Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Interdisciplinary approach to European art, material culture, and/or literature in the modern period with attention to the global dimensions of cultural formation. May be repeated for credit when a different topic is taught. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Russia’s Long 20^th Century: Culture and the Revolution

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The 19^th and 20^th centuries represent one of the most turbulent ages in Russian history. It is a period of dramatic transformations in the political, socio-economic, and cultural spheres, witnessing the demand for justice and emancipation, growing impulses of modernization, radical upheavals in social organization, and the tension between idealism and authoritarianism in the enormous challenges that the conquest for social enfranchisement, political freedom, and the liberation of consciousness bring about. In Russia, literature and art played a central role in these transformations, both as an archive of a unique historical age but also as an active field for the generation and contestation of social meaning.

In this course we will study a few masterpieces of Russian literature (from the work of the Ukrainian Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoj to Chechov, Pasternak, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn) and some of the most innovative artworks and films of this time (e.g., Eisenstein). We will read some of these texts in their entirety and others only selectively to gain an understanding of the cultural ecology that the literary and artistic world produces in the transition from imperial Russia to the Soviet Union, the construction of the national imaginary of what constitutes Russia, as well as the historically shifting myth of the ‘city’ and the ‘land’ in the vast regions that comprised the imperial and Soviet world.  The theme of the revolution will loom large in our discussions, but it will not be confined to the historical event of the Soviet Revolution. It will also be approached from the perspective of the cultural energies that punctuated the social world of imperial Russia—with its roots in land, nature, and religion but also with a taste for the grotesque and the fantastic. It will provide an entry point for understanding the innovative theorization on language and society which characterizes aesthetic production and the many schools of criticism of this time (e.g, the Bakhtin circle), and the important contributions of the avant-gardes at the beginning of the 20^th century, including the discussion of how anarchism and constructivism sought to remake the world. Particular attention will be paid to the philosophies of language of Mikhail Bakhtin and V.N. Voloshinov. At the end of the course, we will address a few contemporary voices of social critique, such as Svetlana Alexievich’s oral histories Voices from Chernobyl.

Classes will start with the reading of Gogol and Dostoevskij. Seminars will comprise three hours in class and one hour in online activities.

This course will appeal to students who are interested in historical and critical approaches to literature, art, and film and in the political nature of art and language.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Through in-class discussions and a range of written assignments, students will be able to sharpen their critical skills, and, at the end of the course:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the historical development of the literary and artistic practices in 19^th and 20^th century Russia and their links to the European culture.
• Develop an understanding of the social and political debates in 19^th and 20^th century Russia and the political role of art and literature.
• Integrate historical, literary, philosophical, aesthetic, and political analysis.
• Communicate their ideas and the results of their research effectively and engage in class debate.
• Generate persuasive argumentation and support it through analysis of specific evidence.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: