Previous Semesters

Russian Courses

Polish Courses

SAS Core Courses

Need to take a placement test? Click here.

Considering a major or minor in Russian?

860 - Russian

Language Courses

Elementary Russian II
01:860:102:01
Mi E Li
MTTh3, 11:30am-12:50pm, MTh - Scott Hall 116, T - Scott Hall 214

Prerequisite: 860:101 or placement. 

Elementary Russian is an intensive introductory course in spoken and written contemporary standard Russian, intended for students with no prior experience in the language. It develops proficiency in all four skills: speaking, reading, listening, and writing, as well as the basics of Russian grammar. It also introduces students to Russian life, culture, history, geography, and traditions through authentic target-language texts, websites, various media, and other supplementary materials.

Elementary Russian II - hybrid section
01:860:102:02
Dr. Thomas Dyne
TTh6, 4:30pm-5:50pm, Scott Hall 219

Prerequisite: 860:101 or placement. 

This course/section of Elementary Russian is a "hybrid" of traditional and online learning. Students will meet face-to-face for two 80-minute classes per week, and will complete online assignments twice per week. This is a four-credit course, meaning that you are expected to engage with the materials for 6-8 hours outside of class (roughly one hour per day), including your online assignments, written homework, and other study. By working outside of class on aspects of how Russian works, we will have more time in class to focus on using Russian to communicate, implementing what is practiced online. Online assignments will include reading dialogues and grammar explanations, and completing exercises to test reading and listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar, and speaking. Some material will be presented for the first time online, but there will always be time for review and questions in the face-to-face sessions. There will also be written homework, typically due at each face-to-face class session. Elementary Russian is an intensive introductory course in spoken and written contemporary standard Russian, intended for students with no prior experience in the language. It develops proficiency in all four skills: speaking, reading, listening, and writing, as well as the basics of Russian grammar. It also introduces students to Russian life, culture, history, geography, and traditions through authentic target-language texts, websites, various media, and other supplementary materials.

 

Elementary Russian Conversation II
01:860:104:01
Thomas Dyne
W3 11:30am-12:50pm, Scott Hall 205

Elementary Russian Language Lab Intermediate Russian Language Lab is a one-hour course to supplement Russian 102, which utilizes the audiovisual and digital capabilities of the Language Lab on College Avenue. Students will practice pronunciation and intonation, as well as listening and reading comprehension, grammatical control and basic conversational skills in spoken contemporary standard Russian. This course is only open to students who are currently enrolled in Russian 102. This course also introduces students to navigating Russian-language websites, reading Russian print media, and understanding spoken Russian through authentic audio-video materials such as film and television clips and cartoons. This 1-credit course supplements work in the regular 860:102 course. Work on pronunciation, intonation, and comprehension. It is highly recommended that all students in 102 take this course.

 

Intermediate Russian II
01:860:202:01
Cori Anderson
MTTh5 2:50-4:10pm, Scott Hall 202

Prerequisite: 01:860:201 or placement. Not for students who have taken 860:107.

Intermediate Russian is an intensive intermediate course in spoken and written contemporary standard Russian, intended for students who have completed Russian 201 or placed into the course by exam. This course is not for students who have completed Russian 207 or those who speak Russian at home with their family. The course develops proficiency in all four skills: speaking, reading, listening, and writing. It includes a review and expansion of Russian grammar and vocabulary. It deepens students' understanding of Russian life, culture, history, geography, and traditions through authentic target-language texts, websites, media (including films and music) and other supplementary materials. It is highly recommended that students taking 202 also enroll in Second Year Russian Language Lab. Fulfills SAS core goal AH q. 

 

Intermediate Russian Conversation II
01:860:204:01
Cori Anderson
W5, 2:50-4:10pm, AB West Wing 2150

Intermediate Russian Language Lab is a one-hour course to supplement Russian 202, which utilizes the audiovisual and digital capabilities of the Language Lab on College Avenue. Students will continue work on pronunciation and intonation, as well as listening and reading comprehension, conversational skills and grammatical control in spoken contemporary standard Russian. This course is only open to students who are currently enrolled in Russian 202. This course also introduces students to navigating Russian-language websites, reading Russian print media, and understanding spoken Russian through authentic audio-video materials such as television clips and cartoons. This 1-credit course supplements work in the regular 860:202. Work on pronunciation, intonation, and comprehension. It is highly recommended that all 860:202 students take this course.

 

Intermediate Russian for Russian Speakers
01:860:208:01
Svetlana Bogomolny
MTTh3 11:30am-12:50pm, AB West Wing 2150

Prerequisite: 860:207 or placement. Not for students who have taken 860:102.

Intermediate Russian for Russian Speakers is designed for students who learned Russian at home or from family members, and have had some formal study, including Russian 207. This course focuses on improving grammatical control, and expanding active vocabulary for discussing abstract topics. Students will improve their reading skills, through literary and non-literary texts of increasing length and difficulty, and their writing skills, working towards the goal of creating cohesive and organized paragraph-length texts. Students will also increase their knowledge of Russian history, culture, geography and traditions through authentic materials, such as texts, films, music and other supplementary materials. It is highly recommended that students taking 208 also enroll in Second Year Russian Language Lab. Fulfills SAS core goal AH q.

 

Advanced Russian II
01:860:302:01
Svetlana Bogomolny
TTh5 2:50pm-4:10pm, Scott Hall 121

Prerequisite: 860:301 or placement.

This is an advanced course in spoken and written contemporary standard Russian, intended for students who have completed the equivalent of four semesters of college-level Russian, or have placed into the course by exam. The course strengthens grammatical control and develops proficiency in speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Students will learn to summarize, develop narration, and create connected paragraphys in speech and writing. They will also study complex grammatical structures, such as participles and gerunds, and syntactic constructions, such as subordination. They will broaden their vocabulary through the study of word-formation. This course covers many elements of modern Russian life, such as education, employment, leisure and youth culture, through authentic target-language texts, websites, media (including films and music) and other materials.

 

Contemporary Russian Culture: The Thaw
01:860:407:01
Cori Anderson
TTh4 1:10-2:30pm, AB West Wing 1100

Prerequisites: 860:301, 860:306, or placement. May be taken out of sequence with 860:401, 860:403, or 860:404.

Taught primarily in Russian, the course fosters advanced language skills of conversational fluency, listening comprehension, writing and composition, expanded vocabulary, recognition of stylistic registers, and advanced syntax. These skills are practiced while exploring topics in Russian history and culture in the post-Stalin Soviet era. Prerequisite: 01:860:302, or 01:860:306, or placement. 

 

Literature Courses

Love and Death in the Russian Short Story
01:860:322:01
Anastasiya Osipova
TTh4 1:10pm-2:30pm, Scott Hall 202

In English. No prerequisites.

A brilliant counterpart to the expansive Russian novel, the Russian short story has long been praised by connoisseurs and practitioners of the genre. In this course we read both the classics and the hidden gems of the Russian short-story tradition from the 19th century to today. We will focus on the most universal themes of story-writing: love and death. We will also pose the following questions: What is distinctive about the short story form? How do stories "talk to" other stories in a tradition? What narrative twists and complications do authors use to keep readers hooked and spellbound? Since the readings cover most major Russian writers and movements, the course will appeal to those who wish to get an overview of modern Russian literature. All readings and discussion in English. Fulfills SAS core goals AH o, p; WC d.

 

Tolstoy
01:860:331:01
Thomas Dyne
MW5 2:50pm-4:10pm, Hardenbergh Hall A3

In English. No prerequisites.

What do I believe in? What is art? What, then, must we do? Each of these questions is also the title of a work by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), author of the great novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. A master novelist who vigorously denied the value of high art, an army officer who became a radical pacifist, a nobleman who strove to free himself of wealth and privilege, a Christian who wrote his own version of the Gospels – throughout his voluminous writings and long life, Tolstoy fought like few others to define, communicate, and realize his evolving vision of the world, and the place and purpose of human life and death within it. This course invites you to respond to that vision, as we trace the length of Tolstoy’s transformational career as an artist, thinker, and teacher. Readings include Anna Karenina (1875-77); selections from Tolstoy’s short fiction (“Sevastopol in May,” The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and more); and selected letters, articles, and essays. All readings and discussions in English. No prerequisites. Fulfills SAS Core goals AH o, p, and WCd.

 

Nabokov
01:860:340:01
Thomas Dyne
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature (01:195:397:01) and English (01:353:363:02)
MTh3 11:30am-12:50pm, Hardenbergh Hall A6

In English. No prerequisites.

This course explores the world and works of the Russian and American writer Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). As Nabokov taught his students, “great novels are great fairy tales.” We will read his novels with an eye to the spells they cast and how they cast them. Beginning with Nabokov’s Russian-language Berlin period (short stories and one novel, The Luzhin Defense), we’ll go on to a selection of his major English-language novels: Lolita, Pnin, and Pale Fire. We will also read Nabokov’s luminous autobiography, Speak, Memory. Throughout these works, we will trace the threads of a few defining themes: the breathtaking deceptions of nature and of art; the games of poetry, narrative, and chess; aesthetic freedom preserved in the face of tyranny (political and otherwise). What is love, and how does perversion help explain it? What does it mean to be exiled from your home, country, language, or past? How should we read literature, and what can ways of reading tell us in turn about the way we should live? No prerequisites. All readings and discussions in English.

 

Serial Storytelling Across Media
01:860:345:01
Chloë Kitzinger (REELL) / Lauren Goodlad (English)
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature (01:195:345:01) and English (01:359:347:01)
MW4 1:10-2:30pm, Campbell Hall A3

In English. No prerequisites.

This course explores serial narrative as a contemporary mode of storytelling, from the emergence of the serialized novel in nineteenth-century Britain and Russia up through the multimedia serials of our own digital age. Working across centuries, media, and new technologies for delivery, we will investigate the enduring power of this versatile narrative form – in particular, how serial narratives interweave fiction with current events and the shared rhythms of everyday life, and how they address international audiences shaped by cultural, social, and geographic differences. In a contemporary moment marked by anxieties about race, nationality, rising inequality, and looming environmental crisis, we will consider the potential of serial narratives, past as well as present, to bring diverse audiences together. Core texts include Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington (1862-64); Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1875-77), and Season One of Mad Men (AMC, 2007). Occasional critical readings also suggested or assigned. Cross-listed in English, REELL, and Comparative Literature. All readings and discussions in English; no prerequisites. 

 

Gender and Sexuality in Russian Literature
01:860:435:01
Anastasiya Osipova
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature (01:195:480:03) and Women's & Gender Studies (01:988:435:01)
TTh6 4:30-5:50pm, Scott Hall 216

In English. No prerequisites.

In this course we study questions of gender and sexuality in modern Russian literature and culture through close readings of novellas, short stories, poems, films, essays, and memoirs. How have gender and sexuality been constructed in different periods of Russian history? What erotic utopias did radical thinkers propose? How did Soviet ideology build on traditional myths and images of femininity and masculinity? How have gay and lesbian love been represented, given the enduring presence of cultural taboos? The course will move from key (pre-)19th-century predecessors (fairy tales, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy), through the turbulent decades surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution (symbolism and decadence, socialist realism, and various avant-garde movements), and on to contemporary literature with its flowering of feminist writing and performance (Rymbu, Chukhrov). We will broaden our study through encounters with influential theoretical and critical texts, both inside and outside the Russian tradition. All readings and discussion in English.

 

 787 - Polish

Elementary Polish II
01:787:102:01
Wanda Mandecki
MTTh4 1:10-2:30pm, AB East Wing 2200

Prerequisite: 787:101 or placement. 

Elementary Polish is an introductory course intended for students with no or minimal prior experience in the language. Students will learn the Polish sound and spelling system. They will develop proficiency in listening, reading, speaking, and writing. The basic of grammar and core vocabulary are introduced. In addition, the course provides an introduction to Polish culture, including geography, history, literature and practices through authentic texts, maps, websites and other supplementary materials.

 

Intermediate Polish II
01:787:202:01
Wanda Mandecki
MTTh5 2:50-4:10pm, AB East Wing 2200

Prerequisite: 787:201 or placement.

Intermediate Polish is intended for students who have completed Elementary Polish or have placed into the course. Students will continue to develop proficiency in four skills: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Orthography drills reinforce the sound and spelling system. This course will broaden students’ grammatical understanding and vocabulary. Students will read an authentic literary text, view a Polish film, and discuss current events in Poland, which will deepen students' knowledge of Polish history and culture. Fulfills SAS core goal AH q.