Various genres and generic hybrids – comedy, melodrama, action, war, horror, fantasy, etc. – are studied in the context of critical literature on the problem of film genre and against the backdrop of international cinematic traditions. Taught in English, all films subtitled in English. Special emphasis on those figures who influenced twentieth century theatre and film in the West (such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Sergei Diaghilev). All readings in English. No knowledge of Russian required. Topics include: the recovery of suppressed cultural memory; the fluid boundaries between official and unofficial cultures; internal and external exile; Aesopian language; alternative modes of creation and dissemination (samizdat, tamizdat, unauthorized exhibitions and concerts, etc.); Russian conceptualism and post-modernism. Taught in English, readings in English.
Various genres and generic hybrids – comedy, melodrama, action, war, horror, fantasy, etc. – are studied in the context of critical literature on the problem of film genre and against the backdrop of international cinematic traditions. Taught in English, all films subtitled in English. Special emphasis on those figures who influenced twentieth century theatre and film in the West (such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Sergei Diaghilev). All readings in English. No knowledge of Russian required. Topics include: the recovery of suppressed cultural memory; the fluid boundaries between official and unofficial cultures; internal and external exile; Aesopian language; alternative modes of creation and dissemination (samizdat, tamizdat, unauthorized exhibitions and concerts, etc.); Russian conceptualism and post-modernism. Taught in English, readings in English.
