the beginnings of Russian belles lettres. Our approach to the texts will be two-fold. On the one hand, we will spend some time situating the sources within their historical contexts. On the other hand, we will explore the interpretive possibilities of premodern literature using formal analysis and critical theory. Knowledge of an East Slavic language is required.
Same as: SLAVIC 179
SLAVIC 387. Classical Russian Poetry. 3-5 Units.
A survey of Russian poetry from Lomonosov to Vladinmir Solov'ev. Close reading of lyrical poems. Prerequisite: 3rd Year Russian Language.
Same as: SLAVIC 187
SLAVIC 388. 20th century Russian Poetry: From Aleksandr Blok to Joseph Brodsky. 3-4 Units.
Developments in and 20th-century Russian poetry including symbolism, acmeism, futurism, and literature of the absurd. Emphasis is on close readings of individual poems. Taught in Russian.
Same as: SLAVIC 188
SLAVIC 395. Russian and East European Theater. 3-5 Units.
Evolution of modernist Russian/Eur. dramaturgy, theatrical practices, landmark productions from Chekhov-Meyerhold-Grotowski to present; re-performance of classics; techniques of embodiment. Taught in English.
Same as: SLAVIC 195
SLAVIC 396. Readings in Yiddish Literature 1. 2-4 Units.
Yiddish literature, at a second-year language level. Readings chosen based on student interest; contact instructor with questions.
Same as: SLAVIC 196
SLAVIC 397. Readings in Yiddish Literature 2. 2-4 Units.
Yiddish literature, at a second-year language level. Continuation of SLAVIC 196. Readings chosen based on student interest; contact instructor with questions.
Same as: SLAVIC 197
SLAVIC 398. Writing Between Languages: The Case of Eastern European Jewish Literature. 1-5 Unit.
Eastern European Jews spoke and read Hebrew, Yiddish, and their co-territorial languages (Russian, Polish, etc.). In the modern period they developed secular literatures in all of them, and their writing reflected their own multilinguality and evolving language ideologies. We focus on major literary and sociolinguistic texts. Reading and discussion in English; students should have some reading knowledge of at least one relevant language as well. ***This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit***.
Same as: JEWISHST 148, JEWISHST 348, SLAVIC 198
SLAVIC 399. INDIVIDUAL WORK. 1-15 Unit.
Open to Russian majors or students working on special projects. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
SLAVIC 680. Curricular Practical Training. 1-3 Unit.
CPT course required for international students completing degree. Prerequisite: Slavic Languages and Literatures Ph.D. candidate.
SLAVIC 70N. Socialism vs. Capitalism: Russian and American Writers' Responses. 3-4 Units.
The turn of the 20th century was marked with turbulent political events and heated discussions about the future of Russian and American societies. Many writers and intellectuals responded to the burning issues of social justice, inequality, egalitarianism, and exploitation associated with capitalism and socialism. Through close reading, critical thinking, and analytical writing, we will engage in the critical discussions of class struggle, individual interest versus collective values, race, and social equality, and identify points of convergence and divergence between the two systems. To what extent was the opposition between capitalism and socialism fueled by the artistic vision of the great Russian and American writers? What was these thinkers' ideal of society and what impact did it have on shaping emerging socialism? Readings for the class include the fundamental works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, W.E.B. Du Bois and Sholem Aleichem. The course will culminate in a digital mapping project visualizing intellectual connections between ideas and writers.
SLAVIC 77Q. Russia's Weird Classic: Nikolai Gogol. 3-4 Units.
Preference to sophomores. An investigation of the works and life of Nikolai Gogol, the most eccentric of Russian authors and the founder of what is dubbed Fantastic Realism. Our investigation will be based on close reading of works written in various genres and created in various stages of Gogol's literary career. Taught in English.
SLAVIC 801. TGR PROJECT. 0 Units.
.
SLAVIC 802. TGR Dissertation. 0 Units.
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