27 courses with the subject RUS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
RUS 101Elementary Russian I
Instructor Moskvitina Elementary Russian serves as an introduction to speaking, understanding, reading, and writing in Russian. If you are considering a major or minor in Russian Studies, this is your first step towards that goal! No prior experience is expected or required. Students who have previous knowledge of Russian should contact Prof. Irina Kogel to arrange a placement test. In this course, students will learn to read and write using the Cyrillic alphabet, become acquainted with the principles of Russian phonetics, begin to acquire a systematic knowledge of foundational grammar topics, and acquire a working vocabulary that will allow them to communicate about their daily lives in Russian. Students will also be introduced to Russophone culture, history, and traditions through authentic target-language texts, songs, and other media. Students’ acquisition of Russian will be reinforced through twice weekly AT discussion sessions with a native speaker of Russian. Prerequisites & Notes (Fall)
Instructor Moskvitina Welcome to Russian 102! In this course you will learn the basic skills necessary for communication in Russian (listening, reading, writing, speaking). This course continues from Russian 101. The materials used in this course include a textbook, a workbook, and authentic, sociocultural situated spoken or written language samples. In class and in your homework, you will engage in structured analysis of contextualized language use and interactional linguistic features. Based on an active student-centered, critical-thinking approach, this course intends to raise student awareness of contextualized language use and sociocultural significant interactions. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 101 or placement. (Spring)
Instructor Moskvitina In Intermediate Russian, students learn to create with the language and continue to develop their speaking, understanding, reading, and writing proficiency. The course is intended for students who have completed RUS 102 or passed a placement exam. In this course, students will review and expand their knowledge of Russian grammar and vocabulary. Students will also gain a deeper understanding of Russophone culture, history, and traditions through increasingly complex authentic target-language texts, songs, and other media. Highlights of the course include a pen pal exchange with Intermediate Russian students at other universities in the US and twice weekly AT sessions with a native Russian speaker. Satisfies the foreign language requirement. Satisfies the prerequisite for the Russian minor, the major in Russian Studies, and the major in Russian Language and Literature. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 102 or placement. (Fall)
Instructor Moskvitina Welcome to Russian 202! The course designed as skills development and strengthening for the fundamentals of listening, reading, writing, spoken production and interaction in Russian on the Intermediate Mid level. This Russian language course uses the immersion method with minimal use of English. The materials used in this course are socioculturally authentic and situated spoken language samples (interactions between two or more language users from various regions and social backgrounds) and web based written communications (blogs, tweets, emails). For in-class activities and homework assignments, students engage in explicit and structured analyses of contextualized language use, specific features of interactional discourse, and linguistic structures. Based on an active student-centered, critical-thinking approach, this course intends to raise student awareness of contextualized language use and socioculturally significant interactions. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 201 or placement. (Spring)
RUS 26019th Century Russian Literature (in transl.)
Instructor Ewington This course explores the great 19th-century Russian literary tradition, including works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Pavlova, Turgenev, Khvoshchinskaya, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. We will consider the ritualized violence of dueling, rapidly evolving attitudes toward gender, sexuality and love, questions of social justice related to serfdom, Russia’s complicated relationship with the West, religion vs. scientific progress, and the Russian writer’s role as prophet of truth in a land of autocracy. Throughout we will consider questions of genre and narrative. Importantly, in the context of Russia’s current war of aggression against Ukraine, we will grapple with the terminology of “Russian” vs. “Russophone” literature and the Russian nationalist and imperialist ideas in these canonical texts. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing and Rhetoric requirement Counts as an elective in the English major and minor. Satisfies a requirement in the Global Literary Theory interdisciplinary minor. Prerequisites & Notes No knowledge of Russian required or expected. Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title.
RUS 27020th-Century Russian Literature (in translation)
Instructor Ewington The twentieth century was tumultuous globally, and nowhere more dramatically so than in Russia, which witnessed revolutions, wars, and multiple changes of political regime. Alongside these socio-political shifts came aesthetic changes; from 1900 to the new millennium, Russian culture saw, broadly speaking, shifts from realism, to symbolism, to socialist realism, to post-modernism. This course samples major Russian, émigré, Soviet and post-Soviet writers, paying attention to the way they responded to, and even contributed to, historical events. Importantly, given Russia’s current war against Ukraine, we will also engage questions of Russian empire and colonization, reading works not just by Russian authors, but by writers who write in Russian but come from Belarus, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Texts and discussion in English, with the option for those with advanced Russian to read in the original. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement Counts as an elective in the English major and minor Satisfies a requirement in the Global Literary Theory interdisciplinary minor. Satisfies a requirement toward the Russian minor Satisfies a requirement toward the major in Russian Studies Satisfies a requirement toward the major in Russian Language & Literature Prerequisites & Notes No knowledge of Russian required or expected. Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title.
Instructor Ewington With Russia’s war against Ukraine, the need to understand Russia’s conflicted relationship with the West takes on new urgency. This course will equip you to approach contemporary relations with Russia from nuanced and historically informed perspectives. As many scholars have noted, history has essentially replaced politics as the national conversation in Putin’s Russia. Whether erecting monuments to past tyrants, rewriting the history textbooks for secondary schools, waging war against Ukraine with calls to an ancient, shared past, or leveraging WWII memory and nostalgia for the USSR, the Putin regime deftly exploits historical narratives for its present aims. One constant amidst these efforts to reshape Russian history is the place of “the West” as either an idealized model or a hostile other against which Russians define their national identity. In “Russia and the West” we will examine the vast sweep of Russian history and culture through the lens of the country’s efforts to define itself vis-à-vis the West, starting by interrogating the very notion of “the West” and the identity of “the Russians.” We will then learn about Peter the Great’s Westernizing reforms, 19th-century Slavophilism vs. Westernism, Cold War tensions, émigré culture, and today’s persistent sense of humiliation at the hands of the West still resonating more thirty years after the fall of the USSR. Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement. Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement. Satisfies a Russian studies major and mionor requirement Prerequisites & Notes No knowledge of Russian required or expected.
Instructor Performing Russia: The Ballets Russes Race Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes was a dynamic enterprise that defined multiple artistic trends and movements in the early twentieth century. The troupe and those associated with it changed over the course of its twenty-year existence (1909 -1929), but during that period they always remained under the scrutiny of its founding impresario, Diaghilev. A master curator, Diaghilev brought together some of the most interesting artists, composers, dancers, choreographers, fashion designers, and personalities of the era, which resulted in a maelstrom of creative and collaborative output, the impact of which still resonates in the present day across artistic mediums. From the scandals to the massive successes, this course examines some highlights of the Ballets Russes, looking at visionary choreographers, such as Fokine, Nijinsky, Nijinska, and Balanchine, world-renowned visual artists, like Picasso, Matisse, and Braque, genre-breaking composers, such as Debussy, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky, and even a few guest appearances by Jean Cocteau and Coco Chanel. We also will consider the role of “Russianness” in Diaghilev’s project and how it changed over the course of the group’s history as Russia itself changed in tandem with the ever-changing political landscape of Europe in the early twentieth century. Finally, what is the Ballets Russes’ legacy? How has this group of artists creating and performing in the first decades of the twentieth century influenced the arts and culture into the present day? Our discussions will focus on topics such as theoretical approaches to media; the ways in which the Ballets Russes engaged with movements such as constructivism, cubism, futurism, impressionism, expressionism, neoclassicism, primitivism, surrealism, and symbolism; the role of nationality and nationhood in the self-exoticizing trends of the early Ballets Russes works versus later ones; othering and the role of gender and race in the Ballets Russes’ mythos. These topics will be considered through readings from varied disciplines, such as dance and performance studies, musicology, art history, cultural studies, and literary studies. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.
Instructor Staff A topic chosen by the student and researched under the direction of the faculty member, who reviews and approves the topic and determines the means of evaluation of the student’s work. 295 (Fall)/296 (Spring) Prerequisites & Notes Permission of the instructor.
Instructor Staff In Advanced Russian, students will further develop their speaking, understanding, reading, and writing proficiency on an increasing range of topics. The course is intended for students who have completed RUS 202 or passed a placement exam. In this course, students will systematize and automatize previous knowledge, while learning to understand and convey information about increasingly more complex topics.. Highlights of the course include regular conversations with Russophone experts in several different spheres and a once weekly AT session with a native Russian speaker. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202 or placement.
Instructor Moskvitina This course support students’ growth in understanding and responding to the Russian mass media, which has its own style, register, and vocabulary. Students will develop reading and writing skills as well as skills in understanding fluent oral speech in a journalistic style. Russian mass media represents a key cultural and linguistic competency for Russian Studies majors, minors, and other students with interest in the former Soviet space. Satisfies Russian Studies major and minor requirement Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202
RUS 319Advanced-Intermediate Russian: Contemporary Russian Culture
Instructor Moskvitina This course supports students’ development from intermediate to advanced proficiency in Russian, with a focus on contemporary Russian literature, culture, and politics. Guided by the textbook, Russian and Use , and supplemented by authentic readings and other media from contemporary Russia, students will strengthen their proficiency in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. All assignments and discussions in Russian. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202 or equivalent. Weekly AT session.
Instructor Staff Advanced reading and discussion of canonical works by Russian writers, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Pasternak, Akhmatova, and Tolstaya. This course is conducted in Russian. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement. Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202 or equivalent.
Instructor Staff This class is conducted entirely in Russian. It combines the study of Russian literature with the development of vocabulary and grammar skills for advanced speaking and writing. We will read, discuss, and analyze short works by masters of 20th century Russian literature in the original. In the course of our readings, we will also learn about major events in 20th-century Russian history that form the important context for these works. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202 or equivalent.
Instructor Race Vladimir Nabokov perhaps remains best known for the scandal that surrounded the publication of his most famous work, Lolita (1955). However, Nabokov was a prolific writer in both Russian and English, with a body of work written in post-Revolutionary exile in Western Europe and the United States. This course examines a selection of Nabokov’s writings from his earliest years living in the Russian émigré communities of Berlin and Paris, to his mid-life American works (including Lolita), to the late works written in the “neutral” space of Montreux, Switzerland, where he spent the end of his life. Tracing motifs and themes that recur in his Russian and English works, and examining the structures and institutions of literary life in Russian émigré circles, this course addresses the themes of exile, memory, and nostalgia; hybrid cultural identities and multilingualism; and the aims and aesthetics of émigré and diasporic literary modernism. All readings and discussion in English, with the option for Russian language readings for those with Russian. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement. Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement. Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Global Literary Theory Satisfies a minor requirement in Russian Studies Satisfies major requirements for CIS majors in Russian Studies, Russian Language & Literature, and Global Literary Theory Prerequisites & Notes (Fall)
Instructor Utkin Vladimir Nabokov–brilliant writer, outrageous literary gamesman, and cosmopolitan exile–is a towering figure of twentieth-century literature. His most famous novel, Lolita, propelled him to international stardom and changed the transnational literary landscape. Child of a turbulent century, Nabokov wrote exquisite and at times disturbing prose in Russian and English, balancing between imaginary worlds and harsh realities. This seminar offers a sustained exploration of Nabokov’s major Russian and American writings as well as film adaptations of his Despair (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) and Lolita (Stanley Kubrick). In the second half of the seminar we turn to novels Nabokov haunts: Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence, and W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants. We will consider memory, exile, trauma, nostalgia, and identity as we read Nabokov, who saw existence as a “series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.” All readings and discussion in English. Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Russian Studies Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Russian Language and Literature Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Global Literary Theory Satisfies a minor requirement in Russian Studies Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Global Literary Theory Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing & Rhetoric requirement Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement
RUS 395Independent Study in Advanced-Intermediate Russian
Instructor Staff Advanced study under the direction of the faculty member, who reviews and approves the topic and determines the means of evaluation of the student’s work. 395 (Fall)/396 (Spring) Prerequisites & Notes (Permission of the instructor.)
Instructor Kogel Folkloric traditions and texts are a vitally important element of Russian culture. In this course we will read a range of Russian-language folktales, including medieval byliny, popular fairy tales as well as contemporary responses to folklore. We will also explore the folkloric traditions of some of the non-Slavic indigenous peoples whose ancestral lands are now part of the Russian Federation. Primary texts in Russian with secondary texts available in Russian and English. Students will have one weekly AT session with a native speaker. Satisfies the 400-level Russian language requirement for the major in Russian Studies and the major in Russian Language & Literature. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202 or equivalent. Appropriate for any student who has completed RUS 202. Taught in Russian.
Instructor Moskvitina This course support students’ growth in understanding and responding to the Russian mass media, which has its own style, register, and vocabulary. Students will develop reading and writing skills as well as skills in understanding fluent oral speech in a journalistic style. Russian mass media represents a key cultural and linguistic competency for Russian Studies majors, minors, and other students with interest in the former Soviet space.
Instructor Moskvitina This course supports students’ development from intermediate to advanced proficiency in Russian, with a focus on contemporary Russian literature, culture, and politics. Guided by the textbook, Russian and Use , and supplemented by authentic readings and other media from contemporary Russia, students will strengthen their proficiency in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. All assignments and discussions in Russian. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement. Prerequisites & Notes RUS 202 or equivalent. Weekly AT session.
Instructor Ewington As the Soviet writer Isaac Babel famously quipped, “If the world could write itself, it would write like Tolstoy.” In this course we devote the entire semester to Tolstoy’s masterpiece, War & Peace , which he adamantly refused to call a “novel” and which many readers experience as an intense immersion in “life itself.” Over the course of the semester, we will consider everything from historical and biographical context, to genre, translation, literary technique, the juicy plot, and the text’s enduring relevance against the backdrop of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Taught in English. No knowledge of Russian required. Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement. Satisfies a Russion Studies manor and minor requirement. Satisfies an ENG seminar requirement. Prerequisites & Notes No knowledge of Russian required or expected. Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title. Prior satisfaction of the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement is required.
Instructor Ewington This course is devoted to reading Dostoevsky’s final novel, The Brothers Karamazov , which includes the inserted narrative of “The Grand Inquisitor,” which is too often read in isolation from the novel as a whole. We will engage the text from theological, historical, philosophical, and narratological perspectives. Along the way, we will engage in the fascinating socio-historical context of the novel - a period of great reforms, active quests for social justice, and revolutionary movements that would lead to the assassination of the tsar the year after the novel was published, and to the Bolshevik Revolution less than forty years later. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement Satisfies an ENG seminar requirement. Satisfies a requirement in the Global Literary Theory interdisciplinary minor Satisfies a requirement toward the Russian minor Satisfies a requirement toward the major in Russian Studies Satisfies a requirement toward the major in Russian Language & Literature
Instructor Staff A topic chosen by the student and researched under the direction of the faculty member, who reviews and approves the topic and determines the means of evaluation of the student’s work. Prerequisites & Notes Permission of the instructor.
Instructor Staff A topic chosen by the student and researched under the direction of the faculty member, who reviews and approves the topic and determines the means of evaluation of the student’s work. Prerequisites & Notes Permission of Instructor
