Syllabus

University of California, Berkeley

Comparative Literature 161
Cross-listed with Slavic Languages & Literature 161
Survey of Russian Novels

Lectures: MTuWTh 12-2, 290 Dwinelle Hall
Office Hours: MW 2-3, 3252 Dwinelle Hall or By Appointment
Instructor: Matthew Yau

Overview
The course is devoted to three major works of Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries and their stage representations. Lectures and discussion of major novels. While our emphasis will be on close readings of individual texts, we will pay special attention to the evolution of individual author's art and his thinking on a range of political, social, religious, and philosophical issues. The course's dual focus will be on contemporary implications of dramatic texts and on their theatrical life in and through time, in various historical, political, and national frameworks. We will read short stories central to the Russian literary and dramatic tradition and also associated with the idea of the Russian theater in the West. The course will address their contemporary historical and cultural subtexts, thematic and conceptual properties, and formal idiom.

Format: Lectures (with viewing of films/slides) and required discussion session. All readings are in English.

Requirements: Weekly readings and active class participation; take-home research assignments. There will be 2 short papers (5-8 pages) and a long paper (15+ pages); short in-class quizzes; and final.

Grading: Student will be evaluated on an individual basis drawn upon the progress made throughout the course. Three papers (20% each), final (20%), reading quizzes (10%) and in-class participation (10%).

Breadth requirements: Arts and Literature or Historical Studies.

Slavic majors and minors: Consult instructor or undergraduate adviser.

Main Texts:
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
Course Reader

Prerequisites:
Reading and Composition 1B, Comparative Literature major or minors