Fall 2021

Agnieszka Makles

Open to students with NO prior knowledge of Polish. Students with prior knowledge must take a placement test.

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.

Agnieszka Makles

Prerequisite: 787:102 or placement.

Intermediate Polish I 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

Only open to students with NO prior knowledge of Russian. Students with prior knowledge must take a placement test.

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. It is highly recommended that all 860:101 students also take Elementary Russian Conversation I.

In Summer 2023, our section of Elementary Russian I will meet in the asynchronous remote format, which means that the class does not have regularly scheduled meeting times. Instead, you will complete activities and assignments by the indicated due dates, and attach periodic synchronous (live) class sessions. In addition, you will have flexible opportunities to meet with the instructor and classmates via Zoom.

In Fall 2023, we will offer three sections of Elementary Russian I:

01:860:101:90 will meet in the asynchronous remote format, which means that the class does not have regularly scheduled meeting times. Instead, you will complete activities and assignments by the indicated due dates, and attend periodic synchronous (live) class sessions. In addition, you will have flexible opportunities to meet with the instructor and classmates via Zoom.

01:860:101:01 and 01:860:101:02 will meet in the hybrid format, which means that two class sessions each week will meet in person, and additional work will be completed asynchronously online.

This course helps students improve their pronunciation, intonation, listening, and conversation skills in standard Russian. Students will learn to use a Russian keyboard and to navigate Russian-language websites. Other materials include authentic Russian-language print media and audio-visual materials, such as film clips and cartoons. Only open to students who are currently enrolled in Russian 101.

Professor Cori Anderson

Prerequisite: 01:860:102 or placement. Not for students who have taken 01:860:107.

Intermediate Russian is an intensive intermediate course in spoken and written contemporary standard Russian, intended for students who have completed Russian 102 or placed into the course by exam. This course is not for students who have completed Russian 107 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 the life, culture, history, geography, and traditions of the Russian-speaking world through authentic target-language texts, websites, media (including films and music) and other supplementary materials. It is highly recommended that all 860:201 students also take Intermediate Russian Conversation I.

This course continues helping students improve pronunciation, intonation, listening, and conversation skills in standard Russian. Students will master use of a Russian keyboard and to navigate Russian language websites. Other materials include authentic Russian print media and audio-visual materials, such as television clips and cartoons. Only open to students who are currently enrolled in Russian 201 or 207.

Svetlana Bogomolny

Prerequisite: Placement.Credit not given for both this course and 860:201.

Elementary Russian for Russian Speakers is intended for students who learned to speak Russian in the home or from family members, with little or no formal study or experience with reading or writing Russian. Students will master reading and writing in the Russian alphabet, solidify their knowledge of Russian grammar, including case endings and verbal forms, and increase their vocabulary. This course also introduces students to the culture, literature and history of the Russian-speaking world through authentic target-language texts, websites and media (including films and music) and other supplementary materials.

Professor Emily Van Buskirk

In English. No prerequisites. 

Russia’s twentieth century was punctuated by revolutions that brought radical transformations in culture, politics, and society to this vast country (and beyond).  A tsarist autocracy became a communist, totalitarian state, whose eventual disintegration in 1991 left behind a fragile, capitalist democracy.  In this course we study how Russian literature reflects the ways in which individual experiences and identities were shaped by dramatic (and often catastrophic) experiences such as revolution, collectivization, industrialization, war, terror, and the prison camp system.  We focus on the artistic movements that surrounded the October Revolution of 1917, and the subsequent literature that was suppressed, muted, or twisted by Stalinist policies.  We also read works from the “thaw” period (after Stalin’s death), the perestroika era in (1985-1991), and the early post-Communist years.  We study masterful novels (by Bulgakov, Nabokov, Zamyatin, Pelevin, and Petrushevskaya), poems (by Blok, Mayakovsky, and Akhmatova), short stories, and film.  We place these works in the context of Russian (Soviet) culture and history.  This course fulfills the Core curriculum goal AH p.  All readings and discussion in English.

Svetlana Bogomolny

Prerequisite: 860:202, 860:208, 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 paragraphs in speech and writing. The 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 life in the Russian-speaking world, such as education, employment, leisure and youth culture, through authentic target-language texts, websites, media (including films and music) and other materials. It is highly recommended that all 860:301 also take Advanced Russian Conversation I.

Advanced Russian Conversation is a one-hour course to supplement Russian 301, providing additional work on conversational skills, pronunciation and intonation, and grammatical control in spoken contemporary standard Russian. This course is only open to students who are currently enrolled in Russian 301. This course also provides students with extra opportunities to engage with authentic Russian materials, such as print media and films. 

In English. No prerequisites.

Dr. Arpi Movsesian

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.

In English. No prerequisites.

What do I believe in? What is art? What, then, must we do? Each of these driving 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 novelist who 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, and a Christian who wrote his own version of the Gospels – throughout his long life, Tolstoy fought like few others to define and realize his evolving vision of the place and purpose of human life. This course invites you to respond actively to Tolstoy’s vision at a time of change, uncertainty, and upheaval in our contemporary world – when big questions about the nature of community, conservation, social justice and the good confront each one of us daily. 

In the first half of the semester, we will read some of Tolstoy’s early fiction and his masterpiece Anna Karenina (1875-77). In the second half, we will explore his late short stories and globally influential essays on religion, vegetarianism, capital punishment, inequality, education, and non-violence (among other topics). As part of this exploration, you will be asked to participate in a community engagement project that meets your interests, and to reflect on that experience in direct conversation with Tolstoy’s works. In English. No prerequisites. Fulfills SAS Core goals AH o, p, and WCd.

Professor Cori Anderson

Prerequisite: 01:860:302, or 01:860:306, or placement. May be taken out of sequence with 860:401, 860:402, 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.

In Fall 2021, this course will meet in person.

Professor Chloë Kitzinger

In English. No prerequisites.

The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80), Fyodor Dostoevsky's final novel, is a classic of world literature. It also crystallized a set of ideas about Russian identity that continue to shape the national discourse, including the propaganda surrounding Russia's brutal war of aggression in Ukraine. In this course, we will read The Brothers Karamazov with close attention to its narrative and thematic structure, exploring the hard philosophical, religious, and aesthetic questions the novel asks as well as the intractable political problems with which it presents us as readers now. We will place the novel in context by reading selections from Dostoevsky’s earlier fiction and journalism as well as selections from his lifelong “bookshelf," including the Book of Job, excerpts from saints’ lives, and works of Friedrich Schiller, Honoré de Balzac, Alexander Pushkin, and Nikolai Gogol. Finally, we will discuss echoes of The Brothers Karamazov into the 20th-21st centuries: dialogues with Dostoevsky from writers like Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Albert Camus, Ralph Ellison, Octavia Butler, and Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as contemporary responses to the novel in light of the ongoing war. All readings and discussion in English; no previous knowledge of Russian literature required. Satisfies learning goals for the Russian and Comparative Literature majors and minors and the Russian Major requirement of a 400-level course.