Department of Russian

Literature Courses 2008-2009

Russian Literature Faculty: Patricia Carden: pjc9 (on leave spring ‘09); Nancy Pollak: np27; Savely Senderovich: ss51 (on leave fall ‘08); Gavriel Shapiro: gs33 (on leave spring ’09).

Department Chair: N. Pollak

Director of Undergraduate Studies: P. Carden (fall), S. Senderovich (spring)

The Russian Department Office is located in 226 Morrill Hall, phone: 255-8350, fax: 255-2044, e-mail: RussianDept@cornell.edu. For updated information you may consult our web site at: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/russian

Satisfying the Foreign Language Requirement under Option 1:

Students who qualify may satisfy the language requirement by taking RUSSL 2209 in the fall term or RUSSL 2212 in the spring term. Other RUSSL courses that are taught in Russian may also be used when appropriate.

* Note: Courses marked with an asterisk (*) require a suitable knowledge of the Russian language.

*2209 Readings in Russian Prose & Poetry. 3 credits. Fall: MWF 12:20–1:10. Readings in Russian; discussion in English. Satisfies language Option 1. N. Pollak. Prerequisite: For students with 2+ semesters of Russian language (121/122 or equivalent). Short stories and lyrics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Pushkin, Lermontov, Chekhov, Blok and Akhmatova. Assignments adjusted for native fluency. May be used as a prerequisite for RUSSL 300-400 courses with reading in Russian.

*2212 Readings in Twentieth-Century Russian Literature. 3 credits. Fall: TR 11:40 – 12:55. All readings, written assignments, and discussions are in Russian. Satisfies language Option 1. G. Shapiro. Course designed for students with native background needing another course to satisfy the language requirement.  Goals are to introduce students to twentieth-century Russian literature in the original and to improve their Russian reading and writing skills.  Readings are from twentieth-century masters such as Bunin, Bulgakov, and Nabokov. May be used as a prerequisite for RUSSL 3300-4400 courses with reading in Russian.

*3331 Introduction to Russian Poetry. 4 Credits. Spring: TBA. S. Senderovich. Prerequisite: proficiency in Russian or permission of instructor. This course may be counted toward the 12 credits of Russian literature in the original language for the Russian major. A survey of Russian poetry, with primary emphasis on the analysis of individual poems by major poets.

*3334 The Russian Short Story. 4 credits. Fall: MWF 10:10 – 11:00. Readings in Russian; discussion in English. Prerequisite: proficiency in Russian or permission of instructor. This course may be counted towards the 12 credits of Russian literature in the original language for the Russian major. P. Carden. This course is a survey of two centuries of Russian storytelling. Emphasis is on the analysis of individual stories by major writers, on narrative structure, and on related landmarks of Russian literary criticism.

3350 Education and the Philosophical Fantasies (also Comparative Literature 3500).

4 credits. Fall, TR 1:25-2:40 p.m., P. Carden. A major philosophical tradition has conceived of education as encompassing the whole of our lives. What we should do or be is seen as the result of every choice we make. The whole of our human contacts in understood as a school in which we form ourselves. This all-encompassing vision of education has been embodied in the works of great philosopher-fantasists who use the forms of fiction to explore fundamental issues of education. In this course we will examine several key philosophical fantasies, among them Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Emile and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Our aim will be to understand how the discourse on education became a central part of our Western tradition.

3367 The Russian Novel. Spring: TBA. 4 Credits. Students who read Russian may sign up for a discussion section of the Russian text for 1 credit (RUSSA 4491). N. Pollak. This course considers the rise of the Russian novel in the nineteenth century. May include works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov. Readings in English translation.

3385 Reading Nabokov (also English 3790). 4 credits. Fall: TR 10:10-11:25. In translation. G. Shapiro. Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Limited to 18 students; preference given to seniors. This course offers an exciting trip into the intricate world of Nabokovian fiction. After establishing himself in Europe as a distinguished Russian writer at the outbreak of World War II, Nabokov came to the U.S., where he re-established himself as an American writer of world renown. In our analysis of the Nabokovian artistic universe, we focus on his Russian corpus of works, from Mary (1926) to The Enchanter (writ. 1939), and examine the two widely read novels that he wrote in Ithaca while teaching literature at Cornell, Lolita (1955) and Pnin (1957).

3393 Honors Essay Tutorial. 8 credits. Fall and spring: hours to be arranged with instructor. Staff. Must be taken in two consecutive semesters in senior year. Credit for the first semester will be awarded upon completion of second semester. For information, please see the director of undergraduate studies.

*4409 Russian Stylistics. Spring: TBA. 4 Credits. S. Senderovich. Also open to graduate students. Prerequisite: proficiency in Russian or permission of instructor. May be counted toward the 12 credits of Russian literature in the original language for the Russian major. Going beyond normative grammar, this course provides an introduction to idiomatic Russian (morphology, syntax, vocabulary, phraseology) and to colloquial and written genres.  Students develop writing skills through short assignments.

4492 Supervised Reading in Russian Literature. 1-4 credits each term. Fall or spring: times to be arranged with instructor. Independent study. Staff. Prerequisite: Students must find an advisor and submit a plan before signing up.

*6611 Supervised Reading and Research. 2-4 credits each term. Fall or spring: times to be arranged with instructor. Staff. Prerequisite: proficiency in Russian or permission of instructor.

Revised