Winter 2022 Class Schedule
- Winter 2022 Class Schedule
- Winter 2022 Course Descriptions
- To view Winter 2022 course flyers click here
Winter 2022 class Schedule
Winter 2022 course descriptions
POLISH 108-2 – Elementary Polish
This course is the second in a three-quarter sequence introducing students to Polish language and contemporary culture. We will learn the fundamentals of Polish grammar, and students progress in speaking, listening, writing, and reading through a variety of communicative, content-based activities in a proficiency-orientated curriculum. Emphasis is placed on practical communication so that students should be able to function at a basic level in several authentic situations by the end of the year.
RUSSIAN 101-2 – Elementary Russian
Welcome to continuing Elementary Russian! Elementary Russian 101-2 is the second part in a three-quarter sequence designed to introduce students to the Russian language and contemporary Russian culture. In this course, 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 several authentic situations by the end of the year.
RUSSIAN 102-2 – Intermediate Russian
This is the second part in a three-quarter sequence focusing on the Russian language and contemporary Russian culture. Students will continue to develop speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills through a variety of communicative and content-based activities. Emphasis will be placed on practical communication.
RUSSIAN 302-2 – Advanced Russian in Conversations
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: Sex in the Slavic World
In recent years, gender and sexuality have become hot topics in Eastern Europe. In 2013, for example, "gender" was Poland's word of the year with the country's leading bishops claiming that "Gender ‘ideology' [is] worse than Nazism and Communism." In the same year, Russian leaders passed the so-called "gay propaganda law" stifling Russians' access to LGBTQ+ affirming education and support services. What informs this hostility toward issues of gender and sexuality in the Slavic world? How and why have sexual minorities become targets of political attacks? And how have attitudes toward gender and sexuality changed over time? This course answers these questions by tracing the history and culture of sexuality in Eastern Europe from the 19th century to the present. We will cover such topics as fin de siècle culture and sexual decadence; the medicalization of sexuality; prostitution and sex-trafficking; sex reform and sexology; the World Wars and sexuality; gender and sexuality under state socialism, and representations of queerness in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. As a First-Year Seminar, this course will help students further develop critical thinking and writing skills and familiarize them with research methods necessary for writing college-level papers.
SLAVIC 211-1 – 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? 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, literary journalism, film, and the visual arts as we explore these questions. All readings in English. Writers to be covered will include: Akhmatova, Kollontai, Gladkov, Chukovskaia, Solzhenitsyn, Alexievich, Petrushevskaia. Most works will be available on Canvas.
SLAVIC 222-0 – Language, Politics, and Identity
In LING 222/SLAVIC 222 Language, Politics, and Identity (co-listed classes) 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 to be covered 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. This course will introduce the student to some of the key issues that have plagued the Balkans in the past and continue to shape its future. This course fulfills either an Area IV, Historical Studies, Distribution Requirement or Area V, Ethics and Values, Distribution Requirement, students may choose with Distribution Requirement).
SLAVIC 260-0 – Economics & the Humanities: Understanding Choice
(Co-listed with HUM 260)
This course offers a cross-disciplinary approach to our understanding of alternatives, choice, and dialogue. Is there really such a thing as chance or choice? On what basis do we choose? How well can we predict the future? And how might we foster meaningful dialogue across the disciplines and among individuals? Professor Gary Saul Morson, a specialist in literature, and Professor Morton Schapiro, President of Northwestern and a labor economist specializing in the economics of higher education, will offer alternative approaches to these questions based on the presuppositions of their respective disciplines. If you want to dig into topics and questions like uncertainty, prediction, modelling, and judgment, this class is the perfect complement.
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. The city's magnificent streets and buildings both conceal and reveal a past full of multi ethnic coexistence and inter ethnic conflict. The course aims to understand the development of Prague 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. We will also study the architecture of the city and watch films set on its streets.
SLAVIC 405-0 - Russian Teaching Methodology
This course is for students interested in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Pedagogy, Digital Humanities vis-à-vis language teaching, teaching assistantships, professional education, and generally those interested in working with languages in academia. Slavic 405 is intended to introduce students to the major trends, theories, and scholarship of Applied Linguistics and SLA, as particularly addresses the complexities of teaching Russian (and upon interest, other Slavic languages) with respect to heritage and non-heritage language learners. We also explore some tools in Digital Humanities (DH) and look at the growing trend of language learning with MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) and hybrid or blended teaching. The seminar will be a "hands-on" course, requiring the active participation of all attending. Students will learn how to work with and apply to language teaching the more popular forms of technology often used in language, literature, and culture teaching, including Canvas, Power Point, and also DH tools such as Voyant, Omeka, and others.
SLAVIC 436 – Studies in 19th-Century Russian Literature: 19th Century Prose
We will study canonical literary texts that pose questions about Russia and modernity, analyzing how the modern West has been depicted in the Russian canon and how artists have imagined Russia's place in the modern world.
SLAVIC 438 – Studies in 20th-Century Russian Literature
This advanced graduate seminar will explore Late and Post-Soviet and Russian Prose from mid-20th to 21 cent., with emphasis on Postmodernist works in the context of social and political issues of the era. Readings are in Russian (or in both Russian and English translation where available) and include major works and short stories by Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov, Andrei Siniavsky, Mamleev, Pelevin, Sorokin, Shargunov, and others.