Graduate Certificate in Russian Literature, Culture and History

The Graduate Certificate in Russian Literature, Culture and History at the University of Pennsylvania is aimed at graduate students with developed interests in Russian topics. The Certificate in Russian Literature, Culture and History aims to prepare students with the skills to research and teach topics in Russian literature, culture and history as a sub¬field con¬tributing to their major fields of interest, providing them with solid foundations in the field and documented evidence of their training and abilities when they seek employment positions. If you would like to discuss a program of graduate study in Russian literature, culture and history or to enroll in the certificate program, please contact the Slavic Department Chair, Assoc. Prof. Kevin M. F. Platt.

Faculty

Core:

Peter Holquist, Associate Professor of History (SAS); history of imperial and early Soviet Russia, with particular attention to diplomatic, military, and institutional history.

Benjamin Nathans, Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History (SAS); Russian Empire, Soviet Union, ethnic and religious relations, law, human rights, dissident movements.

Kevin M. F. Platt, Associate Professor and Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures (SAS); representations of Russian and Soviet history; social and cultural history; Russian poetry and poetics.

Peter Steiner, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures (SAS); literary theory and modern Slavic literature and culture.

Julia Verkholantsev, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures (SAS); Russian, Czech, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish cultural history, early modern and medieval literary and linguistic culture.

Ilya Vinitsky, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures (SAS); eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian poetry and prose, Russian-German and Russian-English literary relations, the history of psychiatry, nineteenth-century intellectual history.

Affiliated:

Christine Poggi, Professor, History of Art (SAS); Modernist and contemporary art, Futurism, abstraction, performance practices.

Monroe Price, Professor, Director of the Center for Global Communications Studies (Annenberg); comparative approaches to the regulation of media; intercon¬nection between distribution of information and the public sphere, especially in transitional societies.

Rudra Sil, Associate Professor of Political Science (SAS); Russian/post-communist politics, the politics of development and transition, and comparative labor relations.

Valery Yakubovich, Associate Professor of Management, Department of Management (Wharton); coordination mechanisms in external and internal labor markets, social networks, the impact of modern telecommunication technologies on the employment relationship, the employment relationship in Russia.

Requirements

Each student applying for the certificate should discuss their program of study with the graduate certificate adviser. To complete the Graduate Certificate, students must fulfill the following requirements over the course of their Ph.D. work:

I) Demonstrate language competency at the fourth-year level, either by completing a course at the 400 level or higher taught in Russian or by placement examination.

II) Whenever possible, certificate students should gain direct experience as teaching assistants in undergraduate courses in Russian literature, culture and history. Teaching assistants, supergraders, and graders for these courses will be mentored by faculty in scholarship and pedagogy. Please contact Prof. Kevin M. F. Platt to join our roster of teaching assistants and graders.

III) Two out of five core graduate courses in Russian literature, culture and history. Ideally, these two courses should include one from the history series (HIST) and one from the literature and culture series (RUSS). Yet the exact combination of courses will vary from student to student, based on their home discipline and educational agenda. (i.e., PhD students in History, focusing on Russian history, should take both courses in the literature and culture series). Courses in the history series are available in a regular schedule of alternation. Courses in the literature and culture series are available as needed as individual or small-group reading courses. They take the form of chronologically organized readings in representative primary and pertinent secondary sources. These required courses include:

HIST 620 Issues and Themes in the Graduate Study of Imperial Russia. Dr. Nathans; Dr. Holquist.
HIST 620 Issues and Themes in the Graduate Study of Soviet History. Dr. Nathans; Dr. Holquist.
RUSS 618 Medieval Slavic Literature and Culture. Dr. Verkholantsev
RUSS 619 Imperial Russian Literature and Culture. Dr. Vinitsky; Dr. Platt.
RUSS 620 Soviet and Post-Soviet Literature and Culture. Dr. Steiner; Dr. Platt.

IV) One additional course (possibly an independent reading course or a third course from the core sequence) at the graduate level, taught by a member of the core or affiliate faculty, engaging in any aspect of study of Russian literature, culture or history.

V) Attendance at two or more of the Slavic Department’s annual Spring Research Symposia over the course of graduate study. These gatherings present cutting-edge research on a variety of interdisciplinary topics. See the Slavic Symposium website for more information. In past years, the Slavic Department has made a practice of including graduate student presentations as keynote lectures at our annual undergraduate research conference, the Slavic Bazaar, and (for more advanced students) as participants in the annual Slavic Spring Research Symposium.

VI) A research paper overseen by a member of the core or affiliated faculty. Normally this paper would develop out of work in a graduate seminar. It might also be a version of a chapter of a dissertation.