Worlds of Form: Russian Formalism and Constructivism

The seminar explores key texts of the Russian avant-garde, looking specifically at the ways Russian Formalists and Constructivists theorized the importance of form for their art and scholarship. Essays written by Shklovsky, Jakobson, Rodchenko, Vertov, Lissitzky, and Tatlin are contextualized within the field of contemporary critical theory. This is an interdisciplinary seminar, and during the semester, we oscillate between literature and cinema, linguistics and photography, architecture and painting. No Russian language skills are required.