Course Descriptions

REL 278 - Islamic City

Walking around on campus, have you ever stopped to wonder how one would study Davidson’s culture and life? What if you were to consider its space, art, and architecture as a window into the community? As one might at Davidson, in this course, to understand Islamic societies and their inhabitants, “the Muslims” we approach Islamic civilization “spatially”. That is, we explore the three great Islamic empires of the pre-modern era, the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals, through their cities. How were those cities spatially arranged? What was the center of town? Where were the markets? Who lived where? Researching and imagining their societies, institutions, and cultural and artistic lives, we digitally recreate major cities of these Muslim empires. This course is joyfully co-taught with research librarian James Sponsel and Brian Little from Technology & Innovation.
 

Satisfies a requirement for Religious Studies major and minor.
Satisfies the Religious and Philosophical Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies a cultural diversity requirement.

REL 279 - Islamic Ethics

This course is an overview of Islamic ethical life and lived practice within the Islamic religious and intellectual tradition. We survey various ‘modes’ of Islamic ethical thought and practice. These ethical modes include the Qur’an, imitation of the Prophet’s example, Sharia law, adab, and Muslim literary, theological, philosophical, and mystical  traditions. Seminal Muslim ethical texts of these various modes will be engaged. 

Satisfies a Middle Eastern Studies interdisciplinary minor requirement.
Satisfies a South Asian Studies interdisciplinary minor requirement.
Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 280 - Chinese Religions

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies major and interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Chinese Studies minor.

REL 282 - Tibetan Religions

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies major and interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the South Asian Studies interdisciplinary minor.

REL 283 - Buddhism in America

The history and development of Buddhism in America. Topics include the American Transcendentalists and “Eastern” thought, Buddhism and the
Theosophists, the World Parliament of Religions of 1893, the “Zen boom” of the Beat generation, the varieties of Buddhism imported by Asian immigrants beginning in the 1960s, and modern “American Buddhist” communities and practices.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

REL 288 - The Religious Question in Modern China

Pang

This course explores religion in Chinese societies during the tumultuous period between the late nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries. We will analyze the historical and cultural foundations of Chinese religion; the role of the state, intellectual, and political groups in shaping official religiosity; and the bewildering variety of religious traditions in contemporary Chinese societies.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Satisfies East Asian Studies major and interdisciplinary minor requirement.

Satisfies Chinese Studies Minor.

REL 301 - Perspectives in the Study of Religion

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Pre/Corequisites:  Any two Religion courses or permission of the instructor.

Students intending to go abroad in their junior year should take this course in their sophomore year, if possible. 

REL 320 - The Genesis Narrative

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 321 - The Exodus Tradition

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 341 - Religions of the Roman Empire

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

This course is also cross-listed with Classics and could be applied towards a Classics major.

REL 343 - Modern and Postmodern Theologies

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Recommended preparation: either REL 141 or REL 245.

REL 344 - Modern Critics of Religion

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
 

REL 345 - Early Christian Texts on Poverty

This course examines early Christian discussions about the poor, the role of almsgiving in Christian life and the problems-as well as the possibilities-of wealth. Texts to be studied include relevant selections from the Christian Bible, The Shepherd of Hermas, 2 Clement, Cyprian On Works and Alms, Augustine’s Enchiridion, John Chrysostom’s sermons and other relevant Christian texts written before the modern period. This course will also attempt to put these early Christian texts in dialogue with modern debates on poverty and economic inequality.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
This course is also cross-listed with Classics and could be applied towards a Classics major.

Students at all levels welcome.

REL 346 - Modern Jewish Thought

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Middle East Studies interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

(not offered 2015-16.)

REL 347 - Christian Latin Writers

Foley

Readings and research on selected Christian Latin authors from 200-600, including Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
LAT 201 or equivalent

(not offered 2015-16.)

REL 352 - Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 353 - Theological Perspectives on Christian Faith

Christian beliefs and moral norms as they are expressed by the Apostles’ Creed, The Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. In addition to critical studies of the history and composition of these texts, this course also includes classical and contemporary interpretations of what they mean from Augustine, Martin Luther, and Thomas Aquinas to Rosemary Radford Ruether and Leonardo Boff.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 354 - Major Figures in Theology and Ethics

Each time it is offered, this course explores the theology and ethics of a major figure. For the Fall 2014 semester, the focus will be on H. Richard Niebuhr. 

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 357 - The Bible and Modern Moral Issues

This course examines how the Bible is being used in contemporary moral, political, and cultural debates: homosexuality, creationism, environmentalism, race, Middle-Eastern politics, end-of-the-world predictions, among others. The range of topics is flexible, and can adapt to current conditions, e.g., the elections of 2016. Students will be encouraged to investigate issues of particular interest through individual research. 

For purposes of comparison, REL 266 The Bible in America emphasizes the role the Bible “has” played in American life; REL 357 emphasizes the role the Bible “is playing” in American life. The former course is more historical; the latter, more ethical and theological.  

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

REL 358 - Humans and Other Animals

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies depth and breadth course requirement in the Humanities track of the Environmental Studies major or interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels are welcome.

REL 360 - Myths America Lives By

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satifies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 365 - Women in American Religion

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

REL 366 - Mormonism

Examines an indigenous American religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, exploring its historical origins, beliefs, related theological and political controversies, and cultural heritage.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 370 - Asian Meditation Texts

REL 371 - Varieties of Hindu Spirituality

Interpretive and comparative study of Hindu sacerdotal, philosophical, contemplative, and devotional mystical sensibilities as presented in various textual genres.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies South Asian Studies requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 378 - Islam in the Modern Age: Tradition, Fundamentalism and Reform

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies Middle Eastern Studies requirement.
Satisfies South Asian Studies requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 382 - Zen Buddhism

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies major and interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Chinese Studies minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students at all levels welcome.

REL 395 - Independent Study

REL 401 - Senior Colloquium

REL 405 - US Religions, US Revolutions

How have religious commitments moved people to work for (or retrench in opposition to) societal change?  This seminar will address this question by examining several episodes in which religious affiliation shaped action: the movements for American independence in the eighteenth century, abolition in the nineteenth century, women’s rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and civil rights in the twentieth and twenty-first.

REL 413 - Sacrifice

Snyder

A comparative and cross-cultural look at the phenomenon of sacrifice in different religious traditions. We’ll examine concrete instances of the practice, read narratives about it, and draw upon theoretical models for understanding it. 

REL 419 - Science and Religion

Religion and science are often described as different paths toward truth. Many scholars interpret the claims of religion and science as referring to different spheres of meaning, with each realm characterized by distinctive methods, aims, and forms of discourse. Such distinctions, despite their cogency, are also problematic. Christianity, for example, appeals to both Revelation and nature, to both transcendence and immanence. And Western science raises important theoretical and empirical issues for religious beliefs about creation and redemption, as well as the meanings of, and relations between, nature and human nature.

This course will examine various models of the relations between religion and science developed in the recent scholarly literature. It will first focus on several historical points of conflict between science and religion - the shifts in worldview associated with Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Heisenberg. Then, in light of participants’ interests, it will assess elements of recent physical and biological science that pose challenges to the cogency of Western theism and traditional theological understandings of divine design and providential action.

REL 433 - Art, Media, Technology and Religion

The seminar will explore how art, media, and technology inform, perform, and transform religious life and its various expressions. We will be drawing on theories of art, media and technology and discuss examples from several major religious traditions.

REL 439 - Paul’s Letter to the Romans

An intensive study of Paul’s Letter to the Romans with attention to historical, critical, and theological issues.

REL 440 - Seminar: Religion and Racism

This seminar will examine the ways religion and racist dogma have helped to shape each other. In particular, it hopes to explore what religion, specifically post-medieval Christianity, has contributed to origin and development of the dogma of white supremacy and, in turn, how the dogma of white supremacy has in turn shaped myth, ritual and practice in both white and non-white religious communities.    

REL 443 - The Question of the Animal

Poland

An interdisciplinary seminar in a growing subfield, Critical Animal Studies. Readings include ancient and recent reflections on human nature and on human and non-human animal relations by novelists, theologians, philosophers and scholars of religion. 

REL 444 - Black and Womanist Theology

A study of African American theological writings written since the Black Power movement of the 1960s. Black theology refers typically to works written or inspired by theologian James H. Cone. Womanist theology describes a theology written specifically by and for African American women.

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies a requirement in the Gender & Sexuality Studies major and minor.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

REL 448 - Infinite Gesture: David Foster Wallace and the ethics of Fiction

A study of David Foster Wallace’s novel, Infinite Jest, with a particular focus on the ethical significance of fiction. Put plainly: when and how does reading such a novel make us better?

REL 449 - The Spiritual Imagination in Contemporary Literature

Plank

A study of how selected American writers have imagined transcendence and the life of the spirit, as well as a consideration of the relationship of poetic and religious language. Authors to be studied include: Christian Wiman, Fanny Howe, Franz Wright, Mary Szybist, Anne Carson and others.

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives Requirement.

Counts for the LIT minor. 

REL 451 - Religion and Law

REL 453 - Seminar: Love and Justice

This seminar will analyze classical and current theological perspectives on love and justice in order to understand areas of conceptual overlap and tensions between these norms. We will read selections from Augustine, Aquinas, Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis, Anders Nygren, H. Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr, as well as recent discussions by Nicholas Wolterstorff (Reformed) and David Hollenbach (Catholic). In light of that theoretical discussion, the seminar will then focus on several concrete ethical issues that pose challenges of application for love and justice as useful norms.

REL 454 - A Social Gospel

Ottati

This seminar explores socially engaged theological ethics from Christian Socialists and Christian Realists to Liberation theologians.   We will read and discuss works by writers such as Walter Rauschenbusch, John A. Ryan, Vida Dutton Scudder, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gustavo Gutierrez, James Cone, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Cornel West.  We will also pay special attention to biblical and traditional bases for the positions they advocate.

REL 458 - Calvin’s “Institutes”

REL 459 - History and Literature of Non-Violence

In this course, we’ll examine the history and literature of non-violent resistance in both monotheistic and non-monotheistic religious traditions, seeking to understand points of commonality and difference. The theory of non-violence held by Martin Luther King, for example, owed a great debt to that of Mohandas Gandhi. We will pay significant attention to contemporary figures and issues.

REL 460 - Religion and Racism

REL 461 - Issues in Religion & Politics

In this discussion-based course, we will examine sites in contemporary culture where politics and religion interact. How do political and religious convictions inform each other? How shall we understand the complex synergy between political and religious impulses? The end-time theology of many American evangelicals drives much American foreign policy towards Israel-Palestine. Attitudes (and policies) towards the environment are likewise influenced by religious beliefs and convictions. Some readers of the Bible argue that Donald Trump is a latter-day Cyrus, the Persian king who helped rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Make Jerusalem Great Again!). Each week, we’ll examine a different case. While the course is offered at the seminar level, there are no expectations that students come with a background in the theory and method of Religious Studies or of Political Science. We will acquire these tools along the way.

REL 470 - Vedas and Upanishads

A study of canonical texts from ancient India known as the Vedas and Upanishads that in many ways have served as the foundations of religious sensibilities in India throughout the generations. Attention will be given to visionary poetry, sacred narrative, sacerdotal literature, philosophical musings, theological reflections, contemplative teachings and mystical intuitions.

Satisfies cultural diversity requirement.

REL 474 - The Daodejing

Pang

This course examines the Daodejing and its diverse body of commentarial literature throughout the centuries. We will consider both ancient and modern interpretations of the text, as well as their historical, political, social, and religious contexts. 

Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement

REL 498 - Honors Project

RUS 101 - Elementary Russian I

RUS 102 - Elementary Russian II

This semester students complete the introduction to the Russian case system, while continuing to develop basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing about everyday Russian culture, including hobbies, shopping, restaurants, university life, holidays, and vacations. Thanks to a “flipped classroom” model (with the professor’s grammar lectures online), RUS 102 devotes class time to engaging interactive activities. The course requires work with audio, video, and computer exercises as well as participation in twice weekly AT sessions with a native speaker assistant.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
RUS 101 or placement. (Spring)

RUS 201 - Intermediate Russian I

Continuing work in development of basic skills of Russian, with an emphasis on engaging authentic materials.

Satisfies the foreign language requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
RUS 102 or placement. (Fall)

RUS 202 - Intermediate Russian II

Continued instruction at the intermediate level for those who wish to continue toward advanced levels of Russian. 

Prerequisites & Notes
RUS 201 or placement. (Spring)

RUS 260 - Special Topics: 19th Century Cannon

Fall 2018 Topic: Tolstoy & Dostoevsky

Nothing says “great literature” and “important novels,” quite like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The two Russian novelists continue to capture the Western imagination with works that tackle the big eternal questions. In this class we’ll see that, as much as they have been assimilated into the Western canon, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were emphatically and unabashedly Russian writers, first and foremost. They were deeply concerned with the political, philosophical, religious, social, and aesthetic questions of their own time and place - a tumultuous and rapidly industrializing Russia that was racing toward the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In this class we will also consider how Tolstoy and Dostoevsky came to represent radically different ideas about narrative and the novel as a genre. Readings will include one major novel by each writer, as well as selected short works. Dostoevsky: Notes from the Underground, and The Brothers Karamazov. Tolstoy: Family Happiness, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Hadji Murat.
 

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts as an elective in the English major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Global Literary Theory interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
No knowledge of Russian required or expected.
Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title.

RUS 270 - Nobel Laureates: The Politics of Literature - The 20th-Century Russian Novel (in English)

In this course we will examine key cultural and socio-historical moments in the development of twentieth-century Russian literature by focusing on the prose and poetry of authors awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature - Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Joseph Brodsky. Additionally, we will read Lev Tolstoy, who vehemently rejected being nominated for the prize, as well as Vladimir Nabokov and Anna Akhmatova, who arguably merited the award but never received it. 

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title.

RUS 280 - Russia & the West (in English)

Have we truly entered a new Cold War with Russia? How and why have relations with the West deteriorated so quickly in recent years? And who counts as the “West” anyway? How far and deep do the political and cultural fissures run and what can they tell us about Russian society and our own? In this course we’ll get to the bottom of things by exploring everything from Peter the Great’s unprecedented westernization of Russia to Cold War propaganda, the Space Race, the famous Slavophiles & Westernizer debates, waves of emigration and exile that began with the Bolshevik Revolution, depictions of Russians in Hollywood, and recent efforts to define a post-Soviet identity in Putin’s Russia. No knowledge of Russian language or culture required or expected.  All readings and discussion in English.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Liberal Studies requirement.

RUS 284 - Cinema after Communism

On December 26, 1991, the USSR ceased to exist. However, one day was hardly enough to make the former Soviet citizens forget nearly a century of communism. Now, over twenty-five years after the collapse of Soviet Union, this cultural memory continues to inform the cinematic tradition in Russia and the former Eastern Bloc. The course offers close, contextualized, analysis of major films from this region made between the early 1990s and the present. We will examine the films in terms of their formal structures and their reception, in relation to the collapse of communism, its cultural and historical legacies, and in light of recent political changes in Russia and Eastern Europe more broadly. The course focuses on Russian, German, Polish, Romanian, and Ukrainian cinema and investigates the works of such filmmakers as Aleksei Balabanov, Kira Muratova, Aleksandr Sokurov, Valeria Gai Germanika, Sergei Loznitsa, Andreas Dresen, Pawel Pawlikowski, and Cristian Mungiu.  Taught in English, films with English subtitles.

Satisfies a requirement in Film and Media Studies Interdisciplinary Minor.

Satisfies the Visual and Permforming Arts requirement

Satisfies the Cultural Diversity Requirement.

RUS 290 - Russian Theater (in English)

This course introduces the rich heritage of Russian theater from the nineteenth century to the present day. We begin with Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, and Chekhov and continue with early twentieth-century theatrical experiments, Soviet plays, and post-Perestroika works. No knowledge of Russian required or expected.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
(Not offered 2016-2017.)

RUS 292 - Queer Russia (=GSS 292)

Russia is accustomed to playing the role of the “evil empire.” The current ongoing war in Ukraine has resurrected the Cold War-era narratives about Russia as a dark, aggressive, and ruthless military power. The notorious legislation of recent years-whose functions range from barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans to criminalizing the so-called “gay propaganda”-have further solidified Russia’s reputation as a country with little regard for human rights. Yet generations of Russian poets, artists, and writers have transformed the country’s systematic oppression and violence into spectacular forms of protest and self-expression. This course focuses on gender and sexuality in exploring an alternative cultural history of Russia, which highlights its queer legacy from the nineteenth century to the present. We will examine poetry, fiction, art, memoirs, plays, films, performances, and discursive texts that showcase uniquely Russian conceptions of marriage, gender relations, gender expression, and sexual identity. Attention will be paid to the ways in which Russian and Western narratives of queerness align and diverge. In English. No knowledge of Russian is required or expected.

Satisfies major and minor requirements in Russian Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing and Rhetoric requirement.

RUS 293 - Putin’s Russia

In recent years the specter of authoritarian populism has begun to reappear in the West after long having been presumed vanquished for good. The turn toward authoritarianism is old news in Russia, where Vladimir Putin has loomed large over every aspect of culture and society for more than a decade, accused of being at the head of a regime based on tight controls on the media and on freedom of speech. But the arts, also controlled to a significant degree, have nevertheless - and in part due to the mediated nature of their forms of expression - provided one of the few outlets for commenting on government policy. In this seminar, we will focus on the questions of identity including class, gender, and religion as represented in contemporary Russian culture. We will cover a broad range of topics such as nationalism, LGBTQ rights, and Soviet nostalgia as well as discuss recent legislation, including the “gay propaganda” law (2013) and the decriminalization of domestic violence in Russia (2017). The course works with materials across genre and media, including fiction, cinema, performing arts, and graphic journalism. The primary sources are paired with critical readings, including the works of political activists such as Masha Gessen and Viktoria Lomasko as well as the theoretical writings of Judith Butler, Susan Sontag, and Michel Foucault. 
(Taught in English.)

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Liberal Studies requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the Gender & Sexuality Studies major and minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
No knowledge of Russian required or expected.

RUS 294 - Russia & Ukraine - War & Peace (Topics in Russian Literature in English)

In 2008 Putin quipped to the U.S. president, “you must understand, George, Ukraine is not even a country.” That denial of sovereignty later took an ominous turn, with the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing violence in Eastern Ukraine. Most Westerners are perplexed by all this. Aren’t they one Slavic people? In fact, their common cultural and political heritage notwithstanding, many Ukrainians bristle at the linguistic, political, and cultural dominance of their Russian “brothers and sisters,” while many Russians view Ukrainians as part of their own “nation.” But what is meant by “nation?” Looking beyond political structures, status as a great nation was traditionally affirmed by the production of a national literary epic. In this course we will develop a nuanced appreciation for the current conflict through careful attention to each nation’s canonical war epic: Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol, a Ukrainian who wrote in Russian and is claimed by both nations as their own - and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace - perhaps the most famous novel of all time, which is set in the years leading up to and during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812 and the patriotic fervor that ensued. Along the way, we will discuss a few shorter “Ukrainian tales” by Gogol, as well as Tolstoy’s early military tales, “The Sevastopol Sketches,” which were inspired by his experiences in the Crimean War

All readings and discussion in English.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
(Spring)

RUS 295 - Independent Study

A topic chosen by the student and researched under the direction of the faculty member, who reviews and approves the topic and determines the means of evaluation of the student’s work.

295 (Fall)/296 (Spring)

Prerequisites & Notes
Permission of the instructor.

RUS 301 - Advanced Intermediate Russian

RUS 319 - The Russian Internet

The course will be focused on online blogs, computer games, and social networks in Russia and the post-Soviet space as a unique cultural phenomenon with its own history, conventions, and impact on society. We will begin by considering the Soviet Union’s own project to create a nation-wide Internet-like computer network during the Cold War and then explore Russian-speaking online mediascape as an alternative platform for community formation and political expression. The students will learn about the ways in which Russians approach questions of public and private space, censorship, and intellectual property. We will also consider the question of Russian internet “troll farms” and their international impact. 

Most readings and discussion in Russian. 

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
RUS 202 or equivalent.

RUS 320 - Masterpieces of Russian Literature

Advanced reading and discussion of canonical works by Russian writers, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Pasternak, Akhmatova, and Tolstaya. This course is conducted in Russian.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
RUS 202 or equivalent. (Not offered 2016-2017.)

RUS 370 - Twentieth-Century Russian Literature

This class is conducted entirely in Russian. It combines the study of Russian literature with the development of vocabulary and grammar skills for advanced speaking and writing. We will read, discuss, and analyze short works by masters of 20th century Russian literature in the original. In the course of our readings, we will also learn about major events in 20th-century Russian history that form the important context for these works.

Prerequisites & Notes
RUS 202 or equivalent. (Not offered 2016-2017.)

RUS 372 - Nabokov & Global Literature (in English)

All readings and discussion in English.

Cross-listed with LIT 372.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.

Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Global Literary Theory

Satisfies a minor requirement in Russian Studies

Satisfies major requirements for CIS majors in Russian Studies, Russian Language & Literature, and Global Literary Theory

Prerequisites & Notes
(Fall)

RUS 373 - Nabokov & Global Literature (= LIT 372)

Vladimir Nabokov–brilliant writer, outrageous literary gamesman, and cosmopolitan exile–is a towering figure of twentieth-century literature. His most famous novel, Lolita, propelled him to international stardom and changed the transnational literary landscape. Child of a turbulent century, Nabokov wrote exquisite and at times disturbing prose in Russian and English, balancing between imaginary worlds and harsh realities. This seminar offers a sustained exploration of Nabokov’s major Russian and American writings as well as film adaptations of his Despair (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) and Lolita (Stanley Kubrick). In the second half of the seminar we turn to novels Nabokov haunts: Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence, and W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants. We will consider memory, exile, trauma, nostalgia, and identity as we read Nabokov, who saw existence as a “series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.” All readings and discussion in English.

Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Russian Studies

Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Russian Language and Literature

Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Global Literary Theory

Satisfies a minor requirement in Russian Studies

Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Global Literary Theory

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing & Rhetoric requirement

Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement

RUS 394 - Special Topics

RUS 395 - Independent Study for Advanced Students

Advanced study under the direction of the faculty member, who reviews and approves the topic and determines the means of evaluation of the student’s work.

395 (Fall)/396 (Spring)

Prerequisites & Notes
(Permission of the instructor.)

RUS 401 - Seminar in Special Topics

RUS 410 - Dostoevsky (Special Topics in English)

This course offers an in-depth engagement with a range of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works, including his first novella Poor Folk, The Double, major novels such as Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov, his pseudo-autobiographical prison memoir Notes from the Dead House, as well as a selection of his shorter experiments from Diary of a Writer.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
(Not offered 2016-2017.)

RUS 420 - Tolstoy (in English)

This course offers an opportunity to study in depth the great Russian novelist and thinker, Leo Tolstoy. We will read a variety of texts from his early stories, to his great novels (War and Peace and Anna Karenina), to his later philosophical tracts and “tales for the people.” Throughout the semester, students will also have opportunities to engage Tolstoy through the lens of selected essays of critical theory.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
(Not offered 2016-2017.)

SIL 111 - Beginning Dutch

SIL 115 - Beginning Italian

SIL 116 - Continuing Italian

SIL 117 - Intermediate Italian

SIL 120 - Beginning American Sign Language

SIL 121 - Intermediate American Sign Language

SIL 122 - Continuing American Sign Language

SIL 125 - Beginning Korean

SIL 126 - Continuing Korean

SIL 131 - Beginning Modern Greek

SIL 132 - Continuing Modern Greek

SIL 138 - Beginning Swedish

SIL 139 - Continuing Swedish

SIL 141 - Beginning Brazilian Portuguese

SIL 142 - Continuing Brazilian Portuguese

SIL 143 - Intermediate Brazilian Portuguese

SIL 150 - Beginning Danish

SIL 151 - Continuing Danish

SIL 161 - Beginning Amharic

SIL 162 - Continuing Amharic

SIL 165 - Beginning Hungarian

SIL 171 - Beginning Hindi

SIL 172 - Continuing Hindi

SIL 181 - Beginning Swahili

SIL 185 - Beginning Japanese

SIL 186 - Continuing Japanese

SIL 187 - Intermediate Japanese