This course advances skills in reading, understanding, writing, and speaking Russian, with materials from twentieth-century culture. Readings include fiction by Chekhov, Babel, Olesha, Nabokov, and others. Conducted in Russian, with frequent writing and grammar assignments, in-class presentations, and occasional translation exercises. Two seminar-style meetings and one hour-long discussion section per week.

Among the many paradoxes Dostoevsky presents is the paradox of his own achievement. Perceived as the most “Russian” of Russian writers, he finds many enthusiastic readers in the West. A nineteenth-century author, urgently engaged in the debates of his time, his work remains relevant today. The most influential theorists of the novel feel called upon to account for the Dostoevsky phenomenon. How can we understand Dostoevsky’s appeal to so many audiences?

(Offered as RUSS 215 and EUST 215.) We will examine the revolutionary upheavals of early twentieth-century Russia through the lens of three modernist texts:  Andrei Bely’s experimental novel Petersburg (the failed revolution of 1905), Isaac Babel’s story cycle Red Cavalry (the civil war that followed the Bolshevik takeover in 1917) and Mikhail Bulgakov’s phantasmagorical masterpiece The Master and Margarita (the “cultural revolution” of 1929-32 and the rise of Stalinist society).

This course stresses vocabulary building and continued development of speaking and listening skills. Active command of Russian grammar is steadily increased. Readings from authentic materials in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Brief composition assignments. Five meetings per week, including a conversation hour and a drill session.

Requisite: RUSS 102 or the equivalent. This will ordinarily be the appropriate course placement for students with 2 to 3 years of high school Russian. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Ciepiela.

Introduction to the contemporary Russian language, presenting the fundamentals of Russian grammar and syntax. The course helps the student make balanced progress in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, and cultural competence. Five meetings per week. 

Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Five College Lecturer Dengub.

Independent Reading Course. Reading in an area selected by the student and approved in advance by a member of the Department.

Fall and spring semester. The Department.

Conspiracy theories are not inherently religious, but they are frequently informed by religious conceptions and valuations, and often circulate within particular religious communities.  If religious and conspiratorial thinking can get along fine without each other, why do they intersect as often as they do within history?  Addressing this question will require locating religion and conspiracy theorizing in relationship to each other within a broader field of thinking about the dynamics of human social interaction.  Readings for this course will include prominent examples of r

Knowledge was one of the primary concerns in classical Islamic civilization. The search for knowledge dominated all branches of religious and intellectual life, and it pervaded the daily lives of Muslims. In this class we will read the classics from law, theology, philosophy and mysticism that were written in the ninth through twelfth centuries. We will focus our attention on texts in which questions surrounding the theme of knowledge are discussed at length and in detail. Questions we will explore include: What is knowledge and how is it attained? What is its relation to faith and doubt?

This course explores the culture and history of the ancient Israelites through a close examination of the Hebrew Bible in its wider ancient Near Eastern context. A master-work of great complexity revealing many voices and many periods, the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament is a collection of traditional literature of various genres including prose and poetry, law, narrative, ritual texts, sayings, and other forms.