RUSSIAN PROGRAM COURSES, Spring 2025

SPRING LANGUAGE COURSES:

SPRING CULTURE & LINGUISTICS COURSES:

 

COMPLETE LIST OF REGULARLY-OFFERED RUSSIAN COURSES

Russian Language Courses

RUSS 121: Elementary Russian (4 credit hrs.). This course is the introductory level course for Russian. The most basic features of the language are studied, but emphasis is placed on using knowledge of the structure of Russian to establish the basis for later development of a usable level of ability in reading, listening, speaking, and writing through the use of authentic video, audio, and reading materials. No prerequisites; no previous knowledge of Russian necessary.

RUSS 122: Basic Proficiency in Russian (4 credit hrs.; prereq: 121 or satisfactory score on placement test). Through the use of authentic video, audio, and reading materials students are offered the opportunity to develop a usable level of ability in reading, listening, speaking, and writing modern Russian. The course includes some instruction in everyday Russian culture. Successful completion of the exit examination fulfills the foreign language requirement for the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Science and Mathematics.

RUSS 201: Intermediate Russian (Prereq: 122 or satisfactory score on placement test). Listening and speaking are stressed in this course. Watch Russian video films, listen to authentic Russian, participate in different classroom activities, have fun, and you will learn to speak enough to get along in Russia as a tourist.

RUSS 202: Intermediate Russian (Prereq: 201 or satisfactory score on placement test). Focus on developing reading, listening, speaking and writing skills. Emphasis is on reading and writing. You may also bring materials to class you have always wanted to read and understand!

RUSS 301: Russian Conversation and Composition (Prereq.: Russ 202 or satisfactory score on placement test). Russian spoken and written here. This course continues practice in the four skills, but emphasis is placed on correct written expression.

RUSS 302: Russian Conversation (Prereq.: Russ 301 or satisfactory score on placement test). This course continues practice in the four skills, but emphasis is placed on correct, idiomatic oral expression.

RUSS 398: Topics in Russian. Recent courses have included Russian Translation and Interpretation and Intensive Studies in Russian Grammar. These courses are taught in Russian for advanced students.

RUSS 401: Advanced Russian (Prereq.: RUSS 302 or satisfactory score on placement test). Readings in Russian Culture and history; listening and speaking; structure of Russian.

RUSS 402: Advanced Russian (Prereq: RUSS 401 or satisfactory score on placement test). Acquisition of subtleties of Russian grammar. Increased focus on reading, writing, and discussion.

RUSS 615: Intensive Readings in Russian. A reading course for graduate students and non-majors). Students will learn to read Russian texts. Specifically intended to prepare graduate students for the graduate reading exam in Russian; also meant to improve undergraduate reading skills (but cannot be applied toward a Russian major and is not a substitute in the course sequence leading to the major). No prerequisites.

Russian Literature and Culture Courses
RUSS 280 : Introduction to Russian Civilization
Now offered in an online asynchronous format, this course is an introduction to the rich and complex culture of Russia. Topics for class meetings and assignments are deliberately interdisciplinary. They range from medieval Russian art to twentieth-century Socialist Realism, from the music of Tchaikovsky to the balladeers of the 1970s, from the poetry of Pushkin to the work of contemporary writers. Prerequisites: None. No knowledge of Russian necessary. This course is a prerequisite for the Russian Major. COUNTS FOR CAROLINA CORE AIU REQUIREMENT!

RUSS 319: Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature in Translation
This course introduces masterworks of Russian literature by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov, and others. Russia propelled itself onto the map of world literature during the course of the nineteenth century, presenting characters and dramas of universal and enduring significance. Literature, as the best means of relatively free expression within an often reactionary society, became a voice of conscience, dissent, and searing political insight. The literary characters who express these views are uncompromising in their search for truth, and they turn their eyes both outward to the injustices in society and inward to the miracles, horrors, and eternal questions of human existence. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT! Also satisfies GLD: Global Learning and INT Integrative. 

RUSS 319L: Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature in Russian. 
A one-credit Russian-language course designed to supplement 319. Reading and discussion in Russian of 19th-century poetry and prose. Prerequisite: RUSS 202 or instructor's permission.

RUSS 320: Twentieth-Century Russian Literature In Translation
From revolutions (1905 and 1917) to gulags, glasnost, and beyond, modern Russian history has been marked by a series of explosive events. This course examines the major upheavals of twentieth-century Russia through a spectacular literary prism. Works under discussion date from the revolutionary period at the turn of the twentieth century and proceed to the flux of post-Soviet Russia; authors include Chekhov, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, and Pelevin. Related films will supplement the readings. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT! Also satisfies GLD: Global Learning and INT Integrative. 

RUSS 320L: Twentieth-Century Russian Literature in Russian
A one-credit Russian-language course designed to supplement 320. Reading and discussion in Russian of 20th-century literature. Prerequisite: RUSS 202 or instructor's permission.

RUSS 398: Selected Topics
Courses taught in English. Intensive study of selected topics in Russian cultural and/or literary movements. May be repeated for credit under a different suffix.

 RUSS 399: Independent Study
Contract approved by instructor, advisor, and department chair is required; for undergraduate students. 3-6 credits.

RUSS 598: Selected Topics in Russian
Courses focus intensively on selected topics in Russian cultural and/or literary movements. Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of courses by suffix and title. May be repeated for credit under a different suffix. Counts for undergraduate and graduate credit.

RUSS 790: Directed Reading and Research
A course for graduate students wishing to pursue specific advanced projects in Russian. Special permission required from the professor. 1-3 credits.

SCCC 353K: Siberia in the Russian Imagination
For four centuries, Siberia has been Russia's "Wild East." Much more than a geographic entity, it has been a larger-than-life, romantic, mysterious Russian equivalent of the "Wild West" in America. Our course investigates this Siberian mystique through the prism of Russian literature, film, music, and folklore. Topics include nature and ecology, shamanism and other native traditions, the Russian conquest of Siberia, Siberian exiles from the Decembrists through the Stalin period, Old Believers and religious dissent, Russian North America and the Russian-American Company, the "mad monk" Rasputin and his spell, Siberian regionalism in the nineteenth century and today, and Siberia's role within the Russian Federation. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English; films are subtitled.

Love, Sex, And Politics In Revolutionary Russia: Russian Modernism
The modernist period in Russia was a time of intense experimentation: cultural, sexual, and political. This course examines how Russian modernist writers portrayed the interaction of love, sex, and politics between 1900 and 1930. We will turn first to the various influences on these writers, including Western influences such as Freud and Nietzsche and native Russian ones such as the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev. Topics under consideration include redefinitions of sexuality (Russia's first gay novel, feminist novels); the Symbolist belief in the connection between life and art, particularly in the area of love (real-life love triangles and their reflections in literature); the interaction of love and politics (texts describing love during the new regime); and love in exile (Tsvetaeva, Berberova). Related films will supplement the reading. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English translation. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!

Medieval Russian Culture
Learn about medieval chant, Russian princesses, and intriguing folklore! This course will introduce students to the culture of medieval Russia through its written records, folklore, icons, and religious chant. Texts will include excerpts from the Russian Primary Chronicle, sermons and saints' lives, Orthodox liturgy, and folktales and stories. We will also examine the continuing importance of medieval tradition in later periods (reworkings of medieval themes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, literature, and film). Prerequisites: None. All readings in English. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!

Russian Folklore and Fairytales
Discover the world of Russian fairy tales and other genres of folklore, both in their original form within an oral tradition and as reworked in Russian art and literature. Learn to recognize the recurring plots, characters, and elements of folktales; distinguish among genres of folklore; and examine differences between folklore and other forms of artistic creation in composition, structure, and perspective. Readings will include comparative material from Western European folk traditions, and will also survey Slavic and Eastern European folklore beyond Russia to investigate the rich vein of vampire and werewolf stories. All readings in English translation. 
Prerequisites: None. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!

Introduction to Russian Film
The revolutionary techniques of Russian filmmakers have had a major impact on the development of world cinema. This course will consider classic works by Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky) and Dziga Vertov (Man with the Movie Camera); Soviet epics (Andrei Rublëv, Rasputin); and experiments of the 1980s and post-Communist cinema (Repentance, Little Vera, Burnt by the Sun). We will place Russian film in the context of the historical events, cultural debates, and political intrigues of twentieth-century Russia. Reading for the course will draw on the theoretical writings of Russian filmmakers, the film criticism of the Russian formalist critics, and recent scholarly studies. In-class discussion will focus on the films themselves, the background reading, and issues raised during student presentations. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English; films are subtitled. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!

Russian Literary Theory
This course will provide an introduction to some of the basic concepts that have occupied Russian theorists and that in many cases have become fundamental to literary theory worldwide. These include such ideas as art as "infection"; art as "device"; defamiliarization; laughter and carnival; the chronotope; monologic vs. dialogic discourse; primary and secondary modeling systems. Our primary concern will be with literary analysis, but we will also consider how Russian theory has contributed to and been enriched by contact with other fields, including the study of folklore, linguistics, history, and film. We will trace the continuities (and forcible breaks) of literary theory in the Soviet Union and will consider the cultural context in which these writers worked. We will also question how formalism, structuralism, and semiotics in the Soviet Union were different from their counterparts in the West. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!

Homer in Russia
The poet Homer, fabled author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, has played an important and ongoing role in Russian culture. Translating the Homeric epics, rewriting them in a Russian context, and using Homeric characters to comment on a distinctly modern and Russian reality, Russian writers seized upon Homer as a crucial instrument in discussions of Russian culture and national identity. We will study the Homeric texts and then move on to Russian authors including Gogol, Tolstoy, Brodsky, and Ulitskaya, as we delve into the understudied field of Russian reception of the Greco-Roman classical tradition. Prerequisites: None. All readings in English. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!

Writing Russian National Identity
We will study intellectual, social, and cultural currents in Russian thought by examining how Russian writers have described, analyzed, bemoaned, lauded, idealized, and theorized Russian national identity. Ranging over two hundred years, from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first, works under discussion in this course include Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead, Dmitrii Merezhkovsky’s Peter and Alexis, Vasily Grossman’s Everything Flows, poems of Fyodor Tiutchev, and essays and other writings by Petr Chaadaev, Vissarion Belinsky, Ivan Aksakov, Vladimir Soloviev, Aleksandr Blok, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Tatiana Tolstaya, Roman Senchin, Ludmila Ulitskaya, and Boris Akunin.  Prerequisites: None. All readings in English. COUNTS FOR ARTS AND SCIENCES HUMANITIES REQUIREMENT!