Russian
Language Courses
Advanced
Russian Language
Courses
for Russian-Speaking Students
Introductory
and Survey Courses
Intermediate
and Seminar Courses
Graduate
Level Courses
Slavic
Courses
Eastern
European
CGS
Courses
RUSS002
Intermediate Russian II
Prior language requirement required
MWF 10-11AM, TR 10:30-11:30AM SHARDAKOVA M
MTWRF 3- 4PM OLEINICHENKO L
A continuation of RUSS 001. Further work developing basic language skills using exciting authentic materials about life in present-day Russia. At the conclusion of the course, students will be prepared to negotiate most basic communication needs in Russia (getting around town, ordering a meal, buying goods and services, polite conversation about topics of interest) and to comprehend most texts and spoken material at a basic level.
RUSS004
Intermediate Russian II
Prior language requirement required. Prerequisite(s):
RUSS 003 or placement exam.
MTWR 12-1PM SHARDAKOVA M
MTWR 5-6PM OLEINICHENKO L
Continuation of RUSS 003. This course will further develop your ability to use the Russian language in the context of everyday situations (including relationships, travel and geography, leisure activities) and also through reading and discussion of elementary facts about Russian history, excerpts from classic literature and the contemporary press, film excerpts. At the end of the course you will be able to negotiate most daily situations, to comprehend most spoken and written Russian, to state and defend your point of view. Successful completion of the course prepares students to satisfy the language competency requirement.
RUSS312
Advanced Conv/Composition II
Prior language experience required. Prerequisite:
RUSS311
MWF 1-2PM SHARDAKOVA M
Primary emphasis on speaking, writing, and listening. Development of advanced conversational skills needed to carry a discussion or to deliver a complex narrative. This course will be based on a wide variety of topics from everyday life to the discussion of political and cultural events. Russian culture and history surveyed briefly. Materials include Russian TV broadcast, newspapers, Internet, selected short stories by contemporary Russian writers. Offered each spring.
RUSS361 Literacy in Russian II
MWF 9-10AM KORSHUNOVA S
Prior language experience required. RUSS 361 is for students who have (i) successfully completed RUSS 360, (ii) speak Russian more or less fluently and have some basic reading and writing skills, or (iii) spent no more than six years in Russian school and wish to improve their reading and writing skills. Fulfulls Language Requirement.
Courses for Russian-Speaking Students
RUSS402
Pushkin
Distribution III: Arts & Letters. Literatures of the World
Sector.
Prerequisite(s): RUSS 312 or placement test. Crosslisted with COLL220
TR 10:30AM - 12PM STEINER
The writer's lyrics, narrative poems, and drama.
RUSS416
Business and Democracy in the New Russia
Prerequisite(s): RUSS 312 or placement test.
Conducted in Russian.
TR 3 - 4:30 PM BOURLATSKAYA
This course is designed to familiarize students with contemporary Russian society, its historical background and its present political and economic structure, and to develop functional proficiency in speaking, writing, reading and listening. The course will focus on a variety of issues central to Russian society since the fall of the Soviet Union, including changing values, political parties and movements, the business climate and businessmen, various nationalities within Russia, women in the family and at work. This course is conducted in Russian and intended for students who do not speak Russian at home but have completed at least six semesters (or the equivalent) of Russian. Course materials will include interviews, articles, essays by leading Russian journalists and statesmen, and contemporary Russian movies.
RUSS464
Russian Humor
Class prerequisites: Russian 360
or at least five years of Russian formal schooling, or consent
of instructor). Conducted in Russian. Distribution Requirement
pending.
TR 10:30AM-12PM KORSHUNOVA S
One of the most fascinating and most difficult things for a student of foreign culture is to understand "national humor," as it is presented in various stories and films, jokes and shows. To an extent, humor is a gateway to national mentality. In the present course we will examine Russian cultural history, from the sixteenth through the twenty first centuries, through the vehicle of Russian humor. How does Russian humor depend on religion and history? What was considered funny in various cultural trends? What are the peculiarities of Russian humorist tradition? Students will be familiarized with different Russian theories of humor (Bakhtin, Likhachev, Panchenko, Tynianov, etc.) and, of course, with a variety of works by Russian "kings of humor" - Pushkin and Gogol, Chekhov and Zoshchenko, Bulgakov and Il'f and Petrov, Erofeev and Kibirov, etc. Class lectures will be supplemented by frequent video and musical presentations ranging from contemporary cartoons to "high" comedies and from comic songs (Chaliapin's "Flee") to Shostakovich's music (The Nose). This class is designed for Russian heritage learners and will be conducted in Russian.
Introductory and Survey Courses
RUSS049
(HIST 049) The Soviet Century:1917-1991
Distribution II: May be counted as a Distributional course in
History & Tradition. Nathans. Crosslisted with HIST049.
Recitation sections: 402-409
MW 11AM-12NOON HOLQUIST P
Out of an obscure, backward empire, the Soviet Union emerged to become the great political laboratory of the twentieth century. This course will trace the roots of the world's first socialist society and its attempts to recast human relations and human nature itself. Topics include the origins of the Revolution of 1917, the role of ideology in state policy and everyday life, the Soviet Union as the center of world communism, the challenge of ethnic diversity, and the reasons for the USSR's sudden implosion less than a decade ago. Focusing on politics, society, culture, and their interaction, we will examine the rulers (from Lenin to Gorbachev) as well as the ruled (peasants, workers, and intellectuals; Russians and non-Russians). The course will feature discussions of selected texts, including primary sources in translation.
RUSS107
Russian Outside the Classroom I
Previous language experience required
TBA, please stand by for updates. YAKUBOVA
The goal of RUSS 107 is to provide students of Russian language and Russian heritage speakers with formalized opportunities to improve their conversation and comprehension skills while experiencing various aspects of Slavic culture. There will be no weekly assignments or readings, but all students will be expected to contribute at a level equivalent to their Russian-speaking abilities both in class and on the newsletter final project. The course consists of attending 2 out of 3 hrs/week of lunch-time conversation (W/Th 12-1:30) in addition to a tea-drinking hour in the department (F 4-5pm), film viewings, and a single outside cultural event (e.g., concert of Russian music at the Kimmel Center).
RUSS108
Russian Outside the Classroom II
Previous language experience required ,
instructor permission requred
TBA, please stand by for updates. YAKUBOVA
RUSS
125 The Adultery Novel and Film Adaptation
Cross-list: COML 127; GSOC 125; CINE 125.
Gen Req III: in Arts & Letters.
TR10:30AM - 12PM PLATT
The course examines a series of 19C and 20C novels (and a few short stories) about adultery, film adaptations of several of these novels, and several adultery films in their own right. Our reading will teach us about novelistic traditions of the period in question, about the relationship of Russian literature to the European models to which it responded. about adaptation and the implications of filmic vs. literary representation. Course readings include: Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and other works. Films include: Frears' Dangerous Liaisons, Vadim's Dangerous Liaisons, Nichols' The Graduate, Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes, and others. Students will apply various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its aesthetic, social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution, Freudian/ Psychoanalytic interpretations of family life and transgressive sexuality, and Feminist work on the construction of gender.
RUSS
136 Portraits of Russian Society: Art, Fiction, Drama
Cross-list: HIST 047
Req pending
TR12 - 1:30PM 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. 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.
RUSS155
Russian Literature after 1870
All readings and lectures in English
Gen Req III: Arts & Letters
TR 3-4:30PM STEINER P
Major Russian writers in English translation: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pasternak, Babel, Solzhenitsyn, and others.
RUSS165
Russian and East European Film
All readings and lectures in English
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
Cross-listed with CINE265.401 and SLAV165
MW 2-3:30PM TODOROV V
The
purpose of this course is to present the Russian and East European
contribution to world cinema in terms of film theory, experimentation
with the cinematic language, and social and political reflex.
We discuss major themes and issues such as: the invention of
montage, 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 in Russia and its subsequent installation
in Eastern Europe after World War II; repression, resistance
and conformity under such a system; legal and illegal desires;
the nature of the authoritarian personality, the mind and the
body of the homo sovieticos; sexual
and political transgression; treason and disgrace; public degradation
and individual redemption; the profane and the sublime ends
of human suffering and humiliation; the unmasking of the official
"truth" as a general lie.
Intermediate and Seminar Courses
RUSS201
Dostoevsky
All readings and lectures in English
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
Benjamin Franklin Seminars
MW 3:30-5PM VINITSKY I
This course explores Dostoevsky's opus and his legacy to 20th century writers, principally Franz Kafka, William Faulkner and Saul Bellow.
RUSS213
Saints and Devils in Russian Literature
All readings and lectures in English
Distribution req pending
Cross-listed with COML213
TR 1:30-3PM VERKHOLANTSEV
Despite the title, Russian 213 is not simply about saints and devils in Russian culture. Our primary goal is to trace cultural continuity and understand the dependence of the 19th and 20th century Russian literature and art on cultural paradigms and categories of pre-modern Russia. In “Saints and Devils,” we will examine the literary images of sanctity and devilment in works from various periods and we will learn about the historic trends that have filled Russia’s national character with religious and supernatural spirit. The two main themes that will occupy us will be the perceptions of the demonic and the holy.
RUSS234
Medieval Russia: Origins of Russian
Cultural Identity
All readings and lectures in
English
Distribution II: History & Tradition
Cross-listed with HIST219, SLAV517, and COML235
TR 4:30-6PM VERKHOLANTSEV J
Russian 234 offers an overview of the literary and cultural history of Medieval Rus' from its origins through the Late Middle Ages, a period which laid the foundation for the emergence of the Russian Empire. Three modern-day nation-states – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus – share and dispute the cultural heritage of Medieval Rus’, and their political relationships even today revolve around questions of national and cultural identity. The focus of the course will be on the Kievan and Muscovite traditions but we will also note the differences (and their causes) of the Ukrainian and Belarusian cultural histories. The course takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the evolution of the main cultural paradigms of Russian Orthodoxy viewed in a broader European context. Students will explore the worldview of medieval Orthodox Slavs by delving into such topics as religion, spirituality, art, literature, education, music, ritual and popular culture.
The legacy of the Rus’ Middle Ages has a continuing cultural influence in modern Russia. This legacy is still referenced, often allegorically, in contemporary social and cultural discourse as the society attempts to reconstruct and reinterpret its history. Similarly, the study of the medieval cultural history of Rus’ explains many aspects of modern Russian society, and, in particular, the roots of its Imperial political mentality. Those interested in the intellectual and cultural history of Russia, and Eastern Europe in general, will find that this course greatly enhances their understanding of the region and its people.
RUSS275
Russian History in Film
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
Cross-listed with CINE265.402
MW 3:30-5PM TODOROV V
This course draws on the fictional, drama and cinematic representation of the Russian history based on Russian as well as non Russian sources and interpretations. The analysis targets major modes of imagining, such as narrating, showing and reenacting historical events, personae and epochs justified by different, historically mutating ideological postulates and forms of national self-consciousness. Common stereotypes of picturing Russia from "foreign" perspectives draw special attention. The discussion involves the following themes and outstanding figures: the mighty autocrats Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great; the tragic ruler Boris Godunov; the brazen rebel and royal impostor Pugachov; the notorious Rasputin, his uncanny powers, sex-appeal, and court machinations; Lenin and the October Revolution; images of war; the times of construction and the times of collapse of the Soviet Colossus.
RUSS299
Independent Study
See dept. for section numbers, permission
needed from instructor
RUSS399
Supervised Work
See Dept. for section numbers
Permission needed from instructor
RUSS544
Russian Realism in European Context
No prior language experience required.
Criss-listed: COML 541.
W 12PM-3PM VINITSKY I
In this class we will examine works of major Russian Realist writers, painters, and composers considering them within Western ideological contexts of the 1850-1880s: positivism, materialism, behaviorism, spiritualism, etc. We will focus on Russian Realists’ ideological and aesthetic struggle against Romantic values and on an unpredicted result of this struggle -- a final “spectralization” of social and political realities they claimed to “mirror” in their works. Paradoxically, Russian Realism contributed to the creation of the image of Russia as a house haunted by numerous apparitions: nihilism and revolution, afflicted peasants and perfidious Jews, secret societies and religious sects. The “spectropoetics” (Derrida) of Russian Realism will be examined through works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Leskov, Chekhov, as well as paintings by Ilya Repin and operas by Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. Requirements include one oral presentation, mid-term theoretical survey essay, and a final paper. Relevant theories include M.H. Abrams, Brookes, Levine, Greenblatt, Castle, and Derrida.
SLAV165
Russian and East European Film
All readings and lectures in English
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
Cross-listed with FILM265.401 and RUSS165
SLAV399 Independent Study
SLAV502
Elementary Polish II
Offered through the Penn Language
Center
TR 6:30-8:30PM WARCHOL K
SLAV517
Medieval Russia: Origins of Russian
Cultural Identity
All readings and lectures in
English
Cross-listed with HIST219, RUSS234, and COML235
TR 4:30-6PM VERKHOLANTSEV J
SLAV531
Elementary Czech II
Offered through Penn Language
Center
TR 6:30-8:45PM STEJSKAL
J
SLAV591 Elementary Ukrainian II
Offered through Penn Language Center
MR 5-7PM RUDNYTZKY
SLAV593 Intermediate
Ukrainian II
Offered through Penn Language Center
MR 7-8:30PM RUDNYTZKY
EEUR-122 Elementayr Hungarian II
TR 6-8PM MIZSEI A
EEUR-124 Intermediate Hungarian II
TR 4:30-6PM MIZSEI
A
EEUR-126 Advanced Hungarian II
TBA MIZSEI A
RUSS002 Elementary Russian II
Non-CGS Students need permission from CGS
MW 6:30-9PM OLEINICHENKO
L
RUSS004 Intermediate Russian II
TR 5-7PM OLEINICHENKO L
RUSS430 Ethnic Conflict
in Film
Distribution II: History &
Tradition
Cross-listed with CINE365.601
M 5:30-8:30PM TODOROV V
This course studies the cinematic representation of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, nationalistic doctrines, and genocidal policies. The focus is on the violent developments that took place in Russia and on the Balkans after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and were conditioned by the new geopolitical dynamics that the fall of communism had already created. We study media broadcasts, documentaries, feature films representing the Eastern, as well as the Western perspective. The films include masterpieces such as “Time of the Gypsies”, "Underground", "Prisoner of the Mountains", "Before the Rain", "Behind Enemy Lines", and others.
RUSS432
Fate and Chance in Literature and Film
Distribution III: Arts & Letters.
All readings and lectures in English.
Cross-listed with CINE365.602 and COML196.
T 5:30-8:30PM ZUBAREV V
Be a winner - manage all your situations and don't let a pure chance to govern your life! With a chain of literary characters as a vivid illustration, you will explore a mysterious world of fate and chance and learn about various interpretations of the forces ruling human life. Slavic and Greek mythology, as well as folklore and modern literary works of Russian and Western writers and cinematographers will assist you in your journey to the world of supernatural. Screenings will include Zeffirelli's and Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet.
