Course Descriptions

Introduction to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe through each of the major disciplines represented in the program: language, literature, anthropology, geography, history, government, sociology, and economics. Core course required for a degree in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Meets with SLA 301 and GRG 309. May not be used to fulfill the foreign language requirement for any Bachelor’s degree. Course number may be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

Texts:

1.Slavenka Drakulic, 2005, They Would Never Hurt a Fly, Penguin

2. Heda Kovaly, 1997, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968. New York: Holmes

and Meier

3. Brigid Pastulka, 2009, A Long Time Ago and Essentially True, Boston, New York,

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 

4. Bella Bychkova Jordan and Terry G Jordan-Bychkov, 2001, Siberian Village: Land and

Life in the Sakha Republic, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Additional readings might be recommended for individual lectures.

Requirements and Grading:

Attendance 10%

Participation in lectures 10%

Participation in book discussions 10%

Book quizzes 40% (each)

There is no denying that conspiracy thinking has become an important—perhaps even unavoidable—part of the cultural landscape in the past decades. The spectrum of paranoia in contemporary (American) culture extends from fiction to film and television, and beyond. This course examines a rich and constantly growing body of conspiracist expression, from such historical texts as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the intricately woven fictional worlds of Phillip K. Dick, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Viktor Pelevin. We will also be looking at such pop cultural explorations of the theme as Chris Carter’s The X-Files, Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix, and Timur Bekmambetov’s Night/Day Watch. Theoretical works by Jodi Dean, Peter Knight, Daniel Pipes and others will be used to provide a theoretical frame for the primary materials.

Required Texts:

Dick, Phillip K. Ubik.

DeLillo, Don. Libra.

Pelevin, Viktor. Homo Zapiens

Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49.

Pelevin, Viktor. Homo Zapiens.

Pelevin, Viktor. Omon Ra.

Sorokin, Vladimir. The Ice Trilogy. 

Grading:

Three essays: 70%

Presentation: 20%

Participation: 10%            

Course Description

This course will attempt the impossible: to explain why Americans are so fascinated by Russia . The answer may lie in the fact that this expansive maxi-country (or mini-world), separated from our own country at the Bering Strait by a mere 2.5 miles of shallow seawater, is both a mirror-image of America and its opposite. The feeling is mutual: Russia has gone from a colonial conquerer of its continent and indigenous people to being the Anti- (Bizarro?) America to unbridled commercial capitalism, all the time trying to relate itself to Europe in particular and history in general. Understanding this relationship could lead to better understanding ourselves.

Coursework will consist of lectures, reading, and discussion in English on the political and cultural history of Russia , from its prehistoric origins to the events of 1917 leading to communist rule.. Special emphasis will be on enduring themes of cultural identity, imagination, and conflict, both with neighboring peoples and within.

The backbone of the course is a sketch of the history of the Russian people, from their origins to today. From this structure we will make forays to sample the best of the cultural world at each period in time. Class presentations will highlight creative work especially in art, architecture, and music. Included will be tours of Russia 's capitals Moscow and St. Petersburg as fascinating preserves of historical and cultural values, alongside the delights of modern urban life.

Text 

Hosking, Geoffrey. Russia and the Russians: A history . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press, 2003. Paperback.

Additional readings will be made available in a course packet.

Requirements and Grading

Three in-class exams:         40%

Four writing assignments:    50%

Class participation:            10%

Instructor:  Richmond-Garza, E            Areas:  III / U

Unique #:  35610            Flags:  Global cultures, Writing

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  C L 323; REE 325            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Art in the theater is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light.

            (Jerzy Grotowski, “Statement of Principles,” Towards a Poor Theater)

Drama is necessarily public and commercial, paid for and solicited by bourgeois patrons and therefore interacts dynamically with culture and society. The aim of this course will be two-fold: to give an acceptable overview of the rich textuality and performance potential of modern European Drama and to situate its production within the context of the politics and aesthetics of world literature more generally.

The course will focus on the work of six playwrights: Ibsen, Chekhov, Wilde, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, and Pinter. Each of these major playwrights will be paired with other playwrights whose work either continues or disrupts his imperatives. We will begin by looking at the great theatrical explosion of the turn of the century in Ibsen and Chekhov, who will be read, along with Wilde and Shaw, in the context of fin-de-siècle aesthetics and politics. We will then trace the development in the 1920s and 1930s of absurdist theatre in the plays of Pirandello, who will be paired with Ionesco, and of “epic” and political theatre in Brecht, who will be read together with Italian Futurism. A selection from Beckett’s plays will be read in the contexts of the two World Wars and the deconstruction of a confident European political or artistic order. The canon will be completed with Ionesco’s and Pinter’s plays and a selection of recent radical political plays, including those of Genet, Soyinka, Puig, Petrushevskaya, and Fugard, that reflects the creation and dissolution of the European empires in Latin America and Africa especially.

Much of the excitement of looking at theatrical texts derives from their multi-mediality, and we shall pillage the UT and on-line resources for performance material and footage. No previous familiarity with drama is expected or even solicited, and I will provide those introductions to theatre and performance theory that I think might be provocative.

Requirements & Grading: 1. Attendance of all class meetings and a 15-minutews oral report. (10%); 2. A book of “Director’s Notes” collected in two halves. (5% + 5%); 3. A short assignment which considers a single play (5 pages). (20%); 4. A research report and commentary (2 pages). (5%); 5. A formal prospectus (100 words). (5%); 6. A longer research essay, on a topic of the student’s choice. (10 pages) (35%); 7. A third assignment (3 pages) (15%).

How did Czechs imagine and construct themselves and the "other," and how, by contrast were they perceived by others? What did Czechs create, and how do they relate to other Slavs, Germans, and wider world? Is there a Czech identity and culture? To what extent did Czechs construct their identity based on the difference from others, and how accommodating they were to “strangers” in their midst? What was the role of translation, creation of language, and literature in negotiating their identity? What did the Czechs gain and lose by attaining their own linguistically and nationally defined culture? We will read authors such as Palacký, Havlíček, Masaryk, Hašek, Kafka, Patočka, and Havel, and secondary texts on Central Europe, translation, nationalism, transnationalism, and “Orientalism.” We will pay special attention to the role of language and translation, to Czech Jews and anti-Semitism, Roma (Gypsies), Germans, and the complex identities of Prague German Jewish authors such as Kafka, Werfel, Rilke, Brod, and Eisner. The course materials will include literary texts, films, and artworks.

Prerequisites:

Readings:  The Czech Reader; selection of texts assembled by the instructor. 

Grading: Midterm 20%, Research Paper 30%, Response Papers, Participation, Presentation 50%.

Students will study cultural and intellectual history represented in the major works of Polish literature in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Readings and discussions are in English.  No knowledge of Polish is required.

Students who read Polish are encouraged to do so.

Films will be used to show the media interpretation of the major works of Polish literature.

Prerequisites: None

Readings:

The History of Polish Literature by Czeslaw Milosz

Selected readings

Movies

Grading:

10% Attendance

20% Participation

10% Readings Quizzes

10% Movie Quizzes

10% Literary Works Quizzes

20% Project

20% Final Paper

This course will use both contemporary Russian film as a means of exploring the confusion that resulted from the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the search for a new sense of identity in Russia throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. We will look at the work of Russia's best contemporary (and not quite so contemporary) directors, such as Pavel Lungin,  Aleksei Balabanov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrei Zviaginstev and Aleksandr Sokurov as an entry-point into the soul of contemporary Russia.

Requirements: Active in-class participation, three 6-page papers and one presentation (approx. 15 minute presentation) with a partner.

Required/recommended films: 

The Brother (1997), Aleksei Balabanov

Close to Eden (1993), Nikita Mikhalkov

Father and Son (2003), Aleksandr Sokurov

Four (2003), Ilya Krzhanovskii

House of Fools (2002), Andrei Konchalovsky

Luna Park (1991), Pavel Lungin

Mermaid (2007), Anna Melikyan

Nightwatch (2004), Timur Bekmabetov

Of Freaks and Men (1997), Aleksei Balabanov

Prisoner of the Mountains (1996), Sergei Bodrov

The Return (2003), Andrei Zviagintsev

Russian Ark (2002), Aleksandr Sokurov

Siberian Barber (1998), Nikita Mikhalkov

The Thief (1997), Pavel Chukhrai

Grading:

Participation   20%

3 essays (5-6 pages) 60%

1 presentation 20%

Course Description

Twice in the 20th century Russia experienced revolutionary political, economic, and social change. Since the communist regime collapse in 1991, Russia has attempted to simultaneously transform its political system from a communist regime to a democratic one and its state-controlled economy to one based on a free market. While engaged in this daunting task, the country has also had to deal with the precipitous decline in international power and influence that accompanied the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, loss of empire in Eastern Europe, and defeat in its superpower struggle with the United States. Begun with high hopes of a smooth transition to free market democracy, this transformation instead produced a decade-long economic collapse and very fragile democratic and capitalist institutions.  In the 2000s, President Vladimir Putin ushered in a highly centralized political system that was marked by excessive executive power, severe restrictions on civil liberties, human rights, and media freedoms, and manipulated and fraudulent elections.  Essentially, Russia has returned to authoritarian rule despite retaining some of the trappings of democratic politics.

This course will introduce students to the political development in Russia from 1917 to the present. It is vitally necessary to have some background on the Soviet system if one is to understand the contemporary situation. Thus, we will spend the first one-third of the course examining the birth, life, and death of the Soviet Union. After this, we will discuss the twin challenges of democratization and radical market reform facing the new post-Soviet Russian state. We will examine competing explanations including culture, institutions, and leadership decisions that can account for the difficulties Russia has had establishing a functional democracy and market economy.

Grading Policy

First Take-Home Essay                                              25%

First Midterm Exam                                                   20%

Second Take-Home Essay                                          25%

Second Midterm Exam                                               20%

Participation (based on in-class quizzes)                      10%

Texts

M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia.

Z. Barany and R. Moser (eds.), Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization.

Description: Despite the many calamities it caused and experienced in the twentieth century, the German state has persisted into our present as a leader in European politics, economy and society and an important international actor. To understand why this would be the case, this course treats the history of Germany in the “long” twentieth century, that is, from the intermediate background of WWI and the establishment of a unified German Empire (1871) to the present. Class time will alternate between lecture and discussion of primary source readings. Topics to be covered include: German economy, geography, and demography; national unification; German colonialism; Wilhelmine society and culture; the social and political status of German Jewry; the background, causes, and experience of WWI; the failed Communist Revolution of 1919; the emergence and decline of the Weimar state; the economic crisis of the interwar years; Weimar culture; National Socialism and the Third Reich; the experience and effects of WWII; the Holocaust; the constitution of East and West German states, societies, and cultures; the “economic miracle”; the Cold War in Germany; 1968 and its social effects; the revolutions of 1989; reunification; the experience of non-Germans in Germany since 1945; and Germany in the European Union. Where possible we will consider these themes in global context. Throughout, emphasis will fall on the reading and interpretation of primary sources in English translation, including text, film, photographs, and music.

Possible readings (selections – please consult the instructor for the final reading list before purchasing any items):

Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday; Ernst Jünger, Storms of Steel; Erich Maria Remarque, The Road Back; Fritz Stern, Five Germanys I Have Known; Kaes et al., The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (selections); Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Peter Fritzsche,Germans into Nazis; Arthur Koestler, The God that Failed; J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace; Filip Müller,Eyewitness Auschwitz; Jana Hensel, After the Wall.

Probable grading scheme:

Map quiz=5%; Midterm 25%; Final exam 25%; Short paper 30%; other quizzes 15%.

This course is designed to develop a geographical understanding of the Circumpolar region of the North, an ancient human habitat and a home to distinct, millennia old, civilizations. These indigenous Arctic cultures and livelihoods are being constantly challenged by modern industrial powers, and the clash between two contesting realities is profound. Emphasis is given to a historical geographical perspective on the major processes forming cultural and natural landscapes (including global warming), and influence society, economy, spiritual life and politics. Regions include: Alaska, the Canadian northern territories, Scandinavian North, including Sapmi (Lapland), Iceland, Greenland, the Russian North, and Siberia.

Prerequisites: upper division undergraduate students

Readings: course package

Grading: the final grade for the course is based on 3 exams

This course is a systematic introduction to geography of all regions of Europe, from Iceland to Sicily and European Russia and Finland to Bretagne and Galicia. The course is based on a renowned textbook by Alexander B. Murphy, Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov and Bella Bychkova Jordan and focuses on all the major aspects of the European makeup: its physical, economic, political, and cultural geography, geolinguistics and environmental issues. A special attention is given to such issues as expansion of the European Union and NATO, problems associated with immigration and ethnic tensions, challenges of multiculturalism and integration. A significant portion of the class is dedicated to the analysis of demographic, urban and agricultural patterns. The historical perspective allows the analysis of the evolution of the European civilization during the last two millennia and resulting geographical patterns in modern Europe.

Prerequisites: upper division undergraduate students

Readings: Alexander B. Murphy, Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov and Bella Bychkova Jordan.  The European Culture Area: A Systematic Geography, 2009, 5th edition. Rowman and Littlefield: Lanham, Boulder, CO. Available at The Co-Op and amazon.com

Grading: The final grade is based on 3 exams.

Prerequisite: Consent of the undergraduate adviser in Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies.

Hour(s) to be arranged. Restricted enrollment; contact the department for permission to register for this class. May be repeated for credit.