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Class
Information
Course content and requirements
This is an introductory course for students with little or no knowledge
of
Russian literature and culture. We are going to read selected
masterpieces
of nineteenth-century Russian literature . ALL READINGS IN ENGLISH.
The
emphasis will be on "slow reading" and class
discussions. Because
of the introductory nature of this course
students will not be
required to write a research paper.
Instead, there will be two take-home
exams, mid-term and the
final. Each exam will consist of a set of
topics for each writer that we have read and discussed. You will be asked to
choose one or two topics and write short essays 2-4
pages each. You will have a choice to write one longer essay (6 -8 pages)
instead of two short. I will spread these two exams into a half semester each,
so that you can benefit from my comments and improve your writing. There
will be occasional quizes to make sure that you
keep up with
your
reading assignments and
read carefully. Please note
that participation in class discussions
and forum is important and will
count for 30% of the final grade. I
will also give short assignments to be posted on our course forum. This will
be counted as class participation. Sometimes students feel uncomfortable
speaking in class. The forum gives them opportunity to express themselves more
freely.
Class attendance will be registered and CHASS
non-attendance
policy applied. A total of more than three absences without
a respectable
reason, like sickness (medical evidence required)
or death in
the family, may lead to a grade reduction.
Grading
Midterm and final--35% each.
Participation in class discussions and forum--30%
Required Books
(On order in the NCSU Bookstores):
Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Sons.
Norton
Critical Edition (1996)
Fyodor Dostoevsky. Devils. Oxford World Classics (2008)
Tolstoy's Short Fiction. Norton, 2nd edition (2008)
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina.
Norton Critical Edition, 2nd.
Anton ChekhovÕs
Short Stories. Second Edition. Norton Critical Edition (2005)
Anton Chekhov's Selected Plays. Norton Critical Edition (2004)
Short
Syllabus (Detailed
reading schedule will be added later)
Week 1-2: Introduction. Turgenev. Fathers and
Sons.
(2 short essays)
Additional reading: Vissarion Belinsky. Open Letter to Gogol.
Week 3-5: Dostoevsky. Devils. (two short
essays or one long )
Week 6:
Tolstoy's Short Stories. (one short essay)
Background Reading: Valentin Tomberg. The
East European Conception of Suffering.
Week 7-11: Tolstoy. Anna
Karenina. (two
short essays or one long)
Week 12: Tolstoy's later stories. (one short essay)
Week 13-15: Chekhov. Short stories and plays (two
short essays or one long)
Links to relevant websites.
Ivan
Sergeevich Turgenev (1818 - 1883)
The Russian Writer
Ivan Turgenev. A
massive Russian resource on Turgenev with a section
in English. Includes Turgenev's biography, translations and
photographs.
Fyodor
Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
FedorDostoevsky.com . Dostoevsky fan site.
Libi
Vox section on Dostoevsky. English audiorecordings
of Dostoevsky's works. Notes
from Underground (1864) English audiorecording of this famous
work, considered by many Western critics a founding document of
existentialism.
Documents in Russian History.
Museum of Dostoevsky in St.
Petersburg
Winter Notes on Summer Impressions.
Claude Lorraine. Landscape with Acis and Galatea (1657)
Illustrations to Dostoevsky's
works
Lev
Nikolaevich Tolstoy
(1820 - 1910)
ACTUAL
LIVING VOICE of Leo Tolstoy .
Leo
Tolstoy - Life Stories, Books, and Links. War
and Peace.
Late years A
Confession. 1882: "I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox
Christian faith. I was taught it in childhood and throughout my
boyhood and youth. But when I abandoned the second course of the
university at the age of eighteen I no longer believed any of the
things I had been taught."
Leo Tolstoy.
International Vegetarian Union (IVU).1889
Leo Tolstoy on Vegetarianism.
"What
Is Art?" (excerpts). "And it is upon this capacity of
man to receive another man's expression of feeling and experience
those feelings himself, that the activity of art is based." The Last Days of Leo
Tolstoy . By Vladimir Chertkov (his secretary
and follower)
Anton
Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904)
Yvan Russell's The
Anton Chekhov Page .
Documentary
film about Chekhov.
Anton
Chekhov's "THE GRASSHOPPER": A documentary... Russians play Chekhov
Uncle
Vanya. Final scene. Sonya's monologue. The
Seagall with
Tatiana Doronina (Arkadina and Trigorin).
Tatiana Lavrova in The
Cherry Orchard . (scene Ranevskaya and Petya). Part
2 . The
Cherry Orchard in Sovremennik (The Contemporary) Theatre
in Moscow. Foreign productions of Chekhov's plays
Vanya
on the 42nd Street (Trailer): The
Professor's Insomnia .
Allen (?) as Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya .
"The
Cherry Orchard" (with Judy
Dench, 1962 - part 1, part
2 , part
3 .
Anton
Chekhov's "Three Sisters" (English Film, 1970),
Act 1, Part 1/4 . Final
scene.
Stella
Adler interprets the psychology of characters in Three
Sisters. Part
1. Part
2. Part
3.
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