This course offers a history of Eastern Europe in the modern era, from the age of Enlightenment and the French revolution in the late 18th century through the present. It covers the territory between today's Italy and Russia, including Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Topics include: Enlightenment, Romanticism, nationalism, socialism, Zionism, fascism, Nazism, communism, the Holocaust, genocides, Cold War, and post-1991 Europe. The course will incorporate a variety of primary sources, including novels, memoirs, diaries, and the arts as well as several films.

This is an introductory course, conducted entirely in English, on the classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature. No previous knowledge of Russian language, literature, culture, or history is expected. The focus of the course is on close readings of individual works. At the same time, we will pay attention to the way a distinctively Russian national tradition takes shape, in which writers consciously respond to their predecessors. All of these works have a firm position in the Russian cultural memory, and they have significantly contributed to Russian national identity.

Born of debates between Westernizers and Slavophiles, Russia's astounding religious-philosophical flowering ran parallel to that in literature, and lived on in Europe and North America in the wake of the Revolution. These thinkers confronted modernity in ways that were both radically innovative, yet firmly grounded in the centuries-old traditions of Eastern Orthodox theology. Topics to be discussed include: personhood, freedom, and evil; iconography and artistic creativity; the transformative power of love; tensions between knowledge and faith; and ethics in a universe in which every person and event is "once-occurrent."

The goal of the course is to acquaint students with the evolution of Dostoevsky's writings. A multi-faceted approach is used for coming to grips with the works. The focus is on stylistic, ethical, religious, philosophical, and political dimensions of his art as well as on ways in which Dostoevsky fits into the cultural milieu of his time. Both non-Slavic Department and Departmental students are welcome.