Slavic Languages and Lit
- SLA 219/RES 219: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky: Introduction to the Great Russian NovelA study in English of masterpieces of Russian literature from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The focus of the course is on close readings of individual works. At the same time, we will pay close attention to the way a distinctively Russian national tradition is created, in which writers consciously respond to the works of their predecessors. No previous knowledge of Russian language, history, or culture is expected.
- SLA 303/HUM 306/ART 330: Seeing Health: Medicine, Literature, and the Visual ArtsThis seminar explores representations of health and illness through the literary and the visual media. From death and dying to epidemics, from disability to care giving, we will examine how these universal conditions are conveyed through literary texts, public health campaign posters, graphic novels, paintings, illustrations, and photography. Most of the meetings will take place at the Princeton University Art Museum to engage in depth with the items in the collection. Students will have the option to submit creative projects for the midterm and the final assignments.
- SLA 345/ECS 354/RES 345: East European Literature and PoliticsThis seminar will examine 20th-century Eastern European history through literary works from a number of countries in the region, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to present-day Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Belarus, and the Balkans. Readings will generally consist of one novel per week, but we will also look at a number of other genres, including the short story, poetry, drama, the journal, and reportage. While discussing the historical and political dimensions of this period, we will consider the limits of what literature can depict, and a range of possible ethical and aesthetic responses to authoritarianism.
- SLA 368/HUM 368/GHP 368/COM 388: Literature and MedicineThis course will examine themes that are paramount in our lives as individuals, communities, and societies' illness and healing, caregiving, epidemics, the distinction between normal and pathological. Our reflections on ethics will feature stories and storytelling as an entry point. Why do doctors and patients need stories? How does storytelling illuminate medicine as a system of representation? What rhetorical devices are embedded in the way we conceive of sickness, well-being, and the medical institutions? We will address these questions and will explore the overlaps between medicine and storytelling within texts from all over the world.
- SLA 401: Junior Methods SeminarThis Junior Seminar is designed to prepare students to undertake independent research in the Slavic field. We will workshop both methodological approaches and develop the core research skills necessary to complete the English-language research paper. We will identify successful research questions and workshop works-in-progress. Additionally, this seminar will introduce students to the expectations for citations in English for Russian-language sources.
- SLA 411/RES 411/ENG 441/COM 456: Selected Topics in Russian Literature and Culture: Crosscultural Links between Russian and American Literature & CultureMajor American cultural figures have found inspiration in Russian literary masterpieces. The course explores connections between (1) three Russian writers - Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, & Chekhov -. & (2) the multiplicity of ways in which twentieth and twenty-first-century Americans, in their own works, have incorporated, responded to, & reimagined these Russian creations. The main focus is on prose. Some attention to film and drama. We examine dimensions of the works which highlight ethical and societal dilemmas human beings face, the 'big questions' of life, and questions of what makes for a meaningful life.
- SLA 416/RES 416: DostoevskyThe 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.
- SLA 509/COM 505: Photographic Modernisms: Russia and the WestThis course traces the history of the photographic medium from the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839 to socially engaged documentary photography of the 1930s and beyond, questioning the notion of photography as a modernist artistic and documentary medium in Russia and the West. Central issues in the course are the role of authorship in photography and in the hybrid photo-textual spaces of print media, photography's politicization and instrumentation, and photography as a reflection of a shifting modernist vision.
- SLA 510/COM 507: History of Emotions: Russia and the WestDo feelings have history? How do they influence history? Do "natural" emotions exist? How do political regimes control the emotional sincerity of their subjects? What is the role of literature in cultivating certain emotional modes? How do people interpret and express their emotions in different periods? In this course, we apply these and similar questions to the emotional history of Russian culture considered within western contexts and theoretical frameworks offered by scholars of emotions. We also try to "resurrect" a number of emotions which played an important role in Russian cultural history.
- SLA 518: Major Russian Poets and Poetic Movements: Post-Symbolist PoetsThis seminar is devoted to major writings of Russian poets during the post-Symbolist period up to the Stalinist era. Close readings of selected poetry and prose of Acmeists Akhmatova and Mandel'shtam, Cubo-Futurists Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov, and the unaligned Tsvetaeva and Pasternak serve as points of departure to discuss hallmarks of Russian modernism and issues relating to emigration, art and politics, gender, and the negotiation of novelty and tradition. The art of self-presentation and the act of reading - how they both shape and are shaped by the texts and their authors - is considered over the course of the entire semester.
- SLA 535: Methods of Teaching RussianA practical course required of graduate students who are teaching beginning Russian. The course covers all issues relevant to the teaching of the language: phonetics, grammar presentation, efficient use of class time, class and syllabus planning, writing quizzes and tests. In addition to weekly meetings with the instructors, students are expected to meet as a group to develop best practices for covering each week's material. An important part of the course is instructor supervision of teaching.
- SLA 599: Slavic Dissertation ColloquiumA practical course intended to facilitate the dissertation writing process. The seminar meets every week for 2 hours, or less often depending on the need and pace of the participants. Dissertation writers circulate work in progress for feedback and meet for discussion as a group. The seminar is required of all post-generals students in Russian literature who are in residence.