Transfer Student Courses in Russian (Division 466)

Fall Term, 1999 (September 8 - December 22, 1999)

To see what Transfer Student courses have been added or changed in Russian this week go to What's New This Week.

Language

Section 001, 002, 003 – Students must also register for one grammar section (004 or 005).

Prerequisites & Distribution: No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 103 or 111. (5). (LR).

Credits: (5; 4 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this course the student is introduced to the basics of Russian pronunciation and grammar. The course begins with an intensive study of the Russian sound system and orthographic rules (the alphabet and correct spelling). Students spend an average of 1.5-2 hours per day working with tapes and writing exercises. The class is supplemented by video shows. Students who intend to concentrate in Russian Language and Literature or in Russian and East European Studies might consider taking the intensive class, Russian 103. Textbook: Nachalo I. Must also register for required grammar section 004 or 005.

Language

Section 004, 005 – Required grammar lecture. Must also register for REC section (001, 002 or 003).

Instructor(s): Herbert Eagle (hjeagle@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 103 or 111. (5). (LR).

Credits: (5; 4 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is the required grammar section for Russian 101 (You must also register for REC section 001, 002 or 003). Please see description for REC sections.

Language

Prerequisites & Distribution: Russian 101. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 103, 111, or 112. (5). (LR).

Credits: (5; 4 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this course, the sequel to Russian 101, students complete their survey of Russian grammar, expand their vocabulary, and learn to express themselves in Russian about topics of interest including Russian history and culture. The class is supplemented by video shows. Students are expected to complete 1-2 hours of oral and written homework every night.

Language

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Baliasnikova

Prerequisites & Distribution: No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 101, 102, 111, or 112. (8). (LR).

Credits: (8).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course covers in one term what is ordinarily covered in two terms of Russian 101 and 102. The course carries eight credit hours and is designed for highly motivated students who wish to acquire rapid mastery of Russian. It is especially recommended for students intending to choose a concentration in Russian Language and Literature or Russian and East European Studies. Students are expected to complete approximately 16-20 hours of homework per week, including 3-4 hours in the language laboratory. Students are also required to participate in four hours of core-curricular activities outside of the classroom per week (daily Russian lunch table; weekly Russian tea).

Language

Prerequisites & Distribution: Russian 102 or 103. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 203. (5). (LR).

Credits: (5; 4 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course reviews and expands grammatical concepts first covered during the First-Year Russian (101 and 102) courses, focusing on verbal aspect, declension, and the verbs of placement. The course also emphasizes speaking and listening skills. Students are expected to complete 9-12 hours of homework per week. Textbook: V Puti by Frank Miller and Olga Kagan and workbook; cost is $73.00 and covers two terms.

Language

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Khan

Prerequisites & Distribution: Russian 202, and satisfactory scores on a proficiency test. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 303. (4). (Excl).

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Third-Year Russian starts with the assumption that the basic aspects of the language have been assimilated, and therefore emphasizes practical skills – reading, writing, and speaking. Difficult grammatical points are reviewed, vocabulary is greatly enlarged, idiomatic constructions are studied. It is a recitation course, and students are asked to participate in class discussion and give oral reports. Students are evaluated on the basis of their oral and written skills.

Literature

Section 001 – Taught in Russian.

Instructor(s): Michael Makin (mlmakin@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: Russian 202. (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is an introduction to Russian prose. Classes, readings, and writing assignments are in Russian. There are journals, essays, and in-class examinations. Class discussion is encouraged. The course increases vocabulary, reading speed, written and oral fluency, while developing literary-analytical skills.

Language

Section 003.

Instructor(s): Baliasnikova

Prerequisites & Distribution: Russian 302. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in 403. (4). (Excl).

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Russian 401 is offered during the Fall Term and Russian 402 is offered during the Winter Term of every academic year. Prerequisites: three years of Russian (minimum). Classwork, homework, and labwork include: grammar and word formation; reading and listening (films and TV news included); discussions; oral reports and compositions. Bi-weekly grammar tests and final oral presentation. Textbook: Let’s Talk About Life! by Emily Tall and Valentina Vlasikova; cost is $42.00 and covers two terms.

Literature

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Khan

Prerequisites & Distribution: A knowledge of Russian is not required. (3). (HU).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course focuses on the masterpieces of Russian fiction written between 1820 and 1870, including such classics of world literature as Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Evolving fast from Romanticism to High Realism, this period marks a blossoming of Russian culture, despite strained relations with political authorities. We will trace how writers treated the political, social, intellectual and religious issues dividing their contemporaries, creating a unique kind of literature that claimed authority over society in settling these problems. Topics include romantic self-fashioning and posturing (including such risky aristocratic games as dueling and gambling), gender relations, the fate of the educated in society, violence and repentance, reform and stagnation, history and the private self, Russia and the West. No knowledge of Russian literature or history is presupposed. Participation in class discussion, two short papers, and a final exam.

Literature

Section 001 – Satire: A Town and Its Dwellers As Depicted by Russian Satirists. A knowledge of Russian is required. Meets With Russian 861.001.

Instructor(s): Boris Katz (bkats@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The course offers multifaceted elucidation of satire as an important part of Russian literature. Different aspects of the genre will be presented: its history, poetics, dependence on and influence upon Russian social, political, and psychological contexts. Emphasis will be placed on the images of Russian towns and its dwellers as reflected in the mirror of satirical works both in prose and poetry. The representatives of various urban social strata, ranging from the highest authorities and bureaucracy to the lowest classes, their interrelations, patterns of behavior, their moral values, their public and private life, ways of thinking and speaking served as favorite targets for sarcastic, farcical, burlesque, or ironical attacks of many writers who ridiculed the social and political life whether in the Russian Empire or in the Soviet Russia. Novels, stories or poems by Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nekrasov, Chekhov in the 19th century, and Bulgakov, Platonov, Zoshchenko, Ilf and Petrov in the 20th century being united by the topics mentioned above provide an excellent material for deep understanding of Russian history, society, and national psychology on the one hand, and that of literary satirical means expressed in Russian language – on the other. These problems will be discussed during the seminar meetings. This course will be taught in English.

Literature

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Boris Katz (bkats@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: A knowledge of Russian is not required. (2). (Excl).

Credits: (2).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Is it true, as one Russian undergraduate has stated, that the only difference between a novel and a short story is the fact that love in the latter is shorter than in the former? Is it true that love in Russian literature is strongly marked by certain particular features of national characteristics? Is it true, finally, that Russian writers during the 1820s and 30s developed a special way of composing love stories?

Such questions make clear that the proposed course will elucidate its subject in, at least, three aspects:

1. in the context of the poetics of a short story as a specific literary genre;
2. in comparing the presentation of love in Russian prose to what love was really like for Russian people of different ages, and social and cultural backgrounds in different periods of Russian History;
3. in discovering those literary traditions which help (or, perhaps, do not) Russian writers to create around their literary love stories a specific atmosphere which proved so attractive both to Russian and Western readers.

An infinite variety of happy/unhappy lovers, multiform stages and nuances of male/female falling in love, the difference between the positions of men and women in love and marriage, attitudes of different generations toward love, conflicts and rivalry in love triangles of many kinds as well as manifold emotions and situations provoked by love (from admiration to hatred, from awesome self-denying to fatal jealousy, from struggling with sexual temptations to plunging in reckless love adventures, etc.) – all this and more will be discussed as the life material for highly individual (serious or ironic) versions of sentimental, classical, romantic, realistic or pre(post)modernist short stories composed by famous Russian storytellers such as Karamzin, Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov, Bunin, and Nabokov. The stress will be made on how Russian writers turned real love stories into literary ones.