The following graduate courses (subject to revision) will be offered by the Russian School in the summer of 2009:
Language and Linguistics
RU 6502 Advanced Conversation Practicum
Svetlana Borisovna Stepanova
Students in this class will focus on expanding their lexicon and their syntactical repertoire in scholarly and journalistic speech and on preparing scholarly presentations in their area of interest. Main themes will be political, economic, cultural, and social life in Russia, as they approach interesting and sometimes controversial topics concerning contemporary Russian society and culture. Students will read assigned articles from scholarship and press, watch videos on Russian politics, society, and culture, discuss these materials, and write compositions. Grades will be determined according to participation in class discussions, weekly compositions, an oral presentation, and a final oral examination. Primary Textbook: Starovoitova: Vashe mnenie (Moscow. Flinta/Nauka), coursepack. (1 Unit)
RU 6506 Advanced Grammar
Marina Leonidovna Rojavina
In this course, students will develop skills in the command and use of grammatical categories in Russian through an understanding of the relevant conceptual categories, e.g. the cases, aspect, mood, connective words through explanations of the semantic meanings of these categories. Students will acquire conscious knowledge of the meanings of the grammatical forms applied to discourse, i.e. to specific verbal situations, based not only on the underlying linguistic phenomena, but rather on the content of lingua-cultural situations. Students will be given three written exams; they will prepare oral and written assignments, three essays and presentations based on the texts. Required texts: Laskareva, E.R. Chistaia grammatika. St. Petersburg: Zlatoust, 2008. Koprov, V.Yu. Variantnye formy v russkom iazyke. Moscow: Russkii iazyk, 2006. ISBN: 5-88337-098-5
RU 6507 Advanced Syntax
Marina Leonidovna Rojavina
This course will focus on the use of various syntactical constructions and their meanings; it will also illuminate different functional styles. Students will gain a higher level of proficiency by developing their skills in structuring sentences, word order, and the use of punctuation marks and connective words. They will learn a variety of word combinations, the way word connections function, how word combinations are used in a sentence, and how certain structures are used in discourse. The course will help students to develop their skills in the formation of complex sentences. Students will be given 3 written exams; they will prepare oral and written assignments, 3 essays and presentations based on the texts. Required text: Ivanova, I.S., Karamysheva, L.M., Kupriianova, T.F., Miroshnikova, M.G. Sintaksis. Prakticheskoe posobie po russkomu iazyku kak inostrannomu. St. Petersburg: Zlatoust.
RU 6631 Second Language Teaching Methodology
Maria Alekseevna Shardakova
This course acquaints students with current theories, models, and practices employed in the field of second/foreign language acquisition while briefly surveying the history of approaches to second/foreign language teaching. Students will also examine major issues in second language classroom research. Students will engage in an on-going discussion about objectives and standards for foreign language teaching, including the national standards, Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century, and the Proficiency Guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), types of instruction (i.e., contextualized language instruction, content-based and content-enriched instruction, etc.), learning styles and strategies, individual learner variables (i.e., aptitude, motivation, proficiency, affective filter, etc.), the role of technology in foreign language teaching, assessment of teaching/learning, the role of identity in second/foreign language learning and teaching. The course also incorporates guest talks by Russian language pedagogues and classroom observations. Students will develop techniques for teaching and testing foreign language skills, curriculum development, lesson planning, and material selection. They will also have practical experience through preparing and teaching mini-lessons. By the end of the course participants will prepare their teaching portfolios. Course required for DML candidates. Coursepack. (1 Unit)
RU 6611 Political Russian
Aleksei Dmitrievich Shmelev
This course deals with various genres of the Russian political discourse including political journalism, political sciences, political slogans, political jokes, programs of political parties, speeches of political leaders, etc. In particular, we will analyze present-day Russian political texts and discuss radical changes in the vocabulary of the modern Russian political and administrative system (names of administrative and political institutions and positions). We will pay special attention to the manipulative ploys used in Russian political discourse. The course grade will be based on student homework, participation in class discussion and a final exam. (1 Unit)
Cross-listed with Civilization.
RU 6608 Russian Humor
Aleksei Dmitrievich Shmelev
The course will focus on helping students toward a better understanding of Russian culture through the tool of Russian canned jokes. We will discuss the conceptualization of the world in Russian jokelore (what is taken for granted in Russian jokes and what one need to know to understand them) and give an account of the rules of telling jokes in Russian as well as formal means of introduction of a joke text into discourse. We will pay special attention to the main characters of Russian jokes recognizable by the description of appearance, way of behavior, clothes and other accessories and their “linguistic masks”, which correlate with their “behavior masks”. In addition, we will analyze ways of using jokes in the media (in particular, indirect allusions to jokes). The course grade will be based on student homework, participation in class discussion and a final exam. (1 Unit)
Cross-listed with Civilization.
Literature
RU 6621 Nikolai Gogol
Ilya Iurievich Vinitsky
An outstanding Russian literary historian of the twentieth century began his article on Gogol with the words “Gogol was a liar.” And indeed, Gogol, who was born on April 1 two hundred years ago, loved to mislead relatives, friends and admirers, invented or presented in a completely fantastic way the facts of his biography, surrounded his life and works with an atmosphere of mystery, and in answer to the question “Why?” responded simply “for a reason.” The mystery in which the author enveloped himself was not so much a romantic mask as a hint at his belief in his own unique and inscrutable role in Russian history. In this course, we will explore Gogol’s peculiar narrative strategies and mysterious mind-set as presented in his major works, from his earlier Romantic tales to his late edifying epistles. We will focus on Gogol’s short stories and comedies, considering them within the broad literary and cultural contexts of Gogol’s era. Students will write two one-page response papers and two term essays (6-7 pages each). (1 Unit)
RU 6629 Literature and Empire
Oleg Anatolievich Proskurin
The goal of the course is to analyze the answers given by outstanding Russian writers of the Imperial period to questions that remain important today: “What is the Russian Empire? What did it bring to Russia and to other nations? What can we expect from it in the future? Will it end, and if so, for what reasons?” These questions provoked different answers from Gavriil Derzhavin, Aleksandr Pushkin, Aleksei Tolstoi; historians and political commentators Nikolai Karamzin and Aleksander Gertsen (Herzen); and prose writers Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Leskov, and Lev Tolstoi. Their answers range from ecstatic apologies for the Empire, to attempts to find a basis for Russia’s ‘special mission’ as intermediary between West and East, to harsh and devastating criticism. The course will focus on well-known ‘classic’ texts (long poems of Pushkin, Lev Tolstoi’s story “Hadji Murat”) as well as lesser known and even forgotten texts without which, however, it is impossible to understand the problem of ‘Empireness’ in all its complexity (Nikolai Leskov’s “Na kraiu sveta”, Lev Tolstoi’s “Za chto?”, and others). Along with poetry and prose, we will be reading examples of ‘travel literature’ and political writings (which nevertheless also remain brilliant literary texts): Nikolai Karamzin’s ‘Zapiska o drevnei i novoi Rossii’ (excerpts), Gertsen articles on the ‘Polish question’, Pushkin’s ‘Puteshestvie v Arzrum’ and Ivan Goncharov’s ‘Fregat Pallada’ (excerpts). Students will be required to give a class presentation and to write three short papers and a final paper. (1 Unit)
Cross-listed with Civilization.
RU 6653 Russian Avant-Garde Poetry: Theory and Practice
Oleg Anatolievich Proskurin
Almost all twentieth-century Russian poets familiar to Western readers – Akhmatova, Mandelshtam, Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Pasternak, Zabolotsky, Kharms, and others – belonged to that broad literary movement in the first decades of the previous century generally called the avant-garde or avantgardism; however, these poets are usually studied in isolation, without their broader literary context. Yet in order to understand the essence of their poetic experiments and achievements, and thus to evaluate their significance, it is necessary to examine their work within historical context, as a part of the activity of certain literary groups and schools. This course will examine the work of great poets of the 1910s to 1930s within this context. We will focus on literary groups including Acmeism (and the Guild of Poets), Futurism (and LEF), Constructivism (LTsK), Centrifuge, and OBERIU. We will examine the relationship of the literary practice of these great twentieth-century poets and their esthetic reflections, particularly those expressed in the declarations and manifestos put out by each group. We will also examine great critical responses to these groups and directions, such as Viktor Zhirmunsky’s article “Preodolevshie simvolizm”, Kornei Chukovsky’s articles on Futurism, and others. We will attempt to understand what traits of “group aesthetics” were of greatest significance for the work of these poets, and which ones they ‘overcame’ in the process of literary evolution, opening the field for further development and poetic renewal. There will be a class presentation, three short papers, and a final paper. (1 Unit)
RU 6884: Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita
Ilya Iurievich Vinitsky
This course will deal with a close reading of the famous “demonic” novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. We will discuss the unique structure and philosophy of the novel, as well as its political background and the work’s artistic genealogy (literary, musical, religious, and philosophical sources). Students in this class must read 30 pages of Bulgakov’s novel for each class session. Reading will also include selections from the New Testament (in modern Russian), fragments from Goethe’s Faust (in Russian translation) and Gogol, as well as excerpts from major critical works (no more than 30 pages per week). Class lectures will be supplemented by frequent slide, video, and musical presentations. We will have a special class session dedicated to a discussion with Russian actor Veniamin Smekhov, who will describe the production of the novel on the stage of the Taganka Theater, the production’s impact on Soviet culture of the time, and his interpretation of the character of Woland. Students will make two oral presentations and write two short papers. (1 unit)
Civilization
RU 6644 History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1950s – 1980s
Aleksandr Petrovich Logunov
This course is dedicated to one of the most dynamic and contradictory periods in Soviet history, a time that combined in an astounding way criticism of the Stalinist cult of personality and the Krushchev Thaw with processes of re-Stalinization. Foreign policy was equally contradictory: the struggle for disarmament and the search for new principles in relations with the outside world were combined with major crises in foreign policy – in the Caribbean, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, among other places. Cultural life in the Soviet Union was also extraordinary: the culture of the 1960s, the dissident movement, artistic breakthroughs combined with the growth of ideological censorship – all of this formed the unique cultural world of the postwar Soviet generation. The course will examine major political processes of the second half of the twentieth century, in which the USSR played a key role in world politics; it will also provide the background to study the formation of the Russian foreign policy outlook of the 21st century. Students will be required to participate actively in class discussions and comment on assigned readings, to make an in-class presentation, and to write brief assignments and a final exam or paper. (1 Unit)
RU 6649 Operation Successor: Mechanisms of Power in Contemporary Russia
Aleksandr Petrovich Logunov
The contradictory nature of democratization and Russia’s peculiar transition from Communism predetermined the formation of certain traits of modern Russian political power. This was particularly evident in the process of presidential succession during which, while the outer appearance of democratic processes was preserved, completely different communicative patterns were established. One of the key problems is the level of trust between power and a society that has gone through profound transformations. The sheer scale of change in Russia is manifested in radical changes in virtually all spheres of political life and the pressing character of the non-political agenda in political discourse. Thus the course will also be devoted to issues in culture, science, and education, as well as to the role of expert commissions in the development of contemporary Russian politics. The course will also focus on the major personalities in Russian politics and their impact on political decision-making. Students will also learn contemporary political vocabulary. Students will be required to participate actively in class discussions and comment on assigned readings, to make an in-class presentation, and to write brief assignments and a final exam or paper. (1 Unit)
RU 6675 History of Russian Cinema
Galina Gennadievna Aksenova
This course is devoted to the history of Russian and Soviet cinema from the earliest silent films to films released in 2009. Students will study the work of such great filmmakers as Eisenstein, Kuleshov, and Pudovkin to Tarkovsky and Paradzhanov; we will watch and analyze films important to an understanding of the development of Russian and world cinematic art. Since cinema is a source for both the literary and living Russian language, an additional goal of the course will be to broaden students’ vocabulary. The course includes two film viewings per week outside of class, five essays, and a final exam. (1 Unit)
Seminar Courses
RU 6888 Independent Study (Staff)
This course consists of a thesis written in Russian, for which an advisor will be assigned, and is a requirement for MA candidates. The course can only be taken for the completion of the master’s thesis and may be taken only once. (1 Unit)
DM 6903 Research Paper (Evans-Romaine)
This research paper is a requirement for DML candidates during their summer of application. (1 Unit)