Curriculum & Courses

RUSS UN1101 First-year Russian I. 5 points.

Grammar, reading, composition, and conversation.

RUSS UN1102 First-year Russian II. 5 points.

Grammar, reading, composition, and conversation.

RUSS UN2101 Second-Year Russian I . 5 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS UN1102 or the equivalent.

Drill practice in small groups. Reading, composition, and grammar review."Off-sequence" 

RUSS UN2102 Second-year Russian II. 5 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS UN2101 or the equivalent.

Drill practice in small groups. Reading, composition, and grammar review.

RUSS UN3101 Third-year Russian I. 4 points.

Limited enrollment.

Prerequisites: RUSS UN2102 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission.

Recommended for students who wish to improve their active command of Russian. Emphasis on conversation and composition. Reading and discussion of selected texts and videotapes. Lectures. Papers and oral reports required. Conducted entirely in Russian.

RUSS UN3102 Third-Year Russian II. 4 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS UN2102 or the equivalent and the instructor's permission.

Enrollment limited. Recommended for students who wish to improve their active command of Russian. Emphasis on conversation and composition. Reading and discussion of selected texts and videotapes. Lectures. Papers and oral reports required. Conducted entirely in Russian.

RUSS UN3105 Real World Russian. 3 points.

Prerequisites: (RUSS UN2102) (department placement test)

This content-based course has three focal points: 1) communicative skills 1) idiomatic language; 3) cross-cultural awareness.

The course is designed to help students further develop all of their language skills with particular focus on communicative and information processing skills, as well as natural student collaboration in the target language. The materials and assignments that will be used in class allow to explore a broad range of social, cultural, and behavioral contexts and familiarize students with idiomatic language, popular phrases and internet memes, developments of the colloquial language, and the use of slang in everyday life.

On each class students will be offered a variety of content-based activities and assignments, including, information gap filling, role-play and creative skits, internet search, making presentations, and problem-solving discussions. Listening comprehension assignments will help students expand their active and passive vocabulary and develop confidence using natural syntactic models and idiomatic structures.

Students will be exposed to cultural texts of different registers, which will help them enhance their stylistic competence. Students will learn appropriate ways to handle linguo-social situations, routines, and challenges similar to those they come across when traveling to Russia. They will explore various speech acts of daily communication, such as agreement/disagreement, getting and giving help, asking for a favor, expressing emotions, and so forth. Part of class time will be devoted to nonverbal communication, the language of gestures, emotional phonetics and intonation.

RUSS UN3430 Russian for Heritage Speakers I. 3 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS V3430 or the instructor's permission.

This course is designed to help students who speak Russian at home, but have no or limited reading and writing skills to develop literary skills in Russian. THIS COURSE, TAKEN WITH RUSS V3431, MEET A TWO YEAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. Conducted in Russian.

RUSS UN3431 Russian for Heritage Speakers II. 3 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS V3430 or the instructor's permission.

This course is designed to help students who speak Russian at home, but have no or limited reading and writing skills to develop literary skills in Russian. THIS COURSE, TAKEN WITH RUSS V3430, MEET A TWO YEAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. Conducted in Russian.

RUSS GU4342 Fourth-year Russian I. 4 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS UN3101 and RUSS UN3102 Third-Year Russian I and II, or placement test.

Systematic study of problems in Russian syntax; written exercises, translations into Russian, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.

RUSS GU4334 Fourth-year Russian II. 4 points.

Prerequisites: three years of college Russian and the instructor's permission.

Discussion of different styles and levels of language, including word usage and idiomatic expression; written exercises, analysis of texts, and compositions. Conducted entirely in Russian.

RUSS GU4344 Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through History. 3 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS UN3101 and RUSS UN3102 Third-Year Russian I and II, or placement test.

A language course designed to meet the needs of those foreign learners of Russian as well as heritage speakers who want to develop further their reading, speaking, and writing skills and be introduced to the history of Russia.

RUSS GU4345 Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through History. 3 points.

Prerequisites: three years of Russian.

This is a language course designed to meet the needs of those foreign learners of Russian as well as heritage speakers who want to further develop their reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills and be introduced to the history of Russia.

RUSS GU4350 Moving to Advanced-Plus: Language, Culture, Society in Russian Today. 3 points.

Prerequisites: Six semesters of college Russian and the instructor's permission.

The course is designed to provide advanced and highly-motivated undergraduate and graduate students of various majors with an opportunity to develop professional vocabulary and discourse devices that will help them to discuss their professional fields in Russian with fluency and accuracy. The course targets all four language competencies: speaking, listening, reading and writing, as well as cultural understanding. Conducted in Russian.

RUSS GU4434 Practical Stylistics [in Russian]. 3 points.

Prerequisites: RUSS W4334 or the equivalent or the instructor's permission.

Prerequisite: four years of college Russian or instructor's permission. The course will focus on theoretical matters of language and style and on the practical aspect of improving students' writing skills. Theoretical aspects of Russian style and specific Russian stylistic conventions will be combined with the analysis of student papers and translation assignments, as well as exercises focusing on reviewing certain specific difficulties in mastering written Russian.

RUSS UN3220 Literature and Empire: The Reign of the Novel in Russia (19th Century) [In English]. 3 points.

Explores the aesthetic and formal developments in Russian prose, especially the rise of the monumental 19th-century novel, as one manifestation of a complex array of national and cultural aspirations, humanistic and imperialist ones alike. Works by Pushkin, Lermonotov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. Knowledge of Russian not required.

RUSS UN3221 Literature & Revolution [In English]. 3 points.

The revolutionary period (1905-1938) in Russia was not only one of extreme social upheaval but also of exceptional creativity. Established ideas about individuality and collectivity, about how to depict reality, about language, gender, authority, and violence, were all thrown open to radical questioning. Out of this chaos came ideas about literature and film (just for example) which have shaped Western thought on these subjects to this day. In this course we will study a variety of media and genres (poetry, manifestos, film, painting, photomontage, the novel, theoretical essays) in an effort to gain a deep understanding of this complex and fascinating period in Russian cultural history.

RUSS UN3595 Senior Seminar. 3 points.

A research and writing workshop designed to help students plan and execute a major research project, and communicate their ideas in a common scholarly language that crosses disciplinary boundaries.  Content is determined by students' thesis topics, and includes general sessions on how to formulate a proposal and how to generate a bibliography.  Students present the fruits of their research in class discussions, culminating in a full-length seminar presentation and the submission of the written thesis.

CLRS GU4011 Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and the English Novel [in English]. 3 points.

A close reading of works by Dostoevsky (Netochka Nezvanova; The Idiot; "A Gentle Creature") and Tolstoy (Childhood, Boyhood, Youth; "Family Happiness"; Anna Karenina; "The Kreutzer Sonata") in conjunction with related English novels (Bronte's Jane Eyre, Eliot's Middlemarch, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway). No knowledge of Russian is required.

RUSS GU4107 Russian Literature and Culture in the New Millennium. 3 points.

Survey of Russian literature and culture from the late 1970s until today. Works by Petrushevskaya, Pelevin, Tolstaya, Sorokin, Ulitskaya, Akunin, Rubinshtein, Prigov, Vasilenko, and others. Literature, visual art, and film are examined in social and political context. Knowledge of Russian not required.

CLRS GU4037 Poets, Rebels, Exiles: 100 Years of Russian and Russian Jews in America. 3 points.

Poets, Rebels, Exiles examines the successive generations of the most provocative and influential Russian and Russian Jewish writers and artists who brought the cataclysm of the Soviet and post-Soviet century to North America. From Joseph Brodsky—the bad boy bard of Soviet Russia and a protégé of Anna Akhmatova, who served 18 months of hard labor near the North Pole for social parasitism before being exiled—to the most recent artistic descendants, this course will interrogate diaspora, memory, and nostalgia in the cultural production of immigrants and exiles.

RUSS GU4345 Chteniia po russkoi kul'ture: Advanced Russian Through History. 3 points.

Prerequisites: three years of Russian.

This is a language course designed to meet the needs of those foreign learners of Russian as well as heritage speakers who want to further develop their reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills and be introduced to the history of Russia.

SLLT GU4890 Gulag Literature. 4 points.

The Gulag constituted one of the most notorious examples of the twentieth-century’s totalitarian evil. At the same time, it was subject to one of the most radical campaigns of misrepresentation and manipulation conceived by the Soviet propaganda and supported to a large extent by many cultural and intellectual elites of the West.  From the Bolshevik Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union, the only evidence of the Gulag available to the outside world, apart from Soviet propaganda, were the testimonies of witnesses and survivors.  Their stories functioned as the only available history; Gulag literature, therefore, complicates the traditional distinctions between literature and history. By examining Gulag literature in its many different forms, including propaganda, short stories, novellas, memoirs, poetry, and drama, we will learn the history of the Soviet Gulag system; we will also address questions of authenticity, authority, and morality in the literary representation of trauma and past events.

RUSS UN3333 Vvedenie v russkuiu literaturu: Poor Liza, Poor Olga, Poor Me. 3 points.

For non-native speakers of Russian.

Prerequisites: two years of college Russian or the instructor's permission.

The course is devoted to the reading, analysis, and discussion of a number of Russian prose fiction works from the eighteenth to twentieth century. Its purpose is to give students an opportunity to apply their language skills to literature. It will teach students to read Russian literary texts as well as to talk and write about them. Its goal is, thus, twofold: to improve the students’ linguistic skills and to introduce them to Russian literature and literary history. In 2007-2008: A close study in the original of the “fallen woman” plot in Russian literature from the late eighteenth century. Conducted in Russian.

RUSS GU4910 Literary Translation. 4 points.

Prerequisites: four years of college Russian or the equivalent.

Workshop in literary translation from Russian into English focusing on the practical problems of the craft. Each student submits a translation of a literary text for group study and criticism. The aim is to produce translations of publishable quality.

SLCL UN3001 Slavic Cultures. 3 points.

CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement

The history of Slavic peoples - Russians, Czechs, Poles, Serbs, Croats, Ukrainians, Bulgarians - is rife with transformations, some voluntary, some imposed. Against the background of a schematic external history, this course examines how Slavic peoples have responded to and have represented these transformations in various modes: historical writing, hagiography, polemics, drama and fiction, folk poetry, music, visual art, and film. Activity ranges over lecture (for historical background) and discussion (of primary sources).

SLCL UN3333 The Vampire in Myth, Literature, and Film. 3 points.

The vampire is one of the most popular and enduring images in the world, giving rise to hundreds of monster movies around the globe every year, not to mention novels, short stories, plays, TV shows, and commercial merchandise. Yet the Western vampire image that we know from the film, television, and literature of today is very different from its Slavic and Eastern European progenitors. Nina Auerbach has said that “every age creates the vampire that it needs.” In this course we will explore the Slavic and Eastern European origins of the vampire and how the vampire—in its look, nature, vulnerabilities, and threat—has changed over the centuries.

This approach will provide us with the means to learn about the geography, village and urban cultures, traditional social structure, and religions of Russia and Eastern Europe; the nature and manifestations of Evil and the concept of Limited Good; and major historical and intellectual periods (the settlement of Europe, the Age of Reason, Romanticism, Neo-classicism, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era, up to today). We will examine how the vampire manifested itself in European literature and then in the entertainment (and commercial) media of today, through numerous and various readings of fictional, ethnographic, and scholarly works, the analysis of folklore materials, as well as the viewing of movies, television shows, and Internet sites, not only from the U.S. and Europe but from around the world.

In analyzing the metaphor of the vampire, from Slavic and East European myth to contemporary Western media, we will investigate how the vampire evolved from association with disease to countercultural and civil rights movements. By the end of the course, students will be able to discuss the origins, classifications, functions, natures, and evolution of the vampire and what that can tell us about historical periods and our own contemporary cultures.

No prerequisites.

RMAN GU4002 Romanian Culture, Identity and Complexes. 3 points.

This course addresses the main problems that contribute to the making of Romanian identity, as fragmented or as controversial as it may seem to those who study it. The aim is to become familiar with the deepest patterns of Romanian identity, as we encounter it today, either in history, political studies, fieldwork in sociology or, simply, when we interact with Romanians. By using readings and presentations produced by Romanian specialists, we aim to be able to see the culture with an "insider's eye", as much as we can. This perspective will enable us to develop mechanisms of understanding the Romanian culture and mentality independently, at a more profound level and to reason upon them.

CLSL GU4075 Soviet and Post-Soviet, Colonial and Post Colonial Film. 3 points.

The course will discuss how filmmaking has been used as an instrument of power and imperial domination in the Soviet Union as well as on post-Soviet space since 1991. A body of selected films by Soviet and post-Soviet directors which exemplify the function of filmmaking as a tool of appropriation of the colonized, their cultural and political subordination by the Soviet center will be examined in terms of postcolonial theories. The course will focus both on Russian cinema and often overlooked work of Ukrainian, Georgian, Belarusian, Armenian, etc. national film schools and how they participated in the communist project of fostering a «new historic community of the Soviet people» as well as resisted it by generating, in hidden and, since 1991, overt and increasingly assertive ways their own counter-narratives. Close attention will be paid to the new Russian film as it re-invents itself within the post-Soviet imperial momentum projected on the former Soviet colonies.

BCRS UN1101 Elementary Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian I. 4 points.

Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.

BCRS UN1102 Elementary Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian II. 4 points.

Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.

BCRS UN1201 Intermediate Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian I. 3 points.

Prerequisites: BCRS W1102 or the equivalent.

Readings in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian literature in the original, with emphasis depending upon the needs of individual students. This course number is being changed to BCRS 2101

BCRS GU4331 Advanced Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian I. 3 points.

Prerequisites: BCRS UN2102

Further develops skills in speaking, reading, and writing, using essays, short stories, films, and fragments of larger works. Reinforces basic grammar and introduces more complete structures.

BCRS GU4332 Advanced Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian II. 3 points.

Prerequisites: BCRS UN2102

Further develops skills in speaking, reading, and writing, using essays, short stories, films, and fragments of larger works. Reinforces basic grammar and introduces more complete structures.

CZCH UN1101 Elementary Czech I. 4 points.

Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepare students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.

CZCH UN1102 Elementary Czech II. 4 points.

Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepare students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.

CZCH UN1201 Intermediate Czech I. 4 points.

Prerequisites: CZCH W1102 or the equivalent.

Rapid review of grammar. Readings in contemporary fiction and nonfiction, depending upon the interests of individual students. This course number is being changed to CZCH 2101

CZCH UN2102 Intermediate Czech II. 4 points.

Prerequisites: CZCH UN1102 or the equivalent.

Rapid review of grammar. Readings in contemporary fiction and nonfiction, depending upon the interests of individual students.

CLCZ GU4035 The Writers of Prague. 3 points.

A survey of the Czech, German, and German-Jewish literary cultures of Prague from 1910 to 1920. Special attention to Hašek, ÄŒapek, Kafka, Werfel, and Rilke. Parallel reading lists available in English and in the original.

CZCH GU4333 Readings in Czech Literature, I. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).

Prerequisites: two years of college Czech or the equivalent.

A close study in the original of representative works of Czech literature. Discussion and writing assignments in Czech aimed at developing advanced language proficiency.

CZCH GU4334 Readings in Czech Literature, II. 3 points.

Prerequisites: two years of college Czech or the equivalent.

A close study in the original of representative works of Czech literature. Discussion and writing assignments in Czech aimed at developing advanced language proficiency.

POLI UN1101 Elementary Polish I. 4 points.

Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.

POLI UN1102 Elementary Polish II. 4 points.

Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.

POLI UN1201 Intermediate Polish I. 4 points.

Prerequisites: POLI W1102 or the equivalent.

Rapid review of grammar; readings in contemporary nonfiction or fiction, depending on the interests of individual students. This course number is being changed to POLI 2101

POLI UN2102 Intermediate Polish II. 4 points.

Prerequisites: POLI UN1102 or the equivalent.

Rapid review of grammar; readings in contemporary nonfiction or fiction, depending on the interests of individual students.

POLI GU4101 Advanced Polish I. 4 points.

Prerequisites: two years of college Polish or the instructor's permission.

Extensive readings from 19th- and 20th-century texts in the original. Both fiction and nonfiction, with emphasis depending on the interests and needs of individual students.

POLI GU4102 Advanced Polish II. 4 points.

Prerequisites: two years of college Polish or the instructor's permission.

Extensive readings from 19th- and 20th-century texts in the original. Both fiction and nonfiction, with emphasis depending on the interests and needs of individual students.

UKRN UN1101 Elementary Ukrainian I. 3 points.

Designed for students with little or no knowledge of Ukrainian. Basic grammar structures are introduced and reinforced, with equal emphasis on developing oral and written communication skills. Specific attention to acquisition of high-frequency vocabulary and its optimal use in real-life settings.

UKRN UN1102 Elementary Ukrainian II. 3 points.

Designed for students with little or no knowledge of Ukrainian. Basic grammar structures are introduced and reinforced, with equal emphasis on developing oral and written communication skills. Specific attention to acquisition of high-frequency vocabulary and its optimal use in real-life settings.

UKRN UN1201 Intermediate Ukrainian I. 3 points.

Prerequisites: UKRN W1102 or the equivalent.

Reviews and reinforces the fundamentals of grammar and a core vocabulary from daily life. Principal emphasis is placed on further development of communicative skills (oral and written). Verbal aspect and verbs of motion receive special attention. This course number is being changed to UKRN 2101

UKRN UN2102 Intermediate Ukrainian II. 3 points.

Prerequisites: UKRN UN1102 or the equivalent.

Reviews and reinforces the fundamentals of grammar and a core vocabulary from daily life. Principal emphasis is placed on further development of communicative skills (oral and written). Verbal aspect and verbs of motion receive special attention.

UKRN GU4006 Advanced Ukrainian Through Literature, Media, and Politics. 3 points.

This course is organized around a number of thematic centers or modules. Each is focused on stylistic peculiarities typical of a given functional style of the Ukrainian language. Each is designed to assist the student in acquiring an active command of lexical, grammatical, discourse, and stylistic traits that distinguish one style from the others and actively using them in real-life communicative settings in contemporary Ukraine. The styles include literary fiction, scholarly prose, and journalism, both printed and broadcast.

UKRN GU4007 Advanced Ukrainian Through Literature, Media and Politics II. 3 points.

This course is organized around a number of thematic centers or modules. Each is focused on stylistic peculiarities typical of a given functional style of the Ukrainian language. Each is designed to assist the student in acquiring an active command of lexical, grammatical, discourse, and stylistic traits that distinguish one style from the others and actively using them in real-life communicative settings in contemporary Ukraine. The styles include literary fiction, scholarly prose, and journalism, both printed and broadcast

HNGR UN1101 Elementary Hungarian I. 4 points.

Introduction to the basic structures of the Hungarian language. Students with a schedule conflict should consult the instructor about the possibility of adjusting hours.

HNGR UN2101 Intermediate Hungarian I. 4 points.

Prerequisites: HNGR UN1101-UN1102 or the equivalent.

Further develops a student's knowledge of the Hungarian language. With the instructor's permission the second term of this course may be taken without the first. Students with a schedule conflict should consult the instructor about the possibility of adjusting hours.

HNGR UN2102 Intermediate Hungarian II. 4 points.

Prerequisites: HNGR UN1101-UN1102 or the equivalent.

Further develops a student's knowledge of the Hungarian language. With the instructor's permission the second term of this course may be taken without the first. Students with a schedule conflict should consult the instructor about the possibility of adjusting hours.