Course Descriptions
LNGS 2240: Southern American English
An examination of the structure, history, and sociolinguistics of the English spoken in the southeastern United States.
LNGS 3250: Introduction to Linguistic Theory and Analysis
This course introduces students to language as a system and the theoretical underpinnings of the analytic procedures used by linguists. It proceeds from the assumption that the goal of language is to communicate (i.e., to convey meaning via messages), and investigates assumptions relating to the manner in which it accomplishes this goal.
LNGS 7010: Linguistic Theory and Analysis
(See LNGS 3250)
POL 1210: Introduction to Polish Language
Introduces students to the essentials of Polish grammar with emphasis on speaking and reading.
POL 2210: Intermediate Polish Language
Second-year continuation of POL 1210, 1220 Pre-req: POL 1210, 1220 and instructor permission
RUSS 1010 & RUSS 1020: First-Year Russian
Introduces Russian grammar with emphasis on reading and speaking. Class meets five days per week plus work in the language laboratory. To be followed by RUSS 2010, 2020.
RUSS 2010 & 2020: Second-Year Russian
Continuation of Russian grammar. Includes practice in speaking and writing Russian and Introduction to Russian prose and poetry. Class meets four days a week, plus work in the language laboratory. Pre-Req: RUSS 1020 (with grade of C- or better) or equivalent.
RUSS 3010 & RUSS 3020: Third-Year Russian
Continuation of Russian grammar. Includes intensive oral practice through reports, dialogues, guided discussions; composition of written reports and essays; readings in literary and non-literary texts. Class meets three hours per week, plus work in the language laboratory. Pre-req: RUSS 2010, 2020 or equivalent with a grade of C or better.
RUSS 3030: Intermediate Conversation
Two hours of conversation practice every week. Pre-req: RUSS 1020, or equivalent. RUSS 2020 is strongly recommended
RUSS 4010 & RUSS 4020: Fourth-Year Russian
Continuation of Russian grammar. Includes oral practice, extensive reading and work in Russian stylistics. Pre-req: RUSS 3010, 3020 with a grade of a C or better.
RUSS 5030: Advanced Russian Grammar: Phonology and Morphology
This course aims to provide a thorough review and elaboration of the spelling and inflectional morphology of Contemporary Standard Russian. Its aim is to help students, including those who are native speakers, acquire and consolidate a level of proficiency in the structure of Russian suitable for ordinary scholarly and instructional purposes at American universities.
RUSS 5050: Advanced Conversation
Two hours of conversation practice per week. May be repeated for credit. Pre-req: RUSS 3020
RUSS 5120: Age of Realism
Studies the works of Russia's most celebrated writers during the middle of the 19th century. Explores the many forms that 'realism' assumed in Russia at this time, and investigates how Russian writers responded to the calls of their contemporary critics to use literature to promote socially progressive ends.
RUSS 5140: Russian Modernism
The extraordinary burst of literary genius and the debates about human creative agency in the Russian Renaissance are the foci of this seminar. Starts with the transfiguration of the arts and literature in early modernism (Symbolism) and ends with Doctor Zhivago, the great novel by Nobel Prize winner, Boris Pasternak.
RUSS 5160: Russian Literature of the Soviet Era 1929-1988
Literature in the Soviet era has been compared to a "second government." This course explores Russian literature under Soviet totalitarianism and examines the concept of Socialist Realism and the process of harnessing literary art to serve the state's interests of creating the "new Soviet person." We also treat the all-important development of unofficial "underground" art and writers' strategies for bypassing the strictures of state control.
RUSS 5360: Gulag-Graduate Studies in History and Literature
From the Bolshevik Revolution to the end of the Soviet order, the only evidence of the Gulag available to the outside world apart from the Soviet propaganda, were the testimonies of witnesses and survivors. Their stories functioned as the only available history, thus shedding an interesting light on the traditional distinctions between literature and history.
RUTR 2350: Russian and Soviet Film: Movies for the Masses
This course is an introduction to and overview of the history of film in Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Russia, though we will be discussing other countries that were once part of the Soviet Bloc. We will be covering a variety of films, long and short, as well as animation, and how these works of art reflect the time periods in which they were created.
RUTR 2460: Introduction to Russian Culture and Civilization
No knowledge of Russian needed. Investigates “Being Russian” through the works of Russia’s great writers, artists, architects and composers. Focuses on the heroes, heroines and villains, symbols, legends and rituals central to Russian creativity.
RUTR 2470: Understanding Russia: Symbols, Myths and Archetypes of Identity
This course explores different sources of Russian national identity from pre-Christian `Rus' to the present. We will investigate how the occidental and oriental elements blend into a unique Euro-Asian culture, nation, and world power. Our main aim is to provide an orientation to the symbolic world of Russian self-identification. We will employ the tools of the historian, geographer, psychologist, and student of literature and culture.
RUTR 2500:
001 MADNESS IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
During each class, students will watch a famous Russian film with English subtitles and then discuss the film. This is a great opportunity to improve your Russian language while learning about Russian history and culture.
002 FAIRY TALES
Fairy tales have enchanted readers since early age and have influenced much of cultural production in Russia. This course studies the development of the Russian fairy tale from its folk origins to Soviet and post-Soviet adaptations. We will sample different thematic groups of tales and analyze them in view of various interpretive methodologies, including structuralism, sociology, psychoanalysis, and feminism. All readings in English.
RUTR 2730: Dostoevsky
This course examines the remarkable legacy of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, beginning with his first experiments in prose fiction and culminating with his timeless masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov. Along the way we shall meet Dostoevsky's famous rebel, "the man from underground," the soulful murderer in Crime and Punishment, and a series of alienated heroes, would-be supermen, and relentless seekers after God. The course will also consider Dostoevsky's relationship to other masters of West European and Russian literature. All readings in English, no knowledge of Russian required. Satisfies the Humanities Requirement.
RUTR 2740: Tolstoy in Translation
Survey of Anna Karenina and Tolstoy's renowned shorter fiction from both a philosophical and aesthetic perspective. All work in English; no knowledge of Russian expected.
RUTR 3510: Dostoevsky
This course examines the remarkable legacy of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, beginning with his first experiments in prose fiction and culminating with his timeless masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov. Along the way we shall meet Dostoevsky's famous rebel, "the man from underground," the soulful murderer in Crime and Punishment, and a series of alienated heroes, would-be supermen, and relentless seekers after God. The course will also consider Dostoevsky's relationship to other masters of West European and Russian literature. All readings in English, no knowledge of Russian required. Satisfies the Humanities Requirement.
RUTR 3350: Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature
This course will examine many famous works of nineteenth-century Russian literature, with a particular focus on the way Russia's writers have used character doubles and images of the demonic to illustrate their exploration of issues of class, gender, and identity, both personal and national. Works to be read include selected short stories by Nikolai Gogol ("The Nose," "The Overcoat"), The Tales of Belkin by Alexander Pushkin, A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, The Double and The Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky, “First Love” by Ivan Turgenev, "The Devil" and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy, and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. All readings are in English.
RUTR 3360: Twentieth-Century Russian Literature
This course introduces students to the great authors and works of twentieth-century Russian literature—including Chekhov, Blok, Akhmatova, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, and Ulitskaya—and treats urgent issues of revolution, human nature, and new life.
SLAV 2360: Dracula
An introduction to Slavic folklore with special emphasis on origins and subsequent manifestations of vampirism. Western perceptions, misperceptions and adaptations of Slavic culture are explored and explicated. The approach is interdisciplinary: folklore, history, literature, religion, film, disease and a variety of other topics.
SLAV 5100: Old Church Slavonic
Introduction to Grammar and Textual attestation of the oldest attested Slavic Language and the relationship between this language, Old Russian Church Slavonic and Contemporary Standard Russian.
SLAV 5610: Polish Literature
This is a graduate-level survey of Polish literature from its origins in the Middle Ages to the contemporary period. The students analyze canonical works of Polish literature and place them in various contexts of Polish cultural, intellectual, political, and literary history. Graduate students from programs other than Slavic are welcome. Undergraduate students are also welcome with the instructor's permission. No language requirements. All materials are available in English.
SLTR 3200: Poland: History and Culture
This course takes students through more than 1000 years of Poland's history and culture. Explorations of literature, art, film, and music, as well as key historic events and biographies, will provide students with unique insight in the main sources of Polish identity, its central values, challenges, myths, symbols, and preoccupations in a larger European context. No prerequisites. All materials in English.
SLTR 3300: Facing Evil in the Twentieth Century: Humanity in Extremis
Twentieth century will most likely remain one of the most puzzling periods in human history, in which amazing humanitarian progress was coupled with unprecedented barbarity of modern totalitarian regimes–Communism and Nazism. The course helps students untangle this paradox by exploring a series of memoirs by survivors as well as essays, films, and other cultural statements. The students tackle and discuss issues such as: Why and how have modern ideologies–Communism and Nazism–motivated and justified crimes against humanity? Are we no longer vulnerable to these manipulations? Does knowledge of the past evil protect us against repeating history? How are "cultural memories" of extreme atrocities constructed and why? All materials in English.
SLFK 2120: Ritual and Family Life
In this course we will explore traditional Russian and Ukrainian life-cycle rituals, such as weddings and funerals, and beliefs connected with marriage, birth and death. We will also look at gender roles and child-rearing, compare the East Slavic rituals and beliefs with their American counterparts, and look at ways in which life-cycle rituals changed in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. No knowledge of Russian required. Satisfies the Non-Western Perspectives requirement