Winter 2021 Class Schedule
Winter 2021 class Schedule
Winter 2021 course descriptions
POLISH 108-2 – Elementary Polish
Slavic 108-2 is the second part in a three-quarter sequence designed to introduce students to Polish language and culture. We will continue to learn the basic grammar of Polish, building on the material acquired in first quarter. Our focus will be on speaking, reading, writing, and listening.
POLISH 208-2 – Intermediate Polish: Language and Culture
In Winter Quarter of Second Year Polish, the students expand their speaking, reading and writing skills by building on grammar and vocabulary. As a complement to the linguistic side of the course, the students will gain a greater familiarity with Polish history and culture through varied means including readings of literary works, articles from contemporary Polish newspapers and movies.
RUSSIAN 101-2 – Elementary Russian
Welcome to continuing Elementary Russian! This is the second part in a three-quarter sequence designed to introduce students to the Russian language and contemporary Russian culture. Students will continue to develop the fundamentals of speaking, listening, writing, and reading through a variety of communicative and content-based activities. Emphasis will be placed on practical communication so that students should be able to function at a basic level in authentic situations by the end of the year.
RUSSIAN 102-2 – Intermediate Russian
Добро пожаловать! Welcome back to Intermediate Russian! This is the second part in a three-quarter sequence focusing on the Russian language and contemporary Russian culture. Students continue to develop the skills of speaking, listening, writing, and reading through a variety of communicative and content-based activities. Emphasis will be placed on practical communication so that students should be able to function in many authentic situations by the end of the year.
RUSSIAN 303-2 – Advanced Russian Language & Culture
This course is the second part of a three-quarter sequence focusing on communication, cultural understanding, connections of Russian language and culture with other disciplines (such as history and sociology), and comparisons of Russian and American culture and language. It is a combined third- and fourth-year all skills language and culture class. This course includes topics in grammar, a focus on developing discussion and conversational skills and writing, and readings from a range of contemporary Russian writers. It is taught in Russian and is intended for students who have completed the SLAVIC 302 series and/or the SLAVIC 102 series.
SLAVIC 105-6 – First-Year Seminar
Rock and punk music played a substantial yet still underappreciated role in subverting the power of the communist system among the youth cultures of the Eastern bloc countries. Poland was no exception, as these two types of music became remarkable artistic and subversive cultural realms during the communist period in Poland. Even though rock was repeatedly attacked, banned, and relegated to illegal culture status it became an integral part of the Polish urban landscape under the communist rule. The rock and punk bands provided a (loud) voice and a space of freedom for the younger generations who were searching for their identity within the controlling and ominous communist state. In this class we will look at the phenomenon of massive popularity of Western rock and punk music along with the exceptional fame of music created by Polish artists as well as its significance in the Polish urban culture under communism.
SLAVIC 210-1 – Introduction to Russian Literature
Before Tolstoy and Dostoevsky came three canonical nineteenth-century Russian writers: Pushkin, Gogol, and Lermontov. In this early era, Russia was heavily in dialogue with Western European culture, which introduced Russia to a new genre of writing—the novel. Steeped in poetry, the gothic, and the Romantic, these writers' groundbreaking works resounded through the generations that followed. We explore the history, culture, and society that produced these long-studied classics of Russian literature.
SLAVIC 211-2 – 20th-Century Russian Literature: Gender and Revolution in Soviet Russian Culture
(Co-listed with CLS 202-0-20)
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was, among other things, a grand experiment in family, sex and marriage. How did the backwards Russia of the early twentieth century become the most advanced nation in the world in gender and family legislation by the 1920's? How did Soviet government attempt to translate Marxist theories of the “woman question” into social practice? What happened when revolutionary visions were replaced by the "Utopia in Power" of Joseph Stalin? What becomes of utopian dreams in first a post-utopian and then a post-Soviet reality? How did the state regulate gender representation in the arts? And how did literature and the arts shape, resist or reflect key transformations in Soviet society as the century progressed? We will examine both state-sanctioned and oppositional works, including poetry, short stories, novellas, novels, memoirs, film, and the visual arts as we explore these questions.
SLAVIC 222 – Slavic Civilizations: The Balkans
(Co-listed with LING 222)
Students will examine and analyze political and identity issues in terms of the languages and dialects of the Balkans (particularly Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Romani, and Serbian). Topics include: linguistic nationalism, language laws, rights of minority languages, language discrimination, language and religion, alphabet issues, language and dialect as ethnic identity, standard language, and others. We explore key issues that have plagued the Balkans and continue to shape its future. SLAVIC 222 and LING 222 both offer Area IV, Historical Studies, and Area V, Ethics and Values.
SLAVIC 260-0 – Economics & the Humanities: Understanding Choice
(Co-listed with HUM 260)
This course offers a cross-disciplinary approach to the concept of alternatives and choices. At any given moment, how many alternatives are possible? Is there really such a thing as chance or choice? On what basis do we choose? How does our understanding of the past affect the future? Can we predict the future? Professor Gary Saul Morson, a specialist in literature, and Professor Morton Schapiro, a labor economist specializing in the economics of higher education, will themselves offer alternative approaches to these questions based on the presuppositions of their disciplines.
SLAVIC 361 - Survey of 20th Century Russian Poetry
Introduction to the major currents of Russian 20th-century lyric poetry and basic techniques for its study: Tsvetaeva, Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Blok, Akhmatova, Mandelshtam, Pasternak, Brodsky.
SLAVIC 393-0 – Prague: City of Cultures, City of Conflict
(Co-listed with German 346) This course examines Prague, one of the most beautiful and culturally vibrant cities in Europe. Its magnificent streets and buildings both conceal and reveal a past full of multiethnic coexistence and interethnic conflict. We explore the development over the past two centuries from a multicultural, democratic city to a homogeneous, communist one, and ultimately to its present open and capitalist incarnation. We will read a range of literary and historical sources, including the story of the Golem and writings by Milan Kundera, Václav Havel, and Franz Kafka, and will study Prague’s architecture and watch several films set on its streets.
SLAVIC 436 – Studies in 19th-Century Russian Literature
Content varies. Recent offerings include the role of translation in Russian culture, the Poema, The Brothers Karamazov. May be repeated for credit with change of topic.
SLAVIC 438 – Studies in 20th-Century Russian Literature
Content varies. Winter 2021: Gender and Revolution in Soviet Russia. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was, among other things, a grand experiment in family, sex, and marriage. How did the backwards Russia of the early twentieth century become the most advanced nation in the world in gender and family legislation by the 1920's? What happened as the Soviet government attempted to translate Marxist theories of the family into social practice? What happened when revolutionary visions were replaced by the "Utopia in Power" of Joseph Stalin? What becomes of utopian dreams in first a post-utopian and then a post-Soviet reality? How did the state regulate gender representation in the arts? And how did literature and the arts shape, resist or reflect key transformations in Soviet society as the century progressed? We will examine both state-sanctioned and oppositional works, including poetry, short stories, novellas, novels, memoirs, film, and the visual arts as we explore these questions. Writers to be covered include: Akhmatova, Kollontai, Gladkov, Chukovskaia, Ginzburg, Solzhenitsyn, Alexievich, Petrushevskaia. Most works will be available on Canvas, including Russian texts or links. May be repeated for credit with change of topic.