Fall 2016 Semester
Slavic 129: Russia and the Representation of Race
Prof. Michael Kunichika
Wednesdays, 4-6pm
This course examines Russian and Soviet culture and the representation of race. We will approach this topic in terms of Russia’s own engagement with questions of race, focusing on episodes in the literary and cinematic representation of minority peoples throughout the empire and the Soviet Union. We will also consider how Russia and the Soviet Union served as a mirror in which minorities from other countries saw their experiences partially reflected. Topics will include: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and its relationship with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground; representations of Central Asia by such figures as Langston Hughes and Andrei Platonov; African-American intellectuals and the Soviet Union (Du Bois, Hughes, McKay); Aleksandr Pushkin and questions of “blackness”; the cinematic representation of minority bodies in the work of Dziga Vertov and Vsevolod Pudovkin; the Soviet critique of American race-relations; and Russia’s position between the symbolic antinomies of East and West. We will draw our critical theoretical models from such figures as Homi Bhabha, Dipesh Chakrabaty, Stuart Hall and Trinh Mihn-Ha.
Slavic 145: Russian Literature in Translation
Dr. Oleh Kotsyuba
Mondays and Thursdays, 11-12 noon
A survey of major works of fiction from Pushkin through Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Key themes include Russia's encounter with East and West; urban and rural life; the writer and the state; generational conflict and continuity; religion and science; reform and radicalism; and the collapse of empire. Primary materials are supplemented by readings in cultural and intellectual history. All readings in English.
Slavic 168: Post-Soviet and Post-Modern Ukrainian Literature
Prof. George Grabowicz
Thursdays, 2-4pm
Focus on Dibrova and the onset of Post-Sovietism; the post-modernist performance of Andrukhovych and the Bu-Ba-Bu circle; Izdryk; Prochasko; Kurkov, Zabuzhko and feminist and anti-feminist writing, Zhadan and the post-modern nostalgia for the USSR; Ukrainian literature in the diaspora: Yurij Tarnawsky and Vasyl Makhno. All texts can be read in English translation.
Slavic 170: War and Literature: Responses to WWII in Polish Culture
Prof. Aleksandra Kremer
Thursdays, 12-2pm
The survey course War and Literature will introduce you to the works of Polish art and literature which resulted from direct experiences, collective memory, or an individual study of the Second World War, the event which demanded a radical revision of artistic means of expression, and continuously has numerous repercussions for Polish culture and politics. Literary works of different genres (poetry, novel, memoir, reportage, essay) and different traditions will be supplemented with visual arts (films, performances, paintings, photographs) and juxtaposed with recent scholarly texts and debates. We will examine works created between the 1940s and contemporary times, which refer to life under occupation, the Warsaw and Ghetto Uprisings, the Holocaust, Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, as well as the post-war condition of the country, its art and survivors. Through this topic we will study different artistic strategies adopted by renowned Polish authors: Miłosz, Różewicz, Borowski, Nałkowska, Białoszewski, Wat, Grotowski, Kantor, Wróblewski, Wajda, Krall, including works belonging to the so-called Polish Film School, Polish School of Poetry and Polish School of Reportage.
Slavic 191: Russian Orthodoxy
Prof. Gregory Freeze
Tuesdays, 4-6pm (with extra hour 6-7pm for graduate students)
This course examines the development and role of the Orthodox Church in Imperial Russia, with particular attention to belief and believers, to domestic and transnational contexts.
Slavic 193: Russian and Soviet Silent Film
Prof. Daria Khitrova
Mondays, 2-4pm
Explores filmmaking and film culture from Imperial to early Soviet Russia; from the former’s deep and deliberately slow psychological melodramas directed by Yevgeni Bauer to super-dynamic, politically charged montage movies that brought fame to directors as different as Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshov, and Sergei Eisenstein. The range of genres include: revolutionary heroics, adventure films, eccentric and social comedies, newsreels and documentaries. Films from Russia will mix with Ukrainian and Georgian silent films. Readings (all in English) include contemporary film theory (now classic) and critical reviews. Weekly screenings will be arranged. All readings will be in English.
Slavic 197: Dissidents from Plato to Pussy Riot
Prof. Jonathan Bolton
Tuesdays, 2-4pm
From Socrates and Antigone to Pussy Riot and Ai Weiwei, we are fascinated by the courage of dissidents who oppose tyrannical regimes. But who are dissidents, and where do they gain the conviction, imagination, and political skill to stand up for their beliefs? In this interdisciplinary course, we will investigate questions about the role of non-violent dissent in political and cultural life, and in particular the figure of the dissident as represented in literature, political theory, journalism, and documentary film. After considering some classic statements of dissent (Plato’s Apology, Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedience,” Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), we will turn to recent and contemporary dissidents to think about their paths into protest, their complicated relationship with their fellow citizens, and their portrayal in domestic and international media. Our focus will be on individuals rather than on social movements, and on non-violent rather than violent or revolutionary protest. Drawing examples from the Soviet Union and Russia, East Central Europe during the Cold War (Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany), and China, we will consider figures such as Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Bukovsky, Irina Ratushinskaya, Liu Xiaobo, Ai Weiwei, Pussy Riot, and others. All readings are in English.
Slavic 199hfa: Russian Culture in Performance
Prof. Stephanie Sandler, Prof. Julie Buckler, Prof. Daria Khitrova
A one-time only, collaborative course organized around the October, 2016 performance at Harvard of Petersburg’s Bolshoi Drama Theater’s production of The Visible Side of Life, a one-woman play about the poet Elena Shvarts. This is a year-long course, for four credits. The course will meet for four 90-minute sessions in fall, 2016 to discuss traditions of performing poetry in the theater; the history of the Bolshoi Drama Theater; Russian performances as a research topic; Russian poets’ styles of reading; poetry performance across media; and the poetry of Elena Shvarts, particularly its dramatic aspects. The goal of the fall semester sessions will be to prepare students for the theater performance of The Visible Side of Life; to build a foundation for students to do academic work in performance studies; and to formulate research questions on adaptation, transformation, translation across media and art forms.
In Slavic 199hfb (offered in Spring 2017), students will work on independent projects under the supervision of a faculty member. Collaborations, curated web sites, performances, performance proposals, conference presentations, and traditional seminar papers will all be welcome. The spring semester will end in a celebratory gathering for participants to share their work.