Fall 2022 Courses
Spring 2025 Literature and Culture Courses
FYSEMR 65Z: Making the Self: Poetics of Authenticity
Professor Bohdan Tokarskyi T 12:00-2:00 p.m.
Course description:
How does one become oneself? What does it mean to be authentic? How does poetry express the very making of the (authentic) self? To address such salient questions, we will draw on works of poetry, philosophy, and critical theory: from existentialism to ecopoetics, from the Soviet Union to the US of today, from Emily Dickinson to modern Ukrainian poetry. On the one hand, we will explore different visions of authenticity, the concept that not only became a burning issue in the twentieth century (to the extent that the second half of the last century has been dubbed as the “age of authenticity”) but has also, as recently as 2023, been chosen as the word of the year by Merriam-Webster dictionary – unsurprisingly for the age of post-truth, AI, celebrity culture, and social media. On the other hand, we will examine how selfhood is expressed and constructed in poetry. We will delve into fascinating questions such as: What is the relationship between the author and the poetic self? How does the act of writing shape the articulation of the self? How does literature imagine and achieve authenticity? Can authenticity be constructed? Can AI produce authentic poetry? In this seminar, we will, therefore, reflect on the philosophical and poetic aspects of selfhood and interrogate the notion of authenticity, which not only features prominently in the study of literature but inevitably touches upon the life of some – many, most, all? – of us.
Slavic 97: Introduction to Slavic Literatures and Cultures
Professor Aleksandra Kremer Meeting Times TBA
Course description: An interdisciplinary introduction to major issues in the field of Slavic Languages and Literatures, including critical theory, modes of interpreting literary texts, the forces structuring national and regional identities, as well as major authors of the Slavic literary traditions, including Russian, Czech, Ukrainian, and Polish works.
Course notes: This course is required for concentrators in Slavic Languages and Literatures. Other students are welcome and should contact the instructor before the start of the semester.
Slavic 118: Reading Tolstoy's War and Peace
Professor Julie Buckler Meeting Times TBA
Course description:
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1865-69) is a magnificent work of art by a world-class writer tackling life’s “big questions” and it is also a pleasure to read. We will go through War and Peace closely together, savoring the details, while exploring Tolstoy’s artistic biography and the larger cultural and historical contexts for classic Russian novels. We will also consider the significance of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) in Russian history. How many different ways are there to interpret Tolstoy’s work? What issues arise in translation? How does the pacing of the novel relate to nineteenth-century conceptions of time, space, narrative, and genre? What are the problematic distinctions between history and literature that the novel raises?
Course notes: No knowledge of Russian required
Slavic 127: Hacking Russia: Technological Dreams and Nightmares of Russian Culture
Professor Nariman Skakov Meeting Times TBA
Course description: The course explores the role of technology in constructing the social and ideological fabric, as well as the material reality, of Soviet and Russian society. From the early Soviet period, when technological progress was linked to humanistic utopia, through dystopian critiques of a totalitarian machine of conformity and constraint, we proceed along the assembly line of communist production, avant-garde and constructivist artistic utopia, socialist realism, the space race, and information technology, using examples from Russian literature, film, art, visual arts, performance, and current events. With the media's concern for fake news and Russian hacking today, it is our course's goal to "hack Russia": to understand the politics and technology shaping Russia, and the creative responses that have made its society a site of both dreamlike promise and nightmarish threat, through its history and today.
Course notes: All readings in English
Slavic 138: Apocalypse Then! Forging the Culture of Medieval Rus'
Professor Michael Flier Meeting Time TBA
Course description:
When the natives of Medieval Rus' (later Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) accepted Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century, their nature-based paganism gave way to a powerfully sensual belief system that made good use of the visual and the verbal to prepare these newest Christians for the coming Apocalypse and Last Judgment. We investigate this transformation from the conversion of Saint Vladimir and the excesses of Ivan the Terrible through the Time of Troubles and the modern turn of Peter the Great. The class features close analysis of architecture, icons and frescoes, ritual, folklore, literature, and history to understand this shift in worldview, including the role of women. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which Medieval Rus' is portrayed in film, opera, and ballet.
Course notes:
All readings in English. This course will include a field trip to the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts.
Slavic 144: Communism and the Politics of Culture: Czechoslovakia and the Cold War in Eastern Europe
Professor Jonathan Bolton Meeting Times TBA
Course description:
We will examine the literature and film of Czechoslovakia within the larger context of European history during the Cold War, with a focus on how the intense political pressures of revolution, invasion, and occupation can shape a country’s literature, drama, art, and music. Starting from the 1948 Communist takeover in Prague, we will learn about the show trials of the 1950s, the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of 1968, the rise of the music underground and dissident movement in the 1970s, and the 1989 Velvet Revolution, a hallmark of the peaceful overthrow of Communism in Europe. This course will introduce you to the history of Eastern Europe during the Cold War, with special attention to key problems in the study of ideology, aesthetics, and politics (including censorship, samizdat, “underground” culture, dissident movements, and the “New Wave” in Czech film). Readings from Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal, Václav Havel, Heda Kovaly, Eva Kantůrková, and others; films from Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Agnieszka Holland and others; music from the Plastic People of the Universe.
Course notes:
All readings are in English, and no prerequisites are necessary.
Slavic 177: Fugitives from Utopia: Polish Poets Across the Iron Curtain
Professor Aleksandra Kremer Meeting Time TBA
Course description:
Immigrants and travelers, dissidents and eccentrics—there were many ways Polish poets created spaces of personal freedom from the communist regime and the languages of newspeak and propaganda. In poetry, they contrasted utopian slogans with reality, but they also questioned more generally the idea of any human-made collective paradise, choosing instead irony, distrust, and singularity. In this course, we will study Polish poetry as embedded in the lived experiences of home meetings and experiments with tape recording, censorship and internal exile, Polish and Western radio stations, struggles with emigration and translations into English, as well as dramatic decisions whether to stay abroad or come back from one’s journeys. We will watch documentary films and listen to audio recordings; we will read essays, biographies, and criticism; and we will study poems by Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska, and Zbigniew Herbert, alongside many other authors.
Course notes:
All readings in English. Students who wish to read Polish texts in the original may arrange a special section with the instructor.
Slavic 286: Contemporary Russian Poetry
Professor Stephanie Sandler Meeting Time: TBA
Course description:
Studies contemporary Russian poetic practice with an emphasis on very recent work. Interrogates poetry’s capacity to respond to ongoing crises, including the cultural freedoms and economic chaos of the 1990s, the COVID pandemic, climate catastrophe, and the Russo-Ukraine war. Recurring themes are border crossings (in language, temporalities, genre, and geography); innovations in form and self-representation; poetry performance and visual display; and the changing representations of emotion and mind. The ethical challenges of curating and writing about our contemporaries will also be a frequent topic of discussion. Poets to be treated include Dashevskii, Fanailova, Glazova, Gronas, Rubinshtein, Rymbu, Skandiaka, Skidan, Stepanova, Svarovskii, with glimpses of Aygi, Barskova, Brodsky, Lukomnikov, and Vasiakina. Requires a reading knowledge of Russian.
Course notes:
Open to qualified undergraduates with good reading knowledge of Russian, pending permission of the instructor.
UKRAN 200B: Ukrainian Studies: Seminar
Professor Serhii Plokhii & Professor Michael Flier Meeting Time TBA
Course description:
Interdisciplinary seminar in Ukrainian studies with broad regional and comparative perspective. Faculty and invited scholars discuss a variety of topics in the humanities and social sciences. Background readings and follow-up discussions help students put the specific lectures in broader context. Students also conduct an individually tailored reading and research project under the guidance of a faculty advisor and in consultation with other resident specialists. Part two of a two part series.