Introductory and Survey Courses, Conducted in English
Intermediate and Advanced Seminars, Conducted in English
Intermediate and Advanced Seminars, Conducted in Russian
Courses for Students Who Speak Russian at Home
RUSS001 Elementary Russian I
401 MWF 10 - 11am, TR 9:30 - 10:30am Alley
002 MTWRF 3 - 4pm Oleinichenko
This course develops elementary skills in reading, speaking, understanding and writing the Russian language. We will work with an exciting range of authentic written materials, the Internet, videos and recordings relating to the dynamic scene of Russia today. At the end of the course students will be comfortable with the Russian alphabet and will be able to read simplified literary, ‘commercial’, and other types of texts (signs, menus, short news articles, short stories) and participate in elementary conversations about daily life (who you are, what you do every day, where you are from, likes and dislikes).
RUSS003 Intermediate Russian I
Prior language study required
Prerequisite: RUSS 002 or placement exam
401 MW 11am - 12pm, TR 10:30am - 11:30am Alley
002 MTWR 5 - 6pm Oleinichenko
See "Courses Offered Through CLPS" below for additional times.
This course will develop your ability to use the Russian language in the context of typical everyday situations, including university life, family, shopping, entertainment, etc. Role-playing, skits, short readings from literature and the current press, and video clips will be used to help students improve their language skills and their understanding of Russian culture. At the end of the semester you will be able to read and write short texts about your daily schedule and interests, to understand brief newspaper articles, films and short literary texts, and to express your opinions in Russian. In combination with RUSS 004, this course prepares students to satisfy the language competency requirement.
RUSS311 Advanced Conversation & Composition I
Prior language study required
Prerequisite: RUSS004 or placement exam
MW 1 - 2 pm, TR 12:30 - 1:30 pm Alley
This course develops students' skills in speaking and writing about topics in Russian literature, contemporary society, politics, and everyday life. Topics include women, work and family; sexuality; the economic situation; environmental problems; and life values. Materials include selected short stories by 19th and 20th century Russian authors, video-clips of interviews, excerpts from films, and articles from the Russian media. Continued work on grammar and vocabulary building.
RUSS360 Literacy in Russian I
Prior language experience required
MWF 11am -12pm Korshunova
This course is intended for students who have spoken Russian at home and seek to achieve proficiency in the language. Topics will include an intensive introduction to the Russian writing system and grammar, focusing on exciting materials and examples drawn from classic and contemporary Russian culture and social life. Students who complete this course in combination with RUSS361 satisfy the Penn Language Requirement.
RUSS413 Twentieth-Century Russian Literature, Film and Culture: Utopia, Revolution and Dissent
Prerequisite: RUSS312 or placement exam
TR 10:30am - 12pm Bourlatskaya
This course continues developing students' advanced skills in Russian, and introduces students to major movements and figures of twentieth-century Russian literature and culture. We will read the works of modern Russian writers, and watch and discuss feature films. The course will introduce the first Soviet films and works of the poets of the Silver Age and beginning of the Soviet era as well as the works from later periods up to the Perestroika and Glasnost periods (the late 1980s).
RUSS475 Doctor Zhivago in Historical Context
Prerequisite: RUSS361 or comparable language competence.
TR 10:30am - 12 noon Korshunova
Russian heritage students are invited to read in original and discuss in class one of the most unusual novels of 20th century Russian literature, Doctor Zhivago. In 1958, the author of this novel Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition," an event which enraged the Soviet government. Students will follow the main characters of this poetic saga in the most terrible and glorious moments of the Russian history, from the Russian Revolution of 1905 to the beginning of the Great War. Prerequisite: RUSS361 or comparable language competence.
SLAV590 Elementary Ukrainian I
Offered through Penn Language Center
MW 5 - 7pm Staff
SLAV501 Elementary Polish I
Offered through Penn Language Center
Prior language experience required
MW 2:00 - 3:30 pm Gallaher
The Elementary Polish course is designed for students with little or no previous knowledge of the Polish language. You will learn proper pronunciation, build a solid grammar foundation, and develop your vocabulary related to everyday- life situations. While working on authentic materials, which reflect contemporary Poland, you will develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. You are expected to participate in the Polish cultural events during the semester.
SLAV505 Polish for Heritage Speakers I
Offered through Penn Language Center
MW 3:30 - 5 pm Gallaher
This course is designed for students who have spoken Polish at home. This course focuses on mastering your writing and reading skills. You will further develop your grammar and expand your vocabulary based on a variety of sources, such as newspapers, literary texts and articles from the Internet. You will also learn about different aspects of Polish culture though Polish literature and movies. You are expected to participate in the Polish cultural events during the semester.
STUDENTS WHO COMPLETE TWO SEMESTERS OF THIS COURSE SATISFY THE LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
RUSS213 Saints and Devils in Russian Literature and Tradition
All readings and lectures in English
Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes)
Cross-listing: COML213; RELS 218
MW 2 - 3:30pm Verkholantsev
This course is about Russian literature, which is populated with saints and devils, believers and religious rebels, holy men and sinners. In Russia, where people’s frame of mind had been formed by a mix of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and earlier folk beliefs, the quest for faith, spirituality and the meaning of life has invariably been connected with religious matters. How can one find the right path in life? Is humility the way to salvation? Should one live for God or for the people? Does God even exist?
In “Saints and Devils,” we will examine Russian literature concerning the holy and the demonic as representations of good and evil, and we will learn about the historic trends that have filled Russia’s national character with religious and supernatural spirit. In the course of this semester we will talk about ancient cultural traditions, remarkable works of art and the great artists who created them. All readings and films are in English. Our primary focus will be on works by Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Bulgakov.
Introductory and Survey Courses, Conducted in English
RUSS111 Poetics of Screenplay: the Art of Plotting
All readings and lectures in English
Cross-Cultural Analysis
Cross-listing: COML118, CINE111
MW 3:30 - 5pm Todorov
This course studies scriptwriting in a historical, theoretical and artistic perspective. We discuss the rules of drama and dialogue, character development, stage vs. screen-writing, adaptation of non-dramatic works, remaking of plots, author vs. genre theory of cinema, storytelling in silent and sound films, the evolvement of a script in the production process, script doctoring, as well as screenwriting techniques and tools. Coursework involves both analytical and creative tasks.
RUSS135 The Cold War: A Global History
All readings and lectures in English
Humanities and Social Sciences Sector (New Curriculum Only)
Cross-listing: HIST 135
MW 11 - 12pm Nathans
The Cold War was more than a military confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union: it was a global force-field within which the world developed for nearly five decades. This course will explore the Cold War as an international phenomenon, using some of the newest literature covering not only the military and diplomatic history of the period but the social and cultural impact of the confrontation between capitalism and communism. We will explore the origins of the conflict, the formation of opposing blocs, the interplay between periods of tension and détente, and the relationship between the “center” of the conflict in the North Atlantic/European area and the global “periphery,” as well as the remarkable way the Cold War ended. Curiosity about Cold War history and a willingness to explore its drama and complexity are the only prerequisites for this course. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed.
RUSS136 Portraits of Russian Society: Art, Fiction, Drama
All readings and lectures in English
Humanities and Social Sciences Sector (New Curriculum Only)
Cross-listing: HIST 047
TR 3 - 4:30pm Platt
This course covers 19C Russian cultural and social history. Each week-long unit is organized around a single medium-length text (novella, play, memoir) which opens up a single “scene” of social history—birth, death, duel, courtship, tsar, and so on. Each of these main texts is accompanied by a set of supplementary materials—paintings, historical readings, cultural-analytical readings, excerpts from other literary works, etc. The object of the course is to understand the social codes and rituals that informed nineteenth-century Russian life, and to apply this knowledge in interpreting literary texts, other cultural objects, and even historical and social documents (letters, memoranda, etc.). We will attempt to understand social history and literary interpretation as separate disciplines—yet also as disciplines that can inform one another. In short: we will read the social history through the text, and read the text against the social history.
RUSS145 Russian Literature before 1870
All readings and lectures in English
Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes)
Cross-Cultural Analysis (Class of '10 and after) SYLLABUS
TR 3 - 4:30pm Steiner
Major Russian writers in English translation: Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, early Tolstoy, and early Dostoevsky.
RUSS164 Russian and East European Film from the October Revolution
to World War II
All readings and lectures in English
Cross-listing: CINE164
MW 2 - 3:30pm Todorov
This course presents the Russian contribution to world cinema before WWII - nationalization of the film industry in post revolutionary Russia, the creation of institutions of higher education in filmmaking, film theory, experimentation with the cinematic language, and the social and political reflex of cinema. Major themes and issues involve: the invention of montage, Kuleshov effect, the means of visual propaganda and the cinematic component to the communist cultural revolutions, party ideology and practices of social-engineering, cinematic response to the emergence of the totalitarian state. Great filmmaker and theorist in discussion include Vertov, Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Medvedkin and others.
RUSS189 Soviet and Post-Soviet Economy
All readings and lectures in English
Cross-listing: PPE 062
TR 12 - 1:30pm Vekker
The course will cover the development and operation of the Soviet centrally planned economy--one of the grandest social experiments of the 20th century. We will review the mechanisms of plan creation, the push for the collectivization and further development of Soviet agriculture, the role of the Soviet educational system and the performance of labor markets (including forced labor camps--GULags). We will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet system and the causes of its collapse. Privatization, called by some "piratization," will be one of the central issues in our consideration of the transition from central planning to a market economy in the early 1990s. Even though our main focus will be on the Soviet economy and post-Soviet transition, we will occasionally look back in time to the tsarist era and even further back to find evidence to help explain Soviet/Russian economic development.
RUSS195 Representing History
All readings and lectures in English
Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes)
Cross-listing: COML100, ENGL100
TR 12 - 1:30pm Platt
The object of the course is to investigate what happens when historical events and personages are represented in cultural life. We will study plays, novels, paintings, film and television—as well as a bit of history—taking us from Shakespeare to Downton Abbey. Auxillary readings in theory and method will allow us to grapple with the deeper questions of our readings: How and why do modern societies care about the past? What is the difference between a historical novel and a work of historiography? Do different kinds of writing offer different forms of truth about human events? As we will learn, the representation of history has a history of its own, which we can trace from the renaissance up to the present day. Readings will include works by: Shakespeare, Scott, Tolstoy, Hughes, Eisenstein, Márquez, Eco and others. In the course of the semester, students will gain competence in the interpretation of literary texts from a variety of cultures and periods, and also improve their analytical writing skills.
RUSS196 Russian Short Story
All readings and lectures in English
Offered through CLPS
M 5:30 - 8:30pm Todorov
This course studies the development of 19th and 20th century Russian literature through one of its most distinct and highly recognized genres—the short story. The readings include great masters of fiction such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, and others. The course presents the best works of short fiction and situates them in a literary process that contributes to the history of a larger cultural-political context. Students will learn about the historical formation, poetic virtue, and thematic characteristics of major narrative modes such as romanticism, utopia, realism, modernism, socialist realism, and post-modernism. We critique the strategic use of various devices of literary representation such as irony, absurd, satire, grotesque, anec¬dote, etc. Some of the main topics and issues include: culture of the duel; the role of chance; the riddle of death; anatomy of madness; imprisonment and survival; the pathologies of St. Petersburg; terror and homo sovieticus.
Intermediate and Advanced Seminars, Conducted in English
RUSS202 Tolstoy
All readings and lectures in English
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
TR 1:30 - 3pm Vinitsky
This course consists of three parts. The first, “How to read Tolstoy?” deals with Tolstoy’s artistic stimuli, favorite devices, and narrative strategies. The second, “Tolstoy at War,” explores the author’s provocative visions of war, gender, sex, art, social institutions, death, and religion. The emphasis is placed here on the role of a written word in Tolstoy’s search for truth and power. The third and the largest section is a close reading of Tolstoy’s masterwork “War and Peace” (1863-68) – a quintessence of both his artistic method and philosophical insights.
RUSS213 Saints and Devils in Russian Literature and Tradition
All readings and lectures in English
Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes)
Cross-listing: COML213; RELS 218 FRESHMAN SEMINAR
MW 2 - 3:30pm Verkholantsev
This course is about Russian literature, which is populated with saints and devils, believers and religious rebels, holy men and sinners. In Russia, where people’s frame of mind had been formed by a mix of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and earlier folk beliefs, the quest for faith, spirituality and the meaning of life has invariably been connected with religious matters. How can one find the right path in life? Is humility the way to salvation? Should one live for God or for the people? Does God even exist?
In “Saints and Devils,” we will examine Russian literature concerning the holy and the demonic as representations of good and evil, and we will learn about the historic trends that have filled Russia’s national character with religious and supernatural spirit. In the course of this semester we will talk about ancient cultural traditions, remarkable works of art and the great artists who created them. All readings and films are in English. Our primary focus will be on works by Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Bulgakov.
RUSS234 Medieval Russia: Origins of Russian Cultural Identity
All readings and lectures in English
Cross-Cultural Analysis (Class of '10 and after)
Cross-listing: HIST 219; COML235; SLAV517
MW 3:30 - 5pm Verkholantsev
This course offers an overview of the cultural history of Rus’ from its origins to the eighteenth century, a period which laid the foundation for the Russian Empire. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the evolution of the main cultural paradigms of Russian Orthodoxy viewed in a broader European context. Although this course is historical in content, it is also about modern Russia. The legacy of Medieval Rus’ is still referenced, often allegorically, in contemporary social and cultural discourse as the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian societies attempt to reconstruct and reinterpret their histories. In this course, students learn that the study of the medieval cultural and political history explains many aspects of modern Russian society, its culture and mentality.
Intermediate and Advanced Seminars, Conducted in Russian
RUSS413 Twentieth-Century Russian Literature, Film and Culture: Utopia, Revolution and Dissent
Prerequisite: RUSS312 or placement exam
TR 10:30am - 12pm Bourlatskaya
This course continues developing students' advanced skills in Russian, and introduces students to major movements and figures of twentieth-century Russian literature and culture. We will read the works of modern Russian writers, and watch and discuss feature films. The course will introduce the first Soviet films and works of the poets of the Silver Age and beginning of the Soviet era as well as the works from later periods up to the Perestroika and Glasnost periods (the late 1980s).
RUSS475 Doctor Zhivago in Historical Context
Prerequisite: RUSS361 or comparable language competence.
TR 10:30am - 12 noon Korshunova
Russian heritage students are invited to read in original and discuss in class one of the most unusual novels of 20th century Russian literature, Doctor Zhivago. In 1958, the author of this novel Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition," an event which enraged the Soviet government. Students will follow the main characters of this poetic saga in the most terrible and glorious moments of the Russian history, from the Russian Revolution of 1905 to the beginning of the Great War. Prerequisite: RUSS361 or comparable language competence.
RUSS506 Pushkin (formerly RUSS402)
Cross-Cultural Analysis (Class of '10 and After)
Literatures of the World
Prerequisite: RUSS312, RUSS361 or comparable language competence. This course is open to all advanced students of Russian, including students who speak Russian at home.
TR 12 - 1:30pm Steiner
The writer's lyrics, narrative poems, and drama.
Courses for Students Who Speak Russian at Home
RUSS360 Literacy in Russian I
Prior language experience required
MWF 11am -12pm Korshunova
This course is intended for students who have spoken Russian at home and seek to achieve proficiency in the language. Topics will include an intensive introduction to the Russian writing system and grammar, focusing on exciting materials and examples drawn from classic and contemporary Russian culture and social life. Students who complete this course in combination with RUSS361 satisfy the Penn Language Requirement.
RUSS475 Doctor Zhivago in Historical Context
Prerequisite: RUSS361 or comparable language competence.
TR 10:30am - 12 noon Korshunova
Russian heritage students are invited to read in original and discuss in class one of the most unusual novels of 20th century Russian literature, Doctor Zhivago. In 1958, the author of this novel Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition," an event which enraged the Soviet government. Students will follow the main characters of this poetic saga in the most terrible and glorious moments of the Russian history, from the Russian Revolution of 1905 to the beginning of the Great War. Prerequisite: RUSS361 or comparable language competence.
RUSS506 Pushkin (formerly RUSS402)
Cross-Cultural Analysis (Class of '10 and After)
Literatures of the World
Prerequisite: RUSS312, RUSS361 or comparable language competence. This course is open to all advanced students of Russian, including students who speak Russian at home.
TR 12 - 1:30pm Steiner
The writer's lyrics, narrative poems, and drama.
RUSS555 History of Emotions: Russia and the West
Undergraduates need permission
W 12 - 3pm Vinitsky
One of the most eccentric heroes of Yuri Olesha's novel Envy (1927), contemplates a spectacular farewell parade of individual human emotions, rejected by the new, Soviet, collectivist regime: love, envy, friendship, etc. Clearly, the emotions for him have rhetorical, ideological, and historical nature. They can be legitimate and illegitimate, they extinct, like some species of animals and plants, they can be banned, and even violently annihilated by the government (along with the social groups, the collective subjectivity of which they express). To replace them, either naturally or by means of violence, "a new series of states of the human soul" must be installed. The hero believes that this historical process is inevitable, and the only thing the patriot of the old subjectivity can do is to organize a farewell procession of the departed emotional culture, a conspiracy of the doomed feelings.
Yet, can the feelings, related to the "old" culture, be completely destroyed? Can they survive in some new, cryptic, forms? Do feelings have history? How do they influence history? Do "pure," "natural," emotions exist? How do political regimes control the emotional sincerity of their subjects? What is the role of emotions in the formation of certain cultural communities (a family in the age of sensibility; a circle of political conspirators, etc.)? What is the role of literature in cultivating and preserving certain emotional modes (styles, codes, or regimes)? How do people interpret and express their emotions in different periods and in different national traditions?
In this course, we will try to apply these and similar questions to the emotional history of Russian culture considered within theoretical frameworks offered by Western and Russian scholars of emotions (Stearns; Reddy; Rosenwein; Plumper; Steinberg; Veselovskii; Zorin; Todorov, etc.). We will also try to realize (in a way) the dream of Olesha's hero and "resurrect" a number of emotions which played an important role in Russian cultural history. In doing so, each student of our class will be granted a historically delicious emotion she will be responsible for – melancholy, rapture, love, anger, shame, envy, empathy, etc.
RUSS001 Elementary Russian I
Non-CLPS Students need permission from CLPS
MW 6:30 - 9pm Oleinichenko
This course develops elementary skills in reading, speaking, understanding and writing the Russian language. We will work with an exciting range of authentic written materials, the Internet, videos and recordings relating to the dynamic scene of Russia today. At the end of the course students will be comfortable with the Russian alphabet and will be able to read simplified literary, ‘commercial’, and other types of texts (signs, menus, short news articles, short stories) and participate in elementary conversations about daily life (who you are, what you do every day, where you are from, likes and dislikes).
RUSS003 Intermediate Russian I
Prior language study required
Prerequisite: RUSS 002 or placement exam
Non-CLPS Students need permission from CLPS
TR 5 - 7pm Oleinichenko
This course will develop your ability to use the Russian language in the context of typical everyday situations, including university life, family, shopping, entertainment, etc. Role-playing, skits, short readings from literature and the current press, and video clips will be used to help students improve their language skills and their understanding of Russian culture. At the end of the semester you will be able to read and write short texts about your daily schedule and interests, to understand brief newspaper articles, films and short literary texts, and to express your opinions in Russian. In combination with RUSS 004, this course prepares students to satisfy the language competency requirement.
RUSS193 War and Representation
All readings and lectures in English
Cross-listing: COML150, ENGL105
Offered through CLPS
T 5:30 - 8:30pm Staff
Representations of war have been created for as many reasons as wars are fought: To legitimate conflict, to celebrate military glory, to critique brutality, to vilify an enemy, to mobilize popular support, to generate national pride, etc. In this course we will examine a series of representations of war drawn from the literature, film state propaganda, memoirs, visual art, etc. of Russia, Europe and the United States of the twentieth century.
RUSS196 Russian Short Story
All readings and lectures in English
Offered through CLPS
M 5:30 - 8:30pm Todorov
This course studies the development of 19th and 20th century Russian literature through one of its most distinct and highly recognized genres—the short story. The readings include great masters of fiction such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, and others. The course presents the best works of short fiction and situates them in a literary process that contributes to the history of a larger cultural-political context. Students will learn about the historical formation, poetic virtue, and thematic characteristics of major narrative modes such as romanticism, utopia, realism, modernism, socialist realism, and post-modernism. We critique the strategic use of various devices of literary representation such as irony, absurd, satire, grotesque, anec¬dote, etc. Some of the main topics and issues include: culture of the duel; the role of chance; the riddle of death; anatomy of madness; imprisonment and survival; the pathologies of St. Petersburg; terror and homo sovieticus.
RUSS426 Chekhov on Stage and Screen
All readings and lectures in English
Cross-listing: CINE365
Offered through CLPS
T 5:30 - 8:30pm Zubarev
Forms a part of the CLPS Masters in Liberal Arts Program. “What’s so funny, Mr. Chekhov?” This question is often asked by critics and directors who still are puzzled with Chekhov’s definition of his four major plays as comedies. Traditionally, all of them are staged and directed as dramas, melodramas, or tragedies. Should we cry or should we laugh at Chekhovian characters who commit suicide, or are killed, or simply cannot move to a better place of living? Is the laughable synonymous to comedy and the comic? Should any fatal outcome be considered tragic? All these and other questions will be discussed during the course. The course is intended to provide the participants with a concept of dramatic genre that will assist them in approaching Chekhov’s plays as comedies. In addition to reading Chekhov’s works, Russian and western productions and film adaptations of Chekhov’s works will be screened. Among them are, Vanya on 42nd Street with Andre Gregory, and Four Funny Families. Those who are interested will be welcome to perform and/or direct excerpts from Chekhov’s works.
