A survey of Russian literature Topics include: Romanticism and Realism; the myth of St. Petersburg; the Russian Empire and its borders; the individual and society; man and nature; the “woman question”; freedom and rationality. Readings may include: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Goncharov, Tolstoi, Turgenev, Dostoevskii, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov. Taught and read in English. Stories in translation by Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Olesha, Babel, and others. All readings in English. Petersburg, and moving on to the distorted reality of the Russian avant-garde and Socialist Realism’s attempt at reproducing reality “as it is,” the course concludes by asking where this oscillating acceptance and rejection of illusion leaves us in the 21st century. Consideration of paintings, buildings, sculptures, selected literary texts and films.
A survey of Russian literature Topics include: Romanticism and Realism; the myth of St. Petersburg; the Russian Empire and its borders; the individual and society; man and nature; the “woman question”; freedom and rationality. Readings may include: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Goncharov, Tolstoi, Turgenev, Dostoevskii, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov. Taught and read in English. Stories in translation by Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Olesha, Babel, and others. All readings in English. Petersburg, and moving on to the distorted reality of the Russian avant-garde and Socialist Realism’s attempt at reproducing reality “as it is,” the course concludes by asking where this oscillating acceptance and rejection of illusion leaves us in the 21st century. Consideration of paintings, buildings, sculptures, selected literary texts and films.
