Courses

In 1864 Fyodor Dostoevsky created an unnamed character whose response to his own alienation was to retreat to a life under the floorboards, where he mused on the imperfectability of human society and the nature of free will. A century later, African-American writer Ralph Ellison, author of the novel Invisible Man, called Dostoevsky his “literary ancestor.” In this course we will study Notes from Underground in its original cultural context and then turn to how the book was adapted, contested, and reinterpreted by Dostoevsky’s literary descendants around the world, each in their own way investigating what it means to be human.

In this course students continue to develop skills of narration, listening comprehension, and writing, while exploring issues of contemporary Russian life and consciousness. The issues are examined from the position of two cultures: American and Russian. The course draws on a variety of sources for reading and viewing, including the periodic press, film, and music.

This course aims at vocabulary expansion and the assimilation and activation of formulaic conversational structures and speech etiquette at the same time it develops familiarity with more complex principles of Russian grammar. This course is conducted by members of Kazakh National University’s Philological Faculty and supervised by the program director.

This course is taken in combination with Russian 207. Students focus on the essentials of Russian pronunciation and correction. Preliminary work in intonation will be offered. This course is conducted by members of Kazakh National University’s Philological Faculty and supervised by the program director.

This course is taken in combination with Russian 207. Emphasis will be placed on socially relevant reading materials. This course is conducted by members of Kazakh National University’s Philological Faculty and supervised by the program director. 

In this course we will the address the problem of Russophonia and the changing role of the Russian language in the post-Soviet world. Through discussions of theoretical readings, literary texts and cultural artefacts, we will explore spaces for creative dialogues among writers and artists in the post-Soviet states and the Russophone diasporas. Topics will include the post-colonial search for identity in contemporary art; linguistic, gender and cultural hybridity in prose and poetry; imperial legacies, trauma and (post)memory in historical and auto-fiction; and connections between creative communities and ecological and political activism. Taught in English.

How did the Russian peasant stove shape culinary culture? Why did Catherine the Great force her subjects to cultivate potatoes? How did the October Revolution change the way Soviet citizens ate? In this course we will study key aspects of Russian history and culture through the lens of culinary history. Topics will include: food and fasting in Russian Orthodoxy; food, class and power under the tsars; high Russian (or is it French?) culture of the nineteenth century; Soviet policies for feeding the worker; non-Russian cuisines in the Soviet Union; drinking culture and anti-alcohol campaigns; food and nationalism in the twenty-first century. Includes hands-on sessions on Russian food preparation. In English.

What is Russia’s problem? Why is the country famous for its great “soul” and culture waging a bloody war and becoming increasingly anti-Western? This course explores the cultural mythology that characterizes the state of contemporary Russian society and its “soul,” using critical approaches from trauma and memory studies, as well as theories of ressentiment and nostalgia. Authors to be studied include ideologues of Putin’s Russia (Surkov, Prilepin), its critics (Sorokin), and other writers, artists, and filmmakers who reflect, define, question, and challenge the direction in which country is moving and give it a cultural diagnosis. In English.

Rejected by every major publisher, first released in France in 1955 by a press known for pornographic trash, Vladimir Nabokov’s scandalous novel about a middle-aged immigrant college professor obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl continues to feed controversy as well as to challenge and delight readers with its labyrinthian narrative, endless wordplay, innumerable intertextual allusions, and troublesome eroticism. In addition to reading the novel, we will focus on critical approaches that address the cultural clash underlying the ostensible plot, changing reception, and reception of the novel outside the US. Thus warned, you are invited to join the jury in deliberating the designs and delights of this twentieth-century literary classic.

This course explores the theme of madness in Russian literature and arts from the medieval period to the present. Madness is a basic but controversial aspect of world culture that has preoccupied Russian minds since medieval times. It is reflected in numerous stories, plays, paintings, films, and operas, as well as in medical, political, and philosophical essays. Madness has been treated by great Russian authors and artists not only as a medical or psychological matter, but also as a metaphysical one, touching the deepest levels of human consciousness, encompassing problems of suffering, imagination, history, sex, social and world order, evil, retribution, death, and the afterlife. Taught in English. No knowledge of Russian is required.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is many things: a riveting murder mystery, a probing philosophical treatise, one of the best known novels in world literature, and a complex book worth reading and discussing with serious readers of diverse backgrounds. We will familiarize ourselves with the historical and philosophical context in which it was written, while grappling with the fundamental questions it raises: What does it mean to act morally? Why do humans so often act against their own best interest? How do we reconcile a world of chaos and suffering with the notion of a benevolent god? Conducted entirely in English.

Against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, Lev Tolstoy challenges readers to confront some of the most confounding questions of human existence: How can we reconcile the notion of free will with the seemingly ineluctable forces of history? Is individual moral action possible in war? How can we live a meaningful life in the face of inevitable death? And what might lie after death? In this course we read War and Peace in its cultural and historical context, while also considering how it continues to be relevant to our lives today. Conducted in English.

Short texts in a variety of genres connected with the momentous events of 1917 provide the basis for continued development of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. 

In this course students use authentic materials to learn about selected aspects of Russian culture in global context, while continuing to develop their speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills. For students who have completed the language requirement in Russian.  

In weekly meetings we will discuss in Russian current events taking place in Russia and around the world as reported by the Russophone online media. Emphasis will be on reading, listening, and conversation. Vocabulary building by topics; grammar as needed.

This course combines advanced work in Russian grammar (largely corrective) and fundamentals in composition, with conversational Russian.

This course is taken in combination with Russian 307. Students focus on corrective pronunciation and theory and practice of Russian intonation. This course is conducted by members of Kazakh National University Philological Faculty and supervised by the program director.

This course aims at skill development in speaking and oral presentation as well as in limited forms of composition. It is taken in combination with Russian 307 and conducted by members of Kazakh National University Philological Faculty and supervised by the program director.

Beginning in the 1910’s, Russian and then the Soviet Union was home to some of the most creative and innovative animated films in the world. In this course we will examine selected animated shorts in the context of Russian history and culture. Topics to be considered include the roots of animated film in the folk tale, the role of cartoons in educating the model Soviet child, the language of Soviet colonial discourse, and the ways in which post-Soviet animated films perpetuated or subverted past traditions. 

Chekhov’s literary oeuvre appeared at the same moment as the birth of cinematography, and the two are closely intertwined. His art rests on what Sergei Eisenstein called the central principle of film: montage, visuality, the constant changing of shots, and dislocation in time and space. It is no wonder that Chekhov’s stories were adapted for the screen in record numbers: to date we count 235 film adapatations plus 10 animated films. In this course we will read several of his best short stories, view films based on his works, and analyze the cinematographic qualities of Chekhov’s prose.

Students will study the history of Russian-speaking immigration to America through readings and discussions of cultural texts which situate it at the intersection of history, memory, and life story narratives. They will listen to Russian-language oral histories and research archival materials that present personal life stories against the background of traumatic experiences of recent history: in the context of historical events and transformations, such as wars, revolutions, repressions, the Soviet era, and its collapse. We will also collaborate with a local community partner to record and preserve the oral history of Russian-speaking Minnesotans. Students will learn basic interviewing skills, and practice transcribing and translating oral texts. Taught in Russian.

This course focuses on the question of collective identity in post-Soviet cinema. Topics include the marginalization of “the other,” whether disabled, gay, hipster, migrant or elderly; the breaking down of the boundary between civil society and the criminal world; and the transformation of former “brothers” into outsiders. In light of current events in Ukraine, particular emphasis will be placed on films dealing with war. Conducted in Russian.

An introduction to the names, quotations, and events that every Russian knows–knowledge which is essential to understanding Russian literature, history, and culture of the last two centuries. We will study the works of Russian writers (Griboedov and Pushkin, Leskov and Dostoevsky), composers (Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-­Korsakov, and Tchaikovsky), artists (Briullov, Ivanov, the Itinerants) and actors (Mochalov, Shchepkin) in the context of social thought and the social movements of the nineteenth century. Conducted in Russian.

A study of Chekhov’s short fiction, both as an object of literary analysis and in the interpretation of critics, stage directors and filmmakers of the twentieth century. We will also examine the continuation of the Chekhovian tradition in the works of writers such as Bunin, Petrushevskaia and Pietsukh. Conducted in Russian.

Drawing on materials from film, literature, architecture, and mass culture, we will examine the cult of Iosif Stalin during “the Leader’s” lifetime and continuing into subsequent eras through both repudiation and periodic revivals. We will address the pagan and Christian foundations of the Stalin cult, as well as its connections with the cult of Lenin. Conducted entirely in Russian.