Program Requirements
The Major Concentration in Russian gives students a foundation in the language, literature, and culture of Russia from the 19th century to the present. It incorporates a balance of instruction in the Russian language, the opportunity to read selected texts in the original language, and to explore Russian language and culture through translated texts.
By arrangement with the Department and subject to University approval, transfer credits will be accepted from Department-approved exchange/immersion programs.
Complementary Courses (36 credits)
36 credits selected from the following specifications:
Group A: Russian Language (18 credits)
Students entering this program with previous knowledge of or exposure to Russian may, with permission of the Department, replace this group with selections from Group B or Group C.
18 credits selected from the following courses or their equivalent:
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RUSS 210 Elementary Russian Language 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Reading, grammar, translation, oral practice.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Zdun, Izabela; Ivanova, Maria; Tutatina, Ekaterina (Fall)
Fall
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RUSS 211 Elementary Russian Language 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian Language; continuation of RUSS 210.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Zdun, Izabela (Winter)
Winter
Prerequisite: RUSS 210 or equivalent
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RUSS 215 Elementary Russian Language Intensive 1 (6 credits) *
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An intensive introduction to the Russian language which covers the first year of the normal level, i.e. RUSS 210/RUSS 211 in one semester. The basic grammatical structures are covered.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Ivanova, Maria (Winter)
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RUSS 300 Russian for Heritage Speakers 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : For native speakers of Russian who have not had full academic instruction in the language. Focus on grammatical structure and syntax, the formalities of written Russian and appreciation of the language's stylistic diversity. Multi- media approach including excerpts from literary works, current newspapers, television news broadcasts, films and cartoons.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 301 Russian for Heritage Speakers 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : For native speakers of Russian who have not had full academic instruction in the language. Focus on complex grammatical structures, syntax, and stylistically differentiated uses of vocabulary in written and spoken Russian. Multi-media approach including excerpts from literary works, current newspapers, Internet sources, and films.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Winter
Given in Russian
Prerequisites: RUSS 300 or permission of the instructor
Restrictions: Not open to students who have taken Russ 210,211,215,310,311 and 316
- RUSS 310 Intermediate Russian Language 1 (3 credits)
- RUSS 311 Intermediate Russian Language 2 (3 credits)
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RUSS 316 Intermediate Russian Language Intensive 2 (6 credits) **
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Continuing the Intensive program of RUSS 215 this course covers the second year of the normal level, i.e. RUSS 310/RUSS 311, in one semester. The basic grammatical structures are covered.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Ivanova, Maria (Fall)
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RUSS 327 Reading Russian Poetry (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Introduction to Russia's major poets and bards of the 19th and 20th centuries. Selected works from Pushkin to Brodsky and 20th century bards will be read in Russian.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: RUSS 316 or equivalent, or permission of the department.
Texts to be read in the original Russian, analysis and discussion to be conducted in English and/or Russian.
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RUSS 328 Readings in Russian (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : A general introduction to Russian prose, poetry and drama in the 19th Century. Selected texts will be read in the original and discussed.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Ivanova, Maria (Fall)
Prerequisite: RUSS 316 or equivalent, or permission of the Department.
Texts to be read in the original Russian; analysis and discussion to be conducted in English and/or Russian.
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RUSS 411 Advanced Russian Language 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Advanced practical Russian grammar andcomposition. May include reading a variety of textsand media from classical to contemporary (literature,newspapers, TV, film, etc.).
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Kadyrbekova, Zora (Winter)
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RUSS 415 Advanced Russian Language Intensive 1 (6 credits) ***
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Continuing the Intensive program of RUSS 215 and RUSS 316, students will complete their study of the fundamental structure of modern literary Russian, including the morphology and syntax of the nominal and verbal systems.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Ivanova, Maria (Winter)
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RUSS 453 Advanced Russian Language and Syntax (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Prose composition, translation, essay writing. An introduction to Russian stylistics.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Winter
Prerequisite: RUSS 452 or equivalent
*RUSS 215 is not open to students who have taken RUSS 210 or RUSS 211.
**RUSS 316 is not open to students who have taken RUSS 310 or RUSS 311.
***RUSS 415 is not open to students who have taken RUSS 410 or RUSS 411.
Group B (9 credits)
9 credits selected from the following courses or their equivalent:
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RUSS 217 Russia's Eternal Questions (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Exploration of cultural archetypes defining continuity and change from Peter the Great to the present; the Russian national identity, double-faith, Western and Slovophile influences, Mother Russia, superfluous men and the Eternal Feminine, anarchism, the avant-garde, Stalinism. Recurring themes traced in literature, art, film, music, pop culture and the applied arts.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Fall
Given in English
Restriction: Permission of the instructor
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RUSS 218 Russian Literature and Revolution (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : The dramatic developments in Russian literature of the 20th century, from revolution, through conformity, to the ironies and anxieties of the post-Soviet era. Comrades, iconoclasts, absurdists, proletarians and aesthetes; the Gulag, the literary café, the music of the spheres, the crumbling Russian village; the reforging of humanity and the rediscovery of tradition.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Fall)
Fall or Winter
Prerequisite: None, but some background in Russian 20C history is helpful
Given in English
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RUSS 223 Russian 19th Century: Literary Giants 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : The Golden Age of Russian literature: from Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol to the first works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. This course traces the rise of a coherent literary tradition in Russia, exploring authors’ relationships to the burgeoning tradition and to their historical and cultural context.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Pratt, Daniel (Fall)
Fall
Given in English
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RUSS 224 Russian 19th Century: Literary Giants 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : This course explores the masterpieces of late nineteenth-century Russian literature. From psychological realism and the novel of ideas to the rise of the great short story; Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leskov, and Chekhov.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Pratt, Daniel (Winter)
Winter
Given in English
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RUSS 229 Introduction to Russian Folklore (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An introduction to Russian folklore and folk belief: "dual-faith," traditional mentality, fairy tales, calendar rituals, folk songs, witches, healers and house spirits. The course will explore classic approaches to folklore studies as well as the influence of folk culture on Russian "high art."
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Taught in English
Group C (9 credits)
9 credits selected from the following courses or their equivalent:
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RUSS 213 Introduction to Soviet Film (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : This course aims to familiarize undergraduates with the topics, figures, and concerns of Soviet film history. Students will watch and analyze films by Soviet directors including Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, Kira Muratova, Larisa Shepitko, and many others in the context of their historical periods, movements, and writings. Students will learn to analyze images and cinematic techniques, as well as assess their historical, ideological, and cultural significance.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Offered in English.
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RUSS 250 The Central European Novel (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Examination of the culture of Central Europe through the lens of novels, including the history, culture, and literature of the region.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 330 Chekhov without Borders (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Chekhov’s short stories and plays. The genre of the short story and its relationship to realist, modernist, and postmodernist aesthetics. Chekhov’s influence in Russia and abroad.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Fall)
Fall
Course will be given in English.
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RUSS 333 Petersburg: City of Myth (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : In Russian culture, the two major cities, Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, represent the two sides of Russian culture: its past in Orthodoxy and Russianness and its future in European culture and internationalism. The culture of Saint-Petersburg both reflects the city and redefines the meaning of the city for the future. This class will examine Russian culture within the context of the city itself, providing students with a holistic look at an embedded culture.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisites: Previous course work in Russian literature, film, or history is highly recommended.
Readings and class discussions in English.
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RUSS 337 Vladimir Nabokov (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Cross sampling of short stories and major novels by Vladimir Nabokov; his life-long love affair with language and "aesthetic bliss"; his flouting of convention from Russia's Silver Age to post-McCarthy America. Lolita in and beyond the Russian context.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Winter)
Given in English.
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RUSS 340 Russian Short Story (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian stories that encompass the major aesthetic and thematic concerns of the short story genre. Recurrent themes of language's power and limits, of childhood and old age, of art and sexuality, and of cultural, individual, and artistic memory.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 347 Late and Post-Soviet Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : The re-invention of Russian culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Featuring Soviet beatniks, dissidents, and cultural iconoclasts; covering pop-culture, Pepsi and PR, perestroika, and the encounter with Western postmodernism. In literature, the emergence of 'new’ voices (women’s prose, émigré writers), new or newly rediscovered genres (detective fiction, sci-fi, bard or sung poetry, the essay). In the visual arts, points of contact, overlap and competition with film, conceptualist or concrete poetry, installations, memes). For over two and a half centuries, Russian literature was seen as the cornerstone of cultural identity and national pride. How does it confront today the challenges of a post-literary age and, tenuously, post-Soviet age?
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Fall)
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RUSS 350 Central European Film (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : The development of film in the Central European area, alongside the history and culture of the region.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 357 Leo Tolstoy (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An in-depth exploration of the literature and thought of Leo Tolstoy. This course will cover his major works of fiction as well as non-fiction essays, diary entries, and letters, with the majority of the semester devoted to his great masterpiece, War and Peace.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Winter)
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RUSS 358 Fyodor Dostoevsky (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An in-depth study of the writing and thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Through reading Dostoevsky's major novels as well as some of his short fiction and journalism in the context of his times, this course will explore Dostoevsky's contributions to literature and philosophy.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Taught in English
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RUSS 365 Supernatural and Absurd in Russian Literature (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Themes of absurd, bizarre, surreal, supernatural, and fantastic in works by Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Kharms, Bulgakov, Petrushevskaia, Pelevin, and others. Focus on the Russian literary imagination and the historical and political conflicts which haunt it. Theories of the gothic, fantastic, and absurd.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 369 Narrative and Memory in Russian Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Exploration of literary and cinematic representations of the themes of memory, trauma, nostalgia, family history, and war in modern Russian culture. Exploration of narrative approaches to war and trauma, their effects on cultural identity, Post-Soviet nostalgia, family and childhood, and related subjects.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 381 Russia's Utopia Complex (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : From Zamiatin's We (1921), and Dostoevskii's "Grand Inquisitor" (1880), an examination of the Russian creation of and imprint on the dystopian genre. From prototypes in Russian romanticism and folklore, to dissident masterpieces of the Stalinist era, to sci-fi as rediscovered in the post-Soviet experience. Literature, film, and beyond.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Winter)
Offered in English.
Prerequisite(s): A 200-level course in literature or culture, in Russian or in the European or Asian traditions.
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RUSS 382 Russian Opera (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : This course traces the development of the Russian opera tradition from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1950s. It explores opera's role in Russia's quest for national identity and its place in musical, literary, and political life, as well as responses to European opera trends. No knowledge of music theory required.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Taught in English.
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RUSS 385 Staging Russianness: From Pushkin to Chekhov (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Masterpieces of the Russian stage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the emergence of a uniquely Russian dramatic sensitivity against prevailing European trends; the literary word in a public, political and/or avant-garde forum.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Winter)
Fall
At least 2 courses in literature and/or cultural studies.
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RUSS 390 Special Topics in Russian (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Exploration of a significant author, trend, theme or theory in modern Russian culture, including but not limited to the interface between literary works, the graphic and performing arts, ideology and national identity.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Fall
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RUSS 395 Soviet Cinema: Art and Politics (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : This course explores the relationship between art and politics in the cinema of the Soviet Union. Students taking this course will gain a familiarity with the films and writings of Soviet directors. They will also learn the basics of formal, textual, and historical film analysis.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 397 Tarkovsky: Cinema and
Philosophy (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Considered by many critics to be one of the greatest directors of all time, Tarkovsky directed such luminary films as Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979). Since their first appearance, these films have challenged viewers with their deep philosophical questions and stunning visual style. This course equips students with the tools necessary to understand and interpret these films including a basis in film theory and Soviet history.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 398 Soviet Women Filmmakers (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Dedicated to the study of under-represented female directors in Soviet cinema, particularly the films of Kira Muratova and Larisa Shepitko. The work of these two directors is nothing short of stunning; in many ways, it surpasses that of their most well-known contemporary - Andrei Tarkovsky. Explores the ways in which these films represent gender, sexuality, and women's issues in the Soviet Union.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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RUSS 427 Russian Fin de Siècle (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian poetry, prose, drama, book design and the visual arts from the Silver Age to WWI, from Chekhov to Blok and Belyi. The crisis of realism, decadence, symbolism, and its waning traced through the eternal feminine, the devil, the city, poetry as pure creation, and millennial crisis. Not open to students who have taken or are taking RUSS 465.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Course offered in English.
Prerequisite(s): At least 2 courses (6 credits) in literature and/or cultural studies.
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken RUSS 465.
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RUSS 428 Russian Avantgarde (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Russian poetry, prose, drama, the manifesto, street festivals and the explosion of experiment in the visual arts from WW1 to 1930. The avant-garde anticipates, transcends, responds and then succumbs to revolution.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite(s): At least 2 courses (6 credits) in literature and/or cultural studies.
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken RUSS 466.
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RUSS 430 High Stalinist Culture 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Novels, films, art, architecture, pageantry, rhetoric and routine of the Stalinist 1930s-40s, including socialist realism as an aesthetic doctrine, utopian blueprint, target of parody, amalgam of a submerged avant-garde and state-controlled pop culture, precursor of the postmodernist simulacrum, self-proclaimed international style and/or uniquely Russian 20th-century project.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Winter
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Restriction: Not open to students who have taken RUSS 510
Given in English
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RUSS 440 Russia and Its Others (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : In-depth historical approach to cultural construction of Russian national identity and to the concept of the Other as a condition of self-representation: East, West, America, class enemies, dissidents, ethnic and sexual minorities, etc. Introduction to theoretical tools for approaching issues of national identity, alterity, (post)colonialism, exoticism, and orientalism. Not open to students who have taken RUSS 475 in 201301.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Parts, Lyudmila (Fall)
Prerequisite(s): At least 2 literature/cultural studies courses at the 200 or 300 level; or permission of the Department.
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken RUSS 475 in 201301.
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RUSS 454 Narratives of Desire (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : An exploration of desire as it was narrativized in Russian literature 1860-1900. The course draws on comparative examples from European literature as well as various theoretical approaches for conceptualizing love and desire.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite(s): At least two literature courses at the 200 or 300 level or permission of the department.
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RUSS 475 Special Topics in Russ Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Examination of a significant author, trend, theme or theory in modern Russian culture, including but not limited to the interface between literary works, the graphic and performing arts, ideology and national identity.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Fall)
Winter
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
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RUSS 500 Special Topics (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Focus on a critical theme, author or work, as determined by the current research interests of faculty and visiting faculty.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Beraha, Laura A (Winter)
Given in English
Prerequisite: Permission of Department
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RUSS 501 Topics in Slavic Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Russian (Arts) : Examination of a significant author, trend, theme or theory in modern Slavic culture, including but not limited to the interface between literary works, the graphic and performing arts, ideology and national identity.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
1. Topic varies year to year.
