Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

BCSN 31102. Advanced BCS: Language through Fiction and Media II. 100 Units.

This advanced course is designed to help students over one of the most difficult hurdles in language training-the transition from working through lessons in a textbook to reading unedited literary texts. The selected pieces of fiction and the exercises drawn from them engage the language's structure on every page. Immersed in a complete language experience, students learn how to engage the natural, organic language of literary texts across a variety of styles and themes enabling them to work with ever more challenging material. The course objective is to hone students' abilities to analyze increasingly complex unrevised texts, identify various styles and registers of the language, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations in both spoken and written format. Attention is given to improving students' abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize and discuss abstract topics. Building vocabulary is stressed as a key to making progress, while issues of language structure and grammar are reinforced throughout the course. Classes are conducted in the target language and may be taken for pass/fail. The prerequisite is two years of formal study of the target language or the equivalent.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 21102, REES 31102, BCSN 21102

BCSN 31104. Advanced Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: Language through Fiction. 100 Units.

This one quarter course is designed to help students over one of the most difficult hurdles in language training-the transition from working through lessons in a textbook to reading unedited literary texts. The selected pieces of fiction and the exercises drawn from them engage the language's structure on every page. Immersed in a complete language experience, students learn how to engage the natural, organic language of literary texts across a variety of styles and themes enabling them to work with ever more challenging material. The course objective is to hone students' abilities to analyze increasingly complex unrevised texts, identify various styles and registers of the language, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations in both spoken and written format. Attention is given to improving students' abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize and discuss abstract topics. Building vocabulary is stressed as a key to making progress, while issues of language structure and grammar are reinforced throughout the course. Classes are conducted in the target language and may be taken for pass/fail. The prerequisite is two years of formal study of the target language or the equivalent.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: TBD
Prerequisite(s): BCSN 20300 or consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 21101, REES 31104, BCSN 21101

BCSN 31105. Advanced BCS: Language through Fiction and Media. 100 Units.

The three-quarter sequence advanced course in BCS is designed for both students who have completed two years of language training at the University of Chicago or equivalent formal study elsewhere, and heritage learners. While the pedagogical needs of heritage learners differ from those of second-language learners, they collectively inform central tenets of the course. The objective is to accelerate the process of language acquisition through reciprocal exchange of knowledge, skills, and cultural information. The course curriculum combines selected pieces of fiction with media-film adaptations of literary works featured in the textbook, or films addressing the weekly topic. Other materials, such as interviews with writers, directors, and humanities scholars also complement the course. Both reading passages and cinematic works, representing various subjects and styles, engage the language structure on every page and in every piece of footage. The course objective is to hone a student's ability to analyze increasingly complex unrevised texts, identify various styles and registers of the language, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations in both spoken and written formats. Skills like narrating, comparing, describing, and supporting opinions are among the language proficiencies to be developed. Vocabulary building is stressed as key for making progress, while issues of language structure and grammar are reinforced throughout the course as they arise in the textbook.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 21103, REES 31105, BCSN 21103

BCSN 31303. (Re)Branding the Balkan City: Comtemp. Belgrade/Sarajevo/Zagreb. 100 Units.

The freedom to make and remake our cities (and ourselves) is one of the most precious yet most neglected of the human rights," argues David Harvey. In this course, we use an urban studies lens to explore the complex history, social fabric, architecture, infrastructure, and cultural transformation of the former Yugoslav capitals. Since their inception, these cities have relied on multifaceted exchanges of peoples and political projects, forms of knowledge, financial and cultural capital, means of production, and innovative ideas. Among others, these exchanges produced two phenomena, Yugoslav architecture, embodying one of the great political experiments of the modern era, and the Non-Aligned Movement, as explored in recent documentary films (Turajlić 2023), museum exhibits (MoMA 2018, "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980"), and monographs (Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity). Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnography of the city, we consider processes of urban destruction and renewal, practices of branding spaces and identities, metropolitan citizenship, arts and design, architectural histories and styles, and the broader politics of space. The course is complemented by cultural and historical media, guest speakers, and virtual tours. Classes are conducted in English.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 21300, BCSN 21300, HIST 24008, REES 21300, ARTH 31333, REES 31303, ARTH 21333, GLST 21301

SLAV 70000. Advanced Study: Slavic Languages & Literatures. 300.00 Units.

Advanced Study: Slavic Languages & Literatures

POLI 30100. Third-Year Polish I. 100 Units.

Third year Polish

Instructor(s): Sasha Lindskog     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): POLI 20300 or equivalent
Equivalent Course(s): POLI 20500

POLI 39700. Reading and Research Course. 100 Units.

This is an independent study course which is arranged, planned, and managed by a supervising professor in conjunction with the goals that are proposed by the student, and then refined and approved by the supervising professor. This course involves more student self-discipline and a greater sense of direction than do most courses - the student must be willing to plan and execute his/her activities with much less monitoring and without prompting by fellow classmates. The student and the professor discuss and propose goals, topics, and projects.

Instructor(s): Dag Lindskog     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Consent of instructor and Departmental Adviser Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form.

POLI 39900. Rdg Course: Polish Lit I. 100 Units.

POLI 39901. Reading Course: Polish Lit I. 100 Units.

POLI 39902. Reading Course: Polish Lit II. 100 Units.

POLI 39903. Reading Course: Polish Lit III. 100 Units.

Advanced Polish studies.

POLI 45027. Between 'New Woman' and 'Sex Worker': Polish Women's Writings in the 1930s. 100 Units.

During the interwar period a constellation of Polish women writers defined through their novels politically and socially progressive positions; although not deeply influenced by Marxism, they were critical of the class society, state, ruling elite, and Catholic mentality. The seminar will investigate these writers' attempts to represent the unrepresented such as the proletariat, the jobless, the disabled, as well as other socially marginalized members of the society including sex workers. The course will discuss an emergence of the "new woman" against the backdrop of a deeply ingrained patriarchalism, and as an epitome of creative, sexual, and social independence. We will view these phenomena with its roots in 19th century Polish and French naturalism in context of the visual art of Neue Sachlichkeit and the emergence of reportage. Inspired by the social critique offered by writings of Boguszewska, Krzywicka, Melcer, Nałkowska, and others, the seminar will consider the way in which genres such as a novel, short story, and reportage can become tools for reform. All readings in this seminar are in Polish.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 45027

RUSS 30102-30202-30302. Advanced Russian through Media I-II-III.

This course, which is designed for fifth-year students of Russian, covers various aspects of Russian stylistics and discourse grammar in context. It emphasizes the four communicative skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening comprehension, speaking) in culturally authentic context. Clips from Russian/Soviet films and television news reports are shown and discussed in class. Classes conducted in Russian.

RUSS 30902. Third-Year Russian through Culture III. 100 Units.

This course, which is intended for third-year students of Russian, covers various aspects of Russian grammar in context and emphasizes the four communicative skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening comprehension, speaking) in a culturally authentic context. Excerpts from popular Soviet/Russian films and clips from Russian television news reports are shown and discussed in class. Classes conducted in Russian; some aspects of grammar explained in English. Drill practice is held twice a week.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Russian 20701 or consent of instructor.
Note(s): Drill sessions to be arranged.
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 20902, REES 20902, REES 30902

RUSS 33333. Reading Russian for Research Purposes. 100 Units.

This course prepares students to read and do research in Russian. Students will gain a fundamental knowledge of Russian grammar and a basic vocabulary while learning to work intensively with primary and secondary texts in their area of academic interest. Reading Russian for Research Purposes has a limited number of spots available for participation via electronic course sharing, intended for students who are unable to be in Chicago physically for the course.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 23333

RUSS 39900. Rdg Course: Russian Literature. 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring

RUSS 39910. Special Topics in Advanced Russian. 100 Units.

Must complete Advanced Russian through Media or equivalent, or obtain consent of instructor. Class meets for 2 hours each week. We'll work with several topics, all of them are relevant to the general theme of "Geography and Worldview: Russian Perspective". There will be maps, reading materials, several documentaries, clips from TV programs and other media, and feature films. Class meetings will be a combination of group discussions, short presentations, and lectures. Final - one term paper at the end (in English) based on Russian materials.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 29910, REES 39910, REES 29910

RUSS 39911. Special Topics in Advanced Russian. 100 Units.

Must complete Advanced Russian through Media or equivalent, or obtain consent of instructor. Class meets for 2 hours each week. We'll work with several topics, all of them are relevant to the general theme of "Geography and Worldview: Russian Perspective". There will be maps, reading materials, several documentaries, clips from TV programs and other media, and feature films. Class meetings will be a combination of group discussions, short presentations, and lectures. Final - one term paper at the end (in English) based on Russian materials.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 29911

RUSS 39912. Special Topics in Advanced Russian. 100 Units.

Must complete Advanced Russian through Media or equivalent, or obtain consent of instructor. Class meets for 2 hours each week. We'll work with several topics, all of them are relevant to the general theme of "Geography and Worldview: Russian Perspective". There will be maps, reading materials, several documentaries, clips from TV programs and other media, and feature films. Class meetings will be a combination of group discussions, short presentations, and lectures. Final - one term paper at the end (in English) based on Russian materials.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 39912, RUSS 29912, REES 29912

REES 30000. Tolstoy's Late Works. 100 Units.

This course examines the works written by Tolstoy after Anna Karenina, when he abandoned the novel as a form and gave up his copyright. Readings include his influential writings on non-violence and vegetarianism, his challenges to church and state authority, as well as later literary works, which some believe surpass the famous novels he had renounced. We will also explore the particularities of Tolstoy's charisma in these years, when he came to be viewed as a second Tsar in Russia and as a moral authority throughout the world.

Instructor(s): William Nickell     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28501, RLIT 32900, FNDL 22850, REES 20000

REES 30002. Tolstoy: Anna Karenina. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): REES 20002, FNDL 27102

REES 30010. Tolstoy: War And Peace. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 22800, REES 20010

REES 30018. Dostoevsky: The Idiot. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 27101, ENGL 48902, REES 20018, CMLT 29300, ENGL 28902, CMLT 39300

REES 30020. Pale Fire. 100 Units.

This course is an intensive reading of Pale Fire by Nabokov.

Instructor(s): M. Sternstein      Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 20020, FNDL 25311, ENGL 22817, GNSE 39610, GNSE 29610

REES 30027. Dostoevsky's Demons. 100 Units.

Mikhail Bakhtin's description of Dostoevsky's novels as polyphonic works, in which characters are free of ideological subordination to the author and thus more fully embody radically different points of view, has been highly compelling as a model for novelistic discourse particularly in the West. There are other views of Dostoevsky, however. In Russia, more attention has been paid to his faith in Orthodox Christianity, which he believed could resolve the intense conflicts that dominate his novels, and to his view that the Russian national character might have the power to unite humanity under universal values. In this course we will read the novel Demons against the backdrop of these ideas, but also in the context of contemporary Russia, where notions of national destiny and sovereign ideals have been used to justify repression and invasion. Our method of reading will be straight out of Dostoevsky and Bakhtin, as students will be invited to adopt the most diverse perspectives and to argue their ideas as if possessed.

Instructor(s): William Nickell     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 20027, REES 20027

REES 30102. Advanced Russian through Media I. 100 Units.

This is a three-quarter sequence designed for fourth- and fifth-year students of Russian. It is also suitable for native speakers of Russian. This sequence covers various aspects of advanced Russian stylistics and discourse grammar in context. This sequence emphasizes the four communicative skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing in a culturally authentic context. It builds transcultural competence by expanding students' knowledge of the language, culture, history, and daily lives of the Russian-speaking people. Vocabulary building is strongly emphasized. We add to the existing skills and develop our abilities to analyze increasingly complex texts for their meaning: to identify various styles and registers of the Russian language and to provide their neutral equivalents in standard Russian. We also work on developing our abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize, discuss abstract topics, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations (in spoken and written format). Classes conducted in Russian. Course-specific grammar issues are covered during drill sessions (weekly) and office hours (by appointment). Oral Proficiency Interviews are conducted in the beginning and the end of the course (Autumn and Spring Quarters). Prerequisite(s): Four years of Russian, or equivalent, or consent of instructor.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Four years of Russian, or equivalent, or consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 30102, REES 21302, RUSS 21302

REES 30202. Advanced Russian through Media II. 100 Units.

This is a three-quarter sequence designed for fourth- and fifth-year students of Russian. It is also suitable for native speakers of Russian. This sequence covers various aspects of advanced Russian stylistics and discourse grammar in context. This sequence emphasizes the four communicative skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing in a culturally authentic context. It builds transcultural competence by expanding students' knowledge of the language, culture, history, and daily lives of the Russian-speaking people. Vocabulary building is strongly emphasized. We add to the existing skills and develop our abilities to analyze increasingly complex texts for their meaning: to identify various styles and registers of the Russian language and to provide their neutral equivalents in standard Russian. We also work on developing our abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize, discuss abstract topics, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations (in spoken and written format).

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Four years of Russian, or equivalent, or consent of instructor.
Note(s): Classes conducted in Russian. Course-specific grammar issues are covered during drill sessions (weekly) and office hours (by appointment). Oral Proficiency Interviews are conducted in the beginning and the end of the course (Autumn and Spring Quarters).
Equivalent Course(s): REES 21402, RUSS 30202, RUSS 21402

REES 30302. Adv Russian Through Media-III. 100 Units.

This course, which is designed for fifth-year students of Russian, covers various aspects of Russian stylistics and discourse grammar in context. It emphasizes the four communicative skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening comprehension, speaking) in culturally authentic context. Clips from Russian/Soviet films and television news reports are shown and discussed in class. Classes conducted in Russian. Conversation practice is held twice a week.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 21502, RUSS 21502, RUSS 30302

REES 30902. Third-Year Russian through Culture III. 100 Units.

This course, which is intended for third-year students of Russian, covers various aspects of Russian grammar in context and emphasizes the four communicative skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening comprehension, speaking) in a culturally authentic context. Excerpts from popular Soviet/Russian films and clips from Russian television news reports are shown and discussed in class. Classes conducted in Russian; some aspects of grammar explained in English. Drill practice is held twice a week.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Russian 20701 or consent of instructor.
Note(s): Drill sessions to be arranged.
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 20902, REES 20902, RUSS 30902

REES 31000. Gombrowicz: The Writer as Philosopher. 100 Units.

In this course, we dwell on Witold Gombrowicz the philosopher, exploring the components of his authorial style and concepts that substantiate his claim to both the literary and the philosophical spheres. Entangled in an ongoing battle with basic philosophical tenets and, indeed, with existence itself, this erudite Polish author is a prime example of a 20th century modernist whose philosophical novels explode with uncanny laughter. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, who established their reputations as writers/philosophers, Gombrowicz applied distinctly literary models to the same questions that they explored. We investigate these models in depth, as we focus on Gombrowicz's novels, philosophical lectures, and some of his autobiographical writings. With an insight from recent criticism of these primary texts, we seek answers to the more general question: What makes this author a philosopher?

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): All readings in English.
Equivalent Course(s): ISHU 29405, FNDL 26903, REES 21000

REES 31002. Kieslowski's French Cinema. 100 Units.

Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue and The Double Life of Veronique catapulted the Polish director to the international scene. His subsequent French triptych Blue, White, Red turned out to be his last works that altered his image and legacy to affirm his status as an auteur and a representative of the transnational cinema. We discuss how in his virtual universe of parallel histories and repeated chances, captured with visually and aurally dazzling artistry, the possibility of reconstituting one's identity, triggered by tragic loss and betrayal, reveals an ever-ambiguous reality. By focusing on the filmmaker's dissolution of the thing-world, often portrayed on the verge of vague abstraction of (in)audibility or (un)transparency, this course bridges his cinema with the larger concepts of postmodern subjectivity and possibility of metaphysics. The course concludes with the filmmaker's contribution to world cinema. All along, we read selections from Kieślowski's and Piesiewicz's screen scripts, Kieślowski's own writings and interviews, as well as from the abundant criticism of his French movies. All materials are in English.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 24405, REES 21002, FNDL 25312, CMST 34405, CMST 24405

REES 31005. Bruno Schulz: An Unfinished Project. 100 Units.

This course examines the prose (fiction and non-fiction) and visual oeuvre of "the hidden genius" of Polish-Jewish modernism--Bruno Schulz--who perished in the Holocaust. 2022 marks the 130th anniversary of his birth and the 80th anniversary of his death, both of which occurred in the town of Drohobycz on the southeastern border of interwar Poland. During the course, we will focus on Schulz's concept of creation through his use of an aesthetics of trash and debased form, the kabbalistic origins of the fragment as a form, de-narrativized temporality and its moments, and myths of the provincial and of childhood. We will seek critical perspectives on his artistic predilection for parochial places, conspiratorial viewpoints, and fetishistic masochism--in sum, for those components of his writings which made his brilliant response to the world like no other in his time. In turn, generations of writers (John Updike, Cynthia Ozick, Bohumil Hrabal, Danilo Kiš, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, etc.) responded to him in their own writings, which will be engaged in the class, seeking a dialogic continuation of his tragically interrupted work. All readings are in English translation.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 26360

REES 31102. Advanced BCS: Language through Fiction and Media II. 100 Units.

This advanced course is designed to help students over one of the most difficult hurdles in language training-the transition from working through lessons in a textbook to reading unedited literary texts. The selected pieces of fiction and the exercises drawn from them engage the language's structure on every page. Immersed in a complete language experience, students learn how to engage the natural, organic language of literary texts across a variety of styles and themes enabling them to work with ever more challenging material. The course objective is to hone students' abilities to analyze increasingly complex unrevised texts, identify various styles and registers of the language, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations in both spoken and written format. Attention is given to improving students' abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize and discuss abstract topics. Building vocabulary is stressed as a key to making progress, while issues of language structure and grammar are reinforced throughout the course. Classes are conducted in the target language and may be taken for pass/fail. The prerequisite is two years of formal study of the target language or the equivalent.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 21102, BCSN 31102, BCSN 21102

REES 31104. Advanced Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: Language through Fiction. 100 Units.

This one quarter course is designed to help students over one of the most difficult hurdles in language training-the transition from working through lessons in a textbook to reading unedited literary texts. The selected pieces of fiction and the exercises drawn from them engage the language's structure on every page. Immersed in a complete language experience, students learn how to engage the natural, organic language of literary texts across a variety of styles and themes enabling them to work with ever more challenging material. The course objective is to hone students' abilities to analyze increasingly complex unrevised texts, identify various styles and registers of the language, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations in both spoken and written format. Attention is given to improving students' abilities to paraphrase, narrate, describe, support opinions, hypothesize and discuss abstract topics. Building vocabulary is stressed as a key to making progress, while issues of language structure and grammar are reinforced throughout the course. Classes are conducted in the target language and may be taken for pass/fail. The prerequisite is two years of formal study of the target language or the equivalent.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: TBD
Prerequisite(s): BCSN 20300 or consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 21101, BCSN 21101, BCSN 31104

REES 31105. Advanced BCS: Language through Fiction and Media. 100 Units.

The three-quarter sequence advanced course in BCS is designed for both students who have completed two years of language training at the University of Chicago or equivalent formal study elsewhere, and heritage learners. While the pedagogical needs of heritage learners differ from those of second-language learners, they collectively inform central tenets of the course. The objective is to accelerate the process of language acquisition through reciprocal exchange of knowledge, skills, and cultural information. The course curriculum combines selected pieces of fiction with media-film adaptations of literary works featured in the textbook, or films addressing the weekly topic. Other materials, such as interviews with writers, directors, and humanities scholars also complement the course. Both reading passages and cinematic works, representing various subjects and styles, engage the language structure on every page and in every piece of footage. The course objective is to hone a student's ability to analyze increasingly complex unrevised texts, identify various styles and registers of the language, and handle linguistically unfamiliar situations in both spoken and written formats. Skills like narrating, comparing, describing, and supporting opinions are among the language proficiencies to be developed. Vocabulary building is stressed as key for making progress, while issues of language structure and grammar are reinforced throughout the course as they arise in the textbook.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 21103, BCSN 31105, BCSN 21103

REES 31303. (Re)Branding the Balkan City: Comtemp. Belgrade/Sarajevo/Zagreb. 100 Units.

The freedom to make and remake our cities (and ourselves) is one of the most precious yet most neglected of the human rights," argues David Harvey. In this course, we use an urban studies lens to explore the complex history, social fabric, architecture, infrastructure, and cultural transformation of the former Yugoslav capitals. Since their inception, these cities have relied on multifaceted exchanges of peoples and political projects, forms of knowledge, financial and cultural capital, means of production, and innovative ideas. Among others, these exchanges produced two phenomena, Yugoslav architecture, embodying one of the great political experiments of the modern era, and the Non-Aligned Movement, as explored in recent documentary films (Turajlić 2023), museum exhibits (MoMA 2018, "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980"), and monographs (Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity). Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnography of the city, we consider processes of urban destruction and renewal, practices of branding spaces and identities, metropolitan citizenship, arts and design, architectural histories and styles, and the broader politics of space. The course is complemented by cultural and historical media, guest speakers, and virtual tours. Classes are conducted in English.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 21300, BCSN 21300, HIST 24008, REES 21300, ARTH 31333, BCSN 31303, ARTH 21333, GLST 21301

REES 32010. The Cinema of Miloš Forman. 100 Units.

The films of Miloš Forman (1932-2018) reflect the turbulence of the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s, and 2000s by focusing on the underdog, the pariah, the eccentric. The subject matter to which Forman was drawn translated into his cinema with a signature bittersweet tone, emphatic narrative cogency, and lush spontaneity. This course is an intensive study of Forman's work from his "New Wave" work in Czechoslovakia (Loves of a Blonde, The Fireman's Ball) to his U.S. studio successes (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus), to his idiosyncratic and parabolic last films (Man on the Moon, Goya's Ghosts). Among other topics, the course contemplate the value of a dark sense of humor, cinematic gorgeousness, and artistic dissidence.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 22010, CMST 36603, CMST 26603, REES 22010

REES 33154. XCAP: The Commune: The Making and Breaking of Intentional Communities. 100 Units.

Any class is an intentional community of sorts: people gathered together with a sense of collective purpose. But often the hopes of students are not met by the content or the methods in the classroom. Can we do better by making the process more intentional-clarifying and developing a collective sense of purpose at the outset? We will start by forming a collective plan on topics to be explored-anything from iconic American communities and Russian communes to memoir studies and economics. Possible projects include creating an intentional community in an off-campus location, designing a communal space, rewriting manifestos, or creating a new communal charter. We can cover anything from economics, space, and gender to the problem of leadership and secular belief systems. We may also want to utilize alternative modes of learning, besides reading and discussing texts, such as roleplaying. A few students in the class have some experience in intentional communities, and we will welcome their input and suggestions

Instructor(s): William Nickell      Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 29975, REES 23154, KNOW 29975

REES 33322. Music, Politics, and Identity in Ukraine. 100 Units.

Ukraine has a long history of sovereignty, which is closely interwoven into the long history of its music and arts. The modern distinctiveness of Ukrainian music, from folk to popular to classical music, is evident today as in the past, especially as it resists military oppression from Russia. The modern musical narrative of Ukrainian sovereignty could not be more striking than in the 2022 Ukrainian victory in the Eurovision Song Contest. This course will examine the significance that music has in the culture and history of Ukrainian nation, the roles it plays in the society and the spheres of the life of Ukrainians. Through lectures, discussions, listening, and watching a selection of pieces representing the versatile system of musical culture in Ukraine, which consists of different indigenous and non-indigenous elements, ancient genres/forms, and their modern interpretations. The course aims to introduce students to different musical practices and the musical life of Ukraine in its connection to diverse sociocultural contexts and dynamic of cultural environment, thereby developing students' understanding of music's use in social and political practices in general.

Instructor(s): Olha Kolomyyets     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): The course takes account of the history of Ukraine and its sociocultural contexts, making it useful not only for music students but also for students majoring in other departments in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Slavic Studies. Students with or without a technical background in music are welcome.
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 23122, REES 23322, MUSI 33122

REES 33325. Ukrainian Art, Literature and Film in the Wake of the Russian Invasion (2014-present) 100 Units.

How does war affect art? Over the past decade, Ukrainian artists have been raising this question in their work, alongside questions about personal and collective identity, authority and authenticity, language and imperial violence, epistemic injustice and decolonization. In this course, we will examine art, literature, and film arising out of the war-triggered crises, whether political, aesthetic, ethical, or existential, focusing on the artists' creative engagement with different kinds of documentary and source material, experiments with form, and intermodal and inter-genre dialogue. Readings may include work by Stanislav Aseyev, Yevgenia Belorusets, Artem Chekh, Andrey Kurkov, Olena Stiazhkina, Natalya Vorozhbit, and Serhiy Zhadan. We will also consider films, cartoons, and a range of audiovisual sources. Students can expect to engage with the newest cutting-edge work from Ukraine; to develop individual research projects in collaboration with their peers; and to write a final paper.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 23325, CMST 23325

REES 34220. Anxious Spaces. 100 Units.

This course explores built (architectural), filmic, and narrative spaces that disturb our bearings, un-situate us, and defy neurotypical cognition. In the sense that "angst" is a mode that can be understood as both stalling and generative, we analyze spaces and representations of spaces such as corridors, attics, basements, canals, viaducts, labyrinths, forests, ruins, etc., spaces that are 'felt' as estranging, foreboding, in short, anxiety-provoking, in order to understand why-despite or because these topoi are hostile-they are produced, reproduced, and craved. We will pay special attention to abject spaces of racial and sexual exclusivity, sites of spoliation, and of memory and erasure. Among our primary texts are films by Kubrick, Tarkovksy, and Antonioni, and Chytilová, short fiction by Borges, Kafka, Nabokov, and selections from the philosophical/theoretical writings of Bachelard, Deleuze & Guattari, Debord, Foucault, Kracauer, and the edited volume, Mapping Desire, Geographies of Sexuality.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 24220, GNSE 34220, GNSE 24220, ARCH 24220

REES 34404. Theater in East and Central Europe: Between Power and Powerlessness. 100 Units.

National independence movements, revolutions, authoritarian regimes, and the decline of empire: playwrights in East and Central Europe wrote major works of world literature in response to these events - and sometimes in prescient anticipation of them. This seminar introduces students to the plays that, from Chekhov to Havel, shaped the fates of nations. Topics include: the avant-garde, theater of the absurd, acting methods, performance art, and documentary theater.

Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 26040, TAPS 35214, TAPS 25214, REES 24404

REES 34425. Invasion Culture: Russia Through its Wars. 100 Units.

A look at contemporary culture through Russia's invasions, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Broadly, this course explores how war determines cultural life. How do the policies and tactics of war, and the art and literature of wartime, convey ideas about power and the state, traditional vs. modern values, civilizational mission vs. cultural pluralism? Beyond Russian literature and film, we consider voices from Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Chechnya, Syria, Belarus, and Ukraine, asking, How are Russia's wars fought in the domain of culture?

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 24425, REES 24425

REES 34426. The Witch Craze in 17th-Century Europe: Scotland, Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and Moravia. 100 Units.

In this course, we look carefully at the reasons for and repercussions of the "witch craze" in the long 17th-century, focussing on primary texts such as trial reports, legal literature, pamphlets, woodcuts, scholarly dissent, and other paraphernalia. The course follows a sweep of the craze from Lancashire in Scotland, where trials began in the 1590s, to Poznań in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to the Russian village of Lukh on the outskirts of Moscow, where between 1656 and 1660 over twenty-five individuals, most of them male, were tried and several executed, and finally to Northern Moravia under Habsburg rule where inquisitor Hetman Boblig presided over the burning of almost 100 "witches." In each region, trials followed different customs-Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic-and answered to different legislative discourse-ecclesiastical, laic, secular-yet all can be said to be the product of a common desire and collective fear. To supplement our understanding of the multifaceted anxieties that are expressed in works such as King James' Daemonologie (1597), and to ask more questions of the intersectional phobias around gender, sexuality, religion, and class (rural-urban; colony-metropole), we take up theory from Foucault, Federici, and Mbembe, and others.

Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 24426, REES 24426, GNSE 34426

REES 35604. Russian Media at War. 100 Units.

In this course we will form a collective to follow and respond to Russian media coverage of the war in Ukraine and its larger context. We will consider the impact of tightened control over journalistic free speech and the increasingly top-down control of representations of Russia's role in the region, with a primary focus on Ukraine. We will analyze the main narratives that have been used to justify the actions of the Russian state, and the methods that have been used to undermine counternarratives. While we will find tools of analysis through background reading in theory, we will spend most of our time looking at current media content coming out of Russia, Ukraine, and their neighboring countries, with some attention also to American and other western sources. Russian, Ukrainian, and other language skills will be highly useful, but are not required.

Instructor(s): William Nickell     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 25604, KNOW 35604, KNOW 25604

REES 36005. Anth/Lit: Pushkin and Eugene Onegen. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34816

REES 36038. Russophonia: Contemporary Poetry Beyond Borders. 100 Units.

Like anglophone and francophone literatures, russophone culture has long been produced beyond Russia's borders. The collapse of the Soviet Union both shrunk and scattered Russia's cultural influence, transforming the contours of "russophonia-land." Studying the development of poetry written in Russian both within and outside of Russia, we read anthologies of Russian poems from Kyiv, Minsk, Petersburg, Fergana, Alma-Aty, Tel Aviv, and New York. We consider: revolutionary exchange networks, colonization, immigration, translation, and other dynamics that drive linguistic spread. Students undertake presentations and research on writers of their choice.

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: TBD
Prerequisite(s): Knowledge of Russian for reading.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 26038

REES 36040. Between Power and Powerlessness: Theater in East and Central Europe. 100 Units.

National independence movements, revolutions, authoritarian regimes, and the decline of empire: playwrights in East and Central Europe wrote major works of world literature in response to these events - and sometimes in prescient anticipation of them. This seminar introduces students to the plays that, from Chekhov to Havel, shaped the fates of nations. Topics include: the avant-garde, theater of the absurd, acting methods, performance art, and documentary theater.

Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 25215, REES 26040, TAPS 35215

REES 36072. The Roots of War: Historical and Cultural Causes of Russian Aggression in Ukraine. 100 Units.

Since the beginning of Russia's war on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and his entourage have created false historical constructions that serve as the basis for their aggressive policy. The main question of this course is: to what extent is Putin's retro-policy historically grounded, traditional and natural? An analysis of the rhetoric and historiosophy of the modern Russian elite will reveal the sources they been drawn upon. Is there a connection between Muscovite Russia, the Russian Empire and modern Russian neo-imperialism? What role does the legacy of the USSR play in the political system, state structure and foreign policy of the modern Russian Federation? Where do historical trends, national interests and the new imperial ideology coincide and contradict each other? We will also discuss the modern history of opposition to Putin's authoritarianism and trace the history and cultural significance of democratic institutions in Russia. Finally, we will use the history of Ukrainian statehood and the processes of formation of the Ukrainian nation to shed alternative perspective on recent Russian views of Ukraine.

Instructor(s): Sergei Shokarev      Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 26072

REES 36073. Post-Soviet Ukraine. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the cultural life of Ukraine after the Soviet collapse. In a guided process, students will co-facilitate this syllabus, deciding on topics and readings in (translated) Ukrainian literature and film as well as the history of Ukraine. Possible topics include: memory of Soviet wars, the capitalist transition, Chornobyl, artistic movements, subcultures, the Maidan Revolution, Russia's war, language politics, ethnicities, and gender relations. Reading options include Andryukhovich, Zabuzhko, Plokhy, Zhadan. No prior knowledge required.

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 26070, HIST 23615, HIST 33615

REES 36074. The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky. 100 Units.

Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) is widely considered to be one of Soviet cinema's great auteurs, a fiercely independent creative artist and thinker. Known for his long takes, visual imagery, intertextuality, and philosophical self-reflectiveness, Tarkovsky has profoundly shaped the evolution of modern art cinema over the past fifty years and his legacy is still very much alive in both the Slavic world and the west. In this course, we will study Tarkovsky's major films focusing particularly on their aesthetic characteristics, spiritual and philosophical dimensions, and cultural and political context.

Equivalent Course(s): CMST 36074, CMST 26074, REES 26074

REES 36077. Russian Modernist Theater. 100 Units.

Russian Modernist Theater explores the theory and practice of the new stage forms developed in Russia from 1900 to 1940. The course begins with the Stanislavsky school, and then delves deeply into the more experimental work of Meyerhold and his generation and the first attempts to create a revolutionary Soviet theater in the 1920s. The course will include a production, which will be scaled to the number and ambitions of the enrolled students. Course requirements can be met through the writing of a conventional paper, or through the production, via set or costume design, dramaturgy, performance, or staging. Each of these production assignments will require a write-up relating the work to the course materials and discussions.

Instructor(s): William Nickell     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): REES 26077

REES 36603. Soviet Cinema and the Avant-Garde. 100 Units.

This course examines some of the most ambitious claims about what cinema as a medium can do by early Soviet filmmakers. We look at the extraordinary flourishing of cinema in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s including films by Eisenstein, Vertov, Shub, Pudovkin and Dovzhenko, their theoretical writings, their collaborations with avant-garde artists and theater designers, and their far-reaching influence on film and film theory. We will also consider the political and historical context of the films and their creators.

Instructor(s): Anne E. Moss     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 24507, REES 26603

REES 37007. Mapping Our Selves: Identity and Subjectivity. 100 Units.

This course examines how different collective and individual selves develop, change, and get mobilized in modern Eastern and Central Europe. As Enlightenment, post-Enlightenment, and national ideas spread across Europe, the understanding of self and subjectivity was fundamentally transformed. In Eastern and Central Europe, themselves terms that have their roots in these changes, this occurred at a tumultuous time of changes of borders, countries, and forms of government. This course focuses primarily on cultures and literatures in Poland's different forms of existence and non-existence, a locus central to these dynamics. We will ask such questions as: What does it mean to develop a sense of a nation without a territorial state or within an empire? What kind of subject do different works of art elicit and why? Under what circumstances does identity become a more engaging understanding of the self? What are its borders and porousness? We will be reading a variety of literary, artistic, and theoretical works from the 18th to 21st centuries, among them Immanuel Kant on Enlightenment subjectivity, Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the form and future of Poland, Karl Marx on base and superstructure, and Louis Althusser on the dynamics of getting drawn into a society and economic system (interpellation); as well as Polish authors probing these issues and tensions, such as Witkacy, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Andrzej Stasiuk, Debora Vogel, and Stanisław Brzozowski.

Instructor(s): Dag Lindskog     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 27007

REES 37014. Moments of Happiness. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 26902, REES 27014

REES 37019. Holocaust Object. 100 Units.

In this course, we explore various ontological and representational modes of the Holocaust material object world as it was represented during World War II. Then, we interrogate the post-Holocaust artifacts and material remnants, as they are displayed, curated, controlled, and narrated in the memorial sites and museums of former ghettos and extermination and concentration camps. These sites which-once the locations of genocide-are now places of remembrance, the (post)human, and material remnants also serve educational purposes. Therefore, we study the ways in which this material world, ranging from infrastructure to detritus, has been subjected to two, often conflicting, tasks of representation and preservation, which we view through a prism of authenticity. In order to study representation, we critically engage a textual and visual reading of museum narrations and fiction writings; to tackle the demands of preservation, we apply a neo-materialist approach. Of special interest are survivors' testimonies as appended to the artifacts they donated. The course will also equip you with salient critical tools for future creative research in Holocaust studies.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 23910, HIST 33413, ARCH 27019, ANTH 35035, REES 27019, JWSC 29500, HIST 23413

REES 37025. The Cracks of Being: Polish Modernist Literature. 100 Units.

The Cracks of Being: Polish Modernist Literature. The 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by radical changes: trains, cameras, telephones, industrialization, democracy. Moreover, objectivity appeared to be undermined by our unconscious, making for an increased doubt and suspicion toward being. "All that is solid melts into air," Karl Marx wrote, and many would-be truths seemed to unmoor. On the other hand, modern life came with a sense of alienation and disenchantment in our increasingly mediated experience. Straddling this chasm, modernist literature has used many different strategies to make literary modern existence; and these are the focus of this course. Some authors try to salvage form, others attempt to mimic this instability, or represent the impossibility of representation. Our authors look for liminalities, epiphanies, cracks and nooks of being and language, in order to sound out, defamiliarize and re-present reality. The authors we will read include Bolesław Leśmian, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Zofia Nałkowska, Bruno Schulz, Czesław Miłosz, and Witold Gombrowicz.

Instructor(s): Sasha Lindskog     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 27025

REES 37026. Kieslowski: The Decalogue. 100 Units.

In this class, we study the monumental series "The Decalogue" by one of the most influential filmmakers from Poland, Krzysztof Kieślowski. Without mechanically relating the films to the Ten Commandments, Kieślowski explores the relevance of the biblical moral rules to the state of modern man forced to make ethical choices. Each part of the series contests the absolutism of moral axioms through narrative twists and reversals in a wide, universalized sphere. An analysis of the films will be accompanied by readings from Kieślowski's own writings and interviews, including criticism by Zizek, Insdorf, and others.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 36705, FNDL 24003, REES 27026, CMST 26705

REES 37031. Between Phenomenology and Formalism: A Seminar in Literary Theory and Philosophy. 100 Units.

The course opens with a discussion of the distant origins of phenomenology and formalism as dominant approaches in East Central European literary criticism during the interwar period. In the case of phenomenology, the course discussion harks back to the 19th century Franz Brentano's work on intentionality at Charles University in Prague; the conceptualization of the Russian Formalists also gets an originary treatment beginning in the Opojaz and Moscow Linguistic Circle etc. Moving chronologically, the course includes Edmund Husserl's basic notions of phenomenology paralleled by readings from Viktor Shklovsky, Vladimir Propp and Boris Eikhenbaum. The introduction of Roman Ingarden's monumental conceptualization of literature in his The Literary Work of Art leads to exploration of his pioneering work on reader response theory in The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art. Our overview of literary phenomenology concludes with readings from Jan Patočka. Finally, we explore Kazimierz Wóycicki's work to help us understand how the Polish version of formalism reached its peak in the 1960s and 70s in the guise of structuralism. All readings are in English.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): All readings are in English.

REES 37032. Bodies, Objects, Cognition. 100 Units.

This course explores the differences between objects and embodiment as examined in varied historical periods and artistic genres. We will probe the ontological indeterminacy of embodied beings versus machines in terms of agency, autonomy, subjectivity, and artificiality. Our main operative mode is a visual-verbal comparison and its perception. Through discussions of such visual strategies as pareidolia, abstraction, bodyscape, as well as the scientific phenomena of cloning and humanoid robotics, the course will destabilize once fundamental epistemologies to present a cognitive moment when the traditionally stable object-body dichotomy is understood anew as a dynamic site of affective, biological, representational, and mechanical relations. Visual artists, writers and critics studied will include Leonardo da Vinci, Hans Holbein, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Tadeusz Borowski, Stanislaw Lem, Allan Teger, Magdalena Abakanowicz, W.T.J. Mitchell and others. All readings are in English.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 27032, ARTH 27032, KNOW 37032, REES 27032, ARTH 37032, ANTH 27032, ANTH 37032

REES 37035. Gender, Agency, and Power in 19th C Russian Literature. 100 Units.

This course focuses on scandalous provocations and quieter acts of resistance against normative gender expectations in 19th-century Russian literature. We read narratives of rebellion by individuals and collective actions by groups of women, and consider the surprising agency attributed to women's cooperative work in Russian literature as well as the heavy burdens placed on women by family, state, and church. Readings include primarily short fiction in a variety of genres (sentimental, romantic, realist, and gothic) by canonized male writers and by women writers of the 19th Century who are less often taught and translated, but were widely read in their own day. These works expand our understanding of the narrative possibilities for sexuality and gendered subjectivity in the Russian literary sphere, and of the ways in which possibility itself was made and remade by literary expression. The course also introduces students to methods of literary analysis informed by critical theories of gender, and asks how Russian literary and cultural history may offer new ways of thinking about gendered bodies, performance, and interrelations in the 19th Century and today.

Instructor(s): Anne Eakin Moss     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 27035, GNSE 20118

REES 38800. Politics and Cinema under Authority. 100 Units.

Why do authoritarian regimes take interest in art and culture? How do citizens respond to these efforts? Between authoritarian propaganda and outright contestation of authoritarianism is a wide niche of art and media production that is just independent enough to capture the attention of the citizens and yet subtle enough to not alarm authoritarian rulers. This is relevant for film and television in particular, which cannot function under authoritarian regimes without official approval. In this course, we explore the compromises filmmakers make to continue their creative practice and the concessions state actors grant to accommodate artistic work using the 10-episode television series, Dekalog (1988), by the acclaimed Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski. To answer our questions, we draw on literature and methodology from political science and film and media studies. We investigate what is to be gained by combining approaches from two disciplines that are rarely in conversation with each other.

Instructor(s): Maria Belodubrovskaya and Monika Nalepa     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Enrollment limit: 18
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 28805, PLSC 38801, REES 28800, CDIN 28801, CDIN 38800, CMST 38800, PLSC 28805

REES 38914. New Directions in Slavic Studies. 100 Units.

This seminar examines the recent major works of scholarship in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, taking stock of the current state of the field. It introduces the interdisciplinary research methods (e.g. historical, anthropological, digital studies, etc.) that have driven new developments in SEES.

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 28914

REES 39009. Balkan Folklore. 100 Units.

Vampires, fire-breathing dragons, vengeful mountain nymphs. 7/8 and other uneven dance beats, heart-rending laments, and a living epic tradition. This course is an overview of Balkan folklore from historical, political, and anthropological perspectives. We seek to understand folk tradition as a dynamic process and consider the function of different folklore genres in the imagining and maintenance of community and the socialization of the individual. We also experience this living tradition firsthand through visits of a Chicago-based folk dance ensemble, "Balkan Dance."

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 23301, ANTH 35908, NEHC 20568, ANTH 25908, CMLT 33301, REES 29009, NEHC 30568

REES 39010. Strangers to Ourselves: Emigre Literature and Film from Russia and Southeast Europe. 100 Units.

Being alienated from myself, as painful as that may be, provides me with that exquisite distance within which perverse pleasure begins, as well as the possibility of my imagining and thinking," writes Julia Kristeva in "Strangers to Ourselves," the book from which this course takes its title. The authors whose works we are going to examine often alternate between nostalgia and the exhilaration of being set free into the breathless possibilities of new lives. Leaving home does not simply mean movement in space. Separated from the sensory boundaries that defined their old selves, immigrants inhabit a warped, fragmentary, disjointed time. Immigrant writers struggle for breath-speech, language, voice, the very stuff of their craft resounds somewhere else. Join us as we explore the pain, the struggle, the failure, and the triumph of emigration and exile. Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Nina Berberova, Julia Kristeva, Alexander Hemon, Dubravka Ugrešić, Norman Manea, Miroslav Penkov, Ilija Trojanow, Tea Obreht.

Instructor(s): A. Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): REES 29010, CMLT 26912, CMLT 36912

REES 39013. The Burden of History: A Nation and Its Lost Paradise. 100 Units.

What makes it possible for the imagined communities called nations to command the emotional attachments that they do? This course considers some possible answers to Benedict Anderson's question on the basis of material from the Balkans. We will examine the transformation of the scenario of paradise, loss, and redemption into a template for a national identity narrative through which South East European nations retell their Ottoman past. With the help of Žižek's theory of the subject as constituted by trauma and Kant's notion of the sublime, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 23401, NEHC 20573, HIST 24005, CMLT 33401, REES 29013, HIST 34005, NEHC 30573

REES 39021. The Shadows of Living Things: The Writings of Mikhail Bulgakov. 100 Units.

What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people…. Do you want to strip the earth of all the trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light?" asks the Devil. Mikhail Bulgakov worked on his novel The Master and Margarita throughout most of his writing career, in Stalin's Moscow. Bulgakov destroyed his manuscript, re-created it from memory, and reworked it feverishly even as his body was failing him in his battle with death. The result is an intense contemplation on the nature of good and evil, on the role of art and the ethical duty of the artist, but also a dazzling world of magic, witches, and romantic love, and an irresistible seduction into the comedic. Laughter, as shadow and light, as the subversive weapon but also as power's whip, grounds human relation to both good and evil. Brief excursions to other texts that help us better understand Master and Margarita.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 29020, REES 29021

REES 39023. Returning the Gaze: The West and the Rest. 100 Units.

Aware of being observed. And judged. Inferior... Abject… Angry... Proud… This course provides insight into identity dynamics between the "West," as the center of economic power and self-proclaimed normative humanity, and the "Rest," as the poor, backward, volatile periphery. We investigate the relationship between South East European self-representations and the imagined Western gaze. Inherent in the act of looking at oneself through the eyes of another is the privileging of that other's standard. We will contemplate the responses to this existential position of identifying symbolically with a normative site outside of oneself-self-consciousness, defiance, arrogance, self-exoticization-and consider how these responses have been incorporated in the texture of the national, gender, and social identities in the region. Orhan Pamuk, Ivo Andrić, Nikos Kazantzakis, Aleko Konstantinov, Emir Kusturica, Milcho Manchevski.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23609, CMLT 29023, REES 29023, CMLT 39023, NEHC 39023, NEHC 29023, HIST 33609

REES 39024. States of Surveillance. 100 Units.

What does it feel to be watched and listened to all the time? Literary and cinematic works give us a glimpse into the experience of living under surveillance and explore the human effects of surveillance - the fraying of intimacy, fracturing sense of self, testing the limits of what it means to be human. Works from the former Soviet Union (Solzhenitsyn, Abram Tertz, Andrey Zvyagintsev), former Yugoslavia (Ivo Andrić, Danilo Kiš, Dušan Kovačević), Romania (Norman Manea, Cristian Mungiu), Bulgaria (Valeri Petrov), and Albania (Ismail Kadare).

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 29024, REES 29024, CMLT 39024

REES 39026. Loyalties, Friendships, Loves. 100 Units.

The Eastern European experience of surveillance under the police state is most often associated with the sense of betrayal, the invasion of the innermost spaces of intimacy and individual consciousness by the secret all-seeing eye. What is often overlooked, however, is the obverse side of fear - the fierce code of loyalty, the tenacity of friendship and love nurtured in the interstices of surveillance and resistance. How are love and friendship understood in such circumstances? Are they experienced in the same way as we understand them? This class will explore these emotional cultural scripts through an array of East, Central, South-East European literary and cinematic works.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 29026, CMLT 29026

REES 39035. Empathetic Sorrows: Recent Bulgarian Literature. 100 Units.

What does it feel to write from "the saddest place in the world"? In 2010, The Economist published an article entitled "The Rich, the Poor, and Bulgaria," in which Bulgaria bucked the paradigm of predicted correlation between income and happiness. "The saddest place in the world, relative to its income per person," the Economist reported, "is Bulgaria." Storytelling invites us to step outside ourselves and inhabit someone else's way of relating to the world. This course will explore the gentle, melancholic empathy with which Bulgarian post-socialist literature seeks otherness in the (no longer heroic) past and the (even less heroic) present.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): REES 29035

REES 39045. Dostoevsky and Critical Theory. 100 Units.

The tormented, obsessed, and sadistic characters of Dostoevsky's novels posed a challenge to positivism and reason too scandalous and compelling to be ignored. The novels inspired some of the most brilliant and influential thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the fields of religion, philosophy, psychology and literary theory. We will read two of Dostoevsky's philosophically challenging novels alongside works by these critics and philosophers, including Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Bakhtin, Kristeva, and Levinas. While exploring their ideas about faith and unbelief, madness and reason, violence and torture, society and history, we will also inquire into the relationships among literature, philosophy and biography and examine the processes of influence and adaptation.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 29045, RLST 28207, CMLT 39045, REES 29045

REES 39071. Magic Nations. 100 Units.

As part of the post-colonial turn, magic realism is a hybrid mode of narration rejects, overcomes, and offers an alternative to the colonial, Enlightenment episteme. It mobilizes the imaginations and narrative modes of pre-colonial pasts in the articulation of new, post-colonial, often national, selves. In this course, we will unpack some captivating narratives from Southeast Europe in which the visions of the pre-modern mythic worlds emerge as the magic, transcendent core of the modern nations. We will indulge in the sheer enjoyment of the brilliance of these text while focusing on the paradoxes they embody - for example, the simultaneous rejection and reliance on the realist mode, the colonial worldview, and its civilizational hierarchies and models.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 29071, REES 29071

REES 39700. Reading/Research. 100 Units.

This is a specially designed course not normally offered as part of the curriculum that is arranged between a student and a faculty member.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Requires the consent of the instructor.

REES 39800. Reading/Research: Czech. 100 Units.

REES 39910. Special Topics in Advanced Russian. 100 Units.

Must complete Advanced Russian through Media or equivalent, or obtain consent of instructor. Class meets for 2 hours each week. We'll work with several topics, all of them are relevant to the general theme of "Geography and Worldview: Russian Perspective". There will be maps, reading materials, several documentaries, clips from TV programs and other media, and feature films. Class meetings will be a combination of group discussions, short presentations, and lectures. Final - one term paper at the end (in English) based on Russian materials.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 29910, REES 29910, RUSS 39910

REES 39912. Special Topics in Advanced Russian. 100 Units.

Must complete Advanced Russian through Media or equivalent, or obtain consent of instructor. Class meets for 2 hours each week. We'll work with several topics, all of them are relevant to the general theme of "Geography and Worldview: Russian Perspective". There will be maps, reading materials, several documentaries, clips from TV programs and other media, and feature films. Class meetings will be a combination of group discussions, short presentations, and lectures. Final - one term paper at the end (in English) based on Russian materials.

Instructor(s): Valentina Pichugin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 29912, RUSS 39912, REES 29912

REES 40000. Slavic Department Seminar. 100 Units.

This graduate-level seminar is conducted by one or more members of the Department, with a variable schedule that includes nine meetings of 3-hour duration. Meetings may be coordinated to include guest speakers in the department and other events. As content will change with each iteration, the course may be repeated for credit.

REES 43902. Colloquium: Stalinism. 100 Units.

We will explore Stalin as a personality and Stalinism as a political order, an economy, a cultural system, a set of beliefs and rituals, and a way of life. Topics include the dictator, his entourage, and his cult; decision making and the new elite; industrialization, collectivization, and the economy of shortages; revolution and conservatism; nationalism, internationalism, and ethnic cleansing; political terror, mass murder, and the Gulag; communal apartments, survival strategies, and intimate life; media and the socialist-realist dreamworld; legacies and historical consciousness. Readings include classics in the field and newest hits as well as works of fiction.

Instructor(s): E. Gilburd     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Advanced undergraduates with consent of instructor and prior coursework on 20th-C Russia or Russian Civ.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 43902

REES 43903. The Art of Healing: Medical Aesthetics in Russia & the U.S. 100 Units.

What makes a medical treatment look like it will work? What makes us feel that we are receiving good care, or that we can be cured? How are these responses shaped by the rhetorical practices of doctors, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies, by the physical appearance of hospitals, offices, and instruments, or by smells and sounds? Why does the color of a pill influence its effectiveness, and how can placebos achieve what less inert medication cannot? How do predictions of success or failure effect treatment responses? When does technology instill confidence, and when does it produce a sense of degradation? Is the doctor seen primarily as a caregiver or a scientist, and how does this affect treatment outcomes? What is the aesthetic experience of being "sick"? In this course we will consider these problems from the vantage points of a medical professional and a cultural historian, focusing on material from the United States and Soviet/post-Soviet Russia. Our methodology will combine techniques of aesthetic analysis with those of medical anthropology, history and practice.

Equivalent Course(s): CDIN 43903, HIST 45100

REES 44003. Lost Histories of the Left. 100 Units.

When most Americans think about "the left," Marxism, Soviet state socialism, or European social democracy spring to mind. This class will explore alternative-but now largely forgotten-blueprints for revolutionizing the political and social order that emerged in the nineteenth century. We will pay special attention to utopian socialism, early anticolonial movements, the Jewish Labor Bund, and anarchism. Examining the intellectual underpinnings of these movements, their influence on the modern world, and the factors that led to their demise, we will also consider what lessons they can teach to those committed to realizing a better future today.

Instructor(s): F. Hillis     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Upper-level undergraduates with consent
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 44003

REES 45005. History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960. 100 Units.

The center of this course is film style, from the classical scene breakdown to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation, and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting). The development of a film culture is also discussed. Texts include Thompson and Bordwell's Film History: An Introduction; and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, and Godard. Screenings include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir.

Instructor(s): James Lastra     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Prior or concurrent registration in CMST 10100 required. Required of students majoring or minoring in Cinema and Media Studies.
Note(s): CMST 28500/48500 strongly recommended
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 28600, CMST 48600, ARTV 20003, CMST 28600, CMLT 22500, REES 25005, ARTH 38600, ENGL 29600, MAPH 33700, ENGL 48900, MAAD 18600, CMLT 32500

REES 45027. Between 'New Woman' and 'Sex Worker': Polish Women's Writings in the 1930s. 100 Units.

During the interwar period a constellation of Polish women writers defined through their novels politically and socially progressive positions; although not deeply influenced by Marxism, they were critical of the class society, state, ruling elite, and Catholic mentality. The seminar will investigate these writers' attempts to represent the unrepresented such as the proletariat, the jobless, the disabled, as well as other socially marginalized members of the society including sex workers. The course will discuss an emergence of the "new woman" against the backdrop of a deeply ingrained patriarchalism, and as an epitome of creative, sexual, and social independence. We will view these phenomena with its roots in 19th century Polish and French naturalism in context of the visual art of Neue Sachlichkeit and the emergence of reportage. Inspired by the social critique offered by writings of Boguszewska, Krzywicka, Melcer, Nałkowska, and others, the seminar will consider the way in which genres such as a novel, short story, and reportage can become tools for reform. All readings in this seminar are in Polish.

Equivalent Course(s): POLI 45027

REES 46000. Pro-Sem: Teaching Slavic Languages. 100 Units.

Teaching Slavic Languages (REES #####) prepares graduate students as effective instructors of Slavic Languages in Academia. This course introduces students to fundamental principles of Second Language Acquisition, an array of methodologies, as well as essential and practical tools for the development of individual language pedagogy. Particular emphasis is placed on leading trends in Second Language Pedagogy which include, but are not limited to, communicative and proficiency-oriented methods. Students are expected to participate in discussions, design relevant pedagogical and professional materials, and lead instruction in preparation for teaching Slavic Languages.

Instructor(s): Erik Houle     Terms Offered: Autumn

REES 46100. Slavic Literary and Critical Theory. 100 Units.

We will explore some of the most creative and rigorous tools for the analysis of literature and art in any language. These critics' answers to the questions of what is aesthetic value, the relationship of art to lived experience, and the nature of art as an act of communication endure as some of the most vital and challenging propositions in literary and art criticism. We will work through highlights of Symbolist, Formalist, Bakhtinian and Semiotic (Tartu school) criticism.

Instructor(s): Anne Eakin Moss     Terms Offered: Autumn

REES 47000. Time and Memory. 100 Units.

At the beginning of the 20th century moderns and modernists announced their break with the past and launched various artistic , philosophical, political, and social experiments that claimed to construct society and the individual anew. The machine, speed, technology, and the future were the watchwords of Futurists and other modernist groups. Revolutionary transformation on all fronts was the way forward. In the same period advances in science and technology radically changed the horizon of possibility. Yet other important artists and thinkers offered the contrasting view that the past remains alive in the present-both in individuals and in human cultures. Memory was key to the future. This seminar focuses on the second tendency by examining the work of three theorists-Henri Bergson, Walter Benjamin, Victor Shklovsky-and three literary authors-Victor Shklovsky, Virginia Woolf, and Osip Mandelshtam.

Instructor(s): Harriet Murav     Terms Offered: Spring

REES 49800. Between the Jewish Question & the Modern Condition: Jewish Thought, Culture, and Politics, 1830-1940. 100 Units.

In the 19th c., the Jewish presence in Europe ceased to be a fact & became a Question: how were Jews to be transformed and integrated-or "emancipated"-into "society." From the 1870s, this Jewish Question was globalized & politicized by nationalism, new forms of antisemitism, European imperialism, capitalism's reordering of global life, mass migration from Eastern Europe to the US, the racialization of global politics & tensions of nation & empire in Eastern Europe, the Ottoman world & the Middle East. This class investigates how European, US & Middle Eastern Jews confronted the Jewish Question (1830s-1930s) communally & individually. It asks how this confrontation shaped key dimensions of modern Jewish thought, culture & politics: Zionism & other forms of modern Jewish politics, Jewish social thought, religious life, communal policy & new forms of secular culture. Conversely, we will also consider the limits of approaching modern Jewish culture & consciousness as a response to the Jewish Question: are modern forms of Jewish religiosity & secularity, gender norms, visions of culture, education & the moral life better understood as emergent responses to more general problems of modernity? Alternatively, should key aspects of contemporary Jewish life-such as religious nationalism & religious revivalism-be understood at least in part as products not so much of modernity's powers as of modernity's limited effects on a Jewish tradition evolving according to its own cultural logic?

Instructor(s): K. Moss     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Graduate students of all intellectual background welcome; advanced undergraduates with consent of instructor.
Note(s): Readings include classic and new scholarship matched to key works of Jewish thought and culture. All readings in English (translation), but I will happily facilitate reading in the original languages.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 47800, GRMN 38821, HIST 49800