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Russian Course Synopses
Advising
info: Courses for current semester and/or next semester The Russian Program offers courses in all levels of Russian language and a range of courses on Russian literature and culture. Unless otherwise noted, literature and culture courses are taught in translation--you do not need to know any Russian for these courses. All Russian Program culture courses taught in English or in Russian satisfy the requirement for a course in Non-Western Cultural Awareness. Russian literature and culture courses also may fulfill:
SUMMER I: LANGUAGE COURSES: Four levels of Russian language, from beginning to advanced: Russian 121, Russian 201, Russian 301, Russian 401 (for placement contact Dr. Ford, cford@sc.edu). Honors section available for 121 (121-501). A distance ed version of RUSS 121 is also now available. CULTURE COURSES: RUSS 319L: NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN RUSSIAN
Prerequisite: RUSS 202 or equivalent. RUSS 598G/LING 505R: STRUCTURE OF RUSSIAN RUSSIAN 598P: RUSSIAN POETRY OF RELATED INTEREST: (gnebavT SeiswavloT qarTuli??) For further information, please contact Dr. Ogden, Russian Program
Director, at ogden@sc.edu, or see our website: COMPLETE LIST OF REGULARLY-OFFERED RUSSIAN COURSES Russian Language Courses RUSS 121: Elementary Russian (4 credit hrs.). This course is the introductory level course for Russian. The most basic features of the language are studied, but emphasis is placed on using knowledge of the structure of Russian to establish the basis for later development of a usable level of ability in reading, listening, speaking, and writing through the use of authentic video, audio, and reading materials. No prerequisites; no previous knowledge of Russian necessary. RUSS 122: Basic Proficiency in Russian (4 credit hrs.; prereq: 121 or satisfactory score on placement test). Through the use of authentic video, audio, and reading materials students are offered the opportunity to develop a usable level of ability in reading, listening, speaking, and writing modern Russian. The course includes some instruction in everyday Russian culture. Successful completion of the exit examination fulfills the foreign language requirement for the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Science and Mathematics. RUSS 201: Intermediate Russian (Prereq: 122 or satisfactory score on placement test). Listening and speaking are stressed in this course. Watch Russian video films, listen to authentic Russian, participate in different classroom activities, have fun, and you will learn to speak enough to get along in Russia as a tourist. RUSS 202: Intermediate Russian (Prereq: 201 or satisfactory score on placement test). Focus on developing reading, listening, speaking and writing skills. Emphasis is on reading and writing. You may also bring materials to class you have always wanted to read and understand! RUSS 301: Russian Conversation (Prereq.: Russ 202 or satisfactory score on placement test). This course continues practice in the four skills, but emphasis is placed on correct, idiomatic oral expression. RUSS 302: Russian Conversation & Composition (Prereq.: Russ 301 or satisfactory score on placement test). Russian spoken and written here. This course continues practice in the four skills, but emphasis is placed on correct written expression. RUSS 315: Intensive Readings in Russian. A reading course for graduate students and non-majors). Students will learn to read Russian texts. Specifically intended to prepare graduate students for the graduate reading exam in Russian; also meant to improve undergraduate reading skills (but cannot be applied toward a Russian major and is not a substitute in the course sequence leading to the major). No prerequisites. RUSS 316: Intensive Readings in Russian. Continued practice reading Russian texts, for graduate students and non-majors. Prerequisite: RUSS 315. RUSS 401: Advanced Russian (Prereq.: Russ 302 or satisfactory score on placement test). Readings in Russian Culture and history; listening and speaking; structure of Russian. RUSS 402: Advanced Russian (Prereq: 401 or satisfactory score on placement test). Acquisition of subtleties of Russian grammar. Increased focus on reading, writing, and discussion.
RUSS 280 : Introduction to Russian Civilization This course is an introduction to the rich and complex culture of Russia. Topics for class meetings and assignments are deliberately interdisciplinary. They range from medieval Russian art to twentieth-century Socialist Realism, from the music of Tchaikovsky to the balladeers of the 1970s, from the poetry of Pushkin to contemporary, post-Soviet writers. Students will be expected to participate in Russian cultural activities and stay aware of contemporary events in Russia. Prerequisites: None. No knowledge of Russian necessary. This course is a prerequisite for the Russian Major.
Must-read literature! This course introduces masterworks of Russian literature by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov, and others. Russia propelled itself onto the map of world literature during the course of the nineteenth century, presenting characters and dramas of universal and enduring significance. Literature, as the best means of relatively free expression within an often reactionary society, became a voice of conscience, dissent, and searing political insight. The literary characters who express these views are uncompromising in their search for truth, and they turn their eyes both outward to the injustices in society and inward to the miracles, horrors, and eternal questions of human existence. Refusing to be bound by constraints of propriety, proportion, or even at times of sanity, these characters are truly rebels, romantics, and visionaries. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English.
From revolutions (1905 and 1917) to gulags, glasnost, and beyond, modern Russian history has been marked by a series of explosive events. This course examines the major upheavals of twentieth-century Russia through a spectacular literary prism. Works under discussion date from the revolutionary period at the turn of the twentieth century and proceed to the flux of post-Soviet Russia; authors include Chekhov, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, and Pelevin. Related films will supplement the readings. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English.
For four centuries, Siberia has been Russia's "Wild East." Much more than a geographic entity, it has been a larger-than-life, romantic, mysterious Russian equivalent of the "Wild West" in America. Our course investigates this Siberian mystique through the prism of Russian literature, film, music, and folklore. Topics include nature and ecology, shamanism and other native traditions, the Russian conquest of Siberia, Siberian exiles from the Decembrists through the Stalin period, Old Believers and religious dissent, Russian North America and the Russian-American Company, the "mad monk" Rasputin and his spell, Siberian regionalism in the nineteenth century and today, and Siberia's role within the Russian Federation. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English; films are subtitled.
The modernist period in Russia was a time of intense experimentation: cultural, sexual, and political. This course examines how Russian modernist writers portrayed the interaction of love, sex, and politics between 1900 and 1930. We will turn first to the various influences on these writers, including Western influences such as Freud and Nietzsche and native Russian ones such as the philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev. Topics under consideration include redefinitions of sexuality (Russia's first gay novel, feminist novels); the Symbolist belief in the connection between life and art, particularly in the area of love (real-life love triangles and their reflections in literature); the interaction of love and politics (texts describing love during the new regime); and love in exile (Tsvetaeva, Berberova). Related films will supplement the reading. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English translation.
Learn about medieval chant, Russian princesses, and intriguing folklore! This course will introduce students to the culture of medieval Russia through its written records, folklore, icons, and religious chant. Texts will include excerpts from the Russian Primary Chronicle, sermons and saints' lives, Orthodox liturgy, and folktales and stories. We will also examine the continuing importance of medieval tradition in later periods (reworkings of medieval themes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, literature, and film). Prerequisites: None. All readings in English.
This course is a survey of the work of writers who have played a major role in Russian literature from the 1980s to the present, either as new writers or as reclaimed ones (formerly in exile or forbidden during the latter part of the twentieth century). Particular ideas under discussion include the recovery of the past; reworkings of previous literary models and the creation of new ones; and the search for the writer's new role in a rapidly changing Russia. We will also explore the development in the 1990s of a "postmodern" Russian culture, as we examine such themes as nationalism and exile, aesthetics, and consumerism. Writers under discussion include Tolstaia, Erofeev, Petrushevskaia, Makanin, Pelevin, and Ulitskaya.
This course examines the idea of the “voice of the people” in literature. How is it portrayed in canonical texts? What defines popular literature? Who speaks for “the people”? We’ll consider the origins and unique features of national literary traditions; how “the folk” (das Volk, le peuple, narod) is defined; intersections of folklore and literature; theories of popular culture and pop literature. Literary examples, particularly ones from Russia, will provide an important test case for ideas of the popular.
This course focuses on both classic treatments of Stalinist terror and recent attempts to make sense of the Stalinist legacy. Along with a number of devastating personal accounts in both writing and film of the purges, show trials, and labor camps, we investigate darkly satirical portrayals of "normal" life in the 1920s and 1930s and bizarrely happy musicals from the height of the terror. Throughout the course we will ask what motivated these writers and filmmakers? How did they find images and language to depict the sinister absurdity of life under Stalin? What do they reveal about what happens to people's emotions, interactions, and outlook when living in a labor camp, or when living under a totalitarian regime? What can words capture that film cannot, and vice versa? Prerequisites: None. All readings in English; films are subtitled.
This course is designed for students of varying backgrounds in Russian language and culture, including those who have never studied Russian or linguistics. Topics under discussion include the origins of the Russian language and its development in the writings of Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky; sociolinguistic issues, such as the way Russians address one another, make requests, and apologize; and the differences between Russian and American modes of communication. Students will gain insight into Russian culture, the interactions of Russian people with one another and with the West, and the way these phenomena are expressed through language. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English.
The revolutionary techniques of Russian filmmakers have had a major impact on the development of world cinema. This course will consider classic works by Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky) and Dziga Vertov (Man with the Movie Camera); Soviet epics (Andrei Rublëv, Rasputin); and experiments of the 1980s and post-Communist cinema (Repentance, Little Vera, Burnt by the Sun). We will place Russian film in the context of the historical events, cultural debates, and political intrigues of twentieth-century Russia. Reading for the course will draw on the theoretical writings of Russian filmmakers, the film criticism of the Russian formalist critics, and recent scholarly studies. In-class discussion will focus on the films themselves, the background reading, and issues raised during student presentations. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English; films are subtitled.
This course will provide an introduction to some of the basic concepts that have occupied Russian theorists and that in many cases have become fundamental to literary theory worldwide. These include such ideas as art as "infection"; art as "device"; defamiliarization; laughter and carnival; the chronotope; monologic vs. dialogic discourse; primary and secondary modeling systems. Our primary concern will be with literary analysis, but we will also consider how Russian theory has contributed to and been enriched by contact with other fields, including the study of folklore, linguistics, history, and film. We will trace the continuities (and forcible breaks) of literary theory in the Soviet Union and will consider the cultural context in which these writers worked. We will also question how formalism, structuralism, and semiotics in the Soviet Union were different from their counterparts in the West.
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