COURSE OBJECTIVES

 

The FIRST goal of this course is to reinforce the rules of Russian gram­mar that you learned in Beginning and Intermediate Russian. To this end we will review select grammar topics using Terence Wade’s A Comprehensive Russian Grammar and doing exercises from Wade’s A Russian Grammar Workbook. Our goal will be to cover the majority of topics and exercises from these two books. While reviewing Russian grammar, we will gain knowledge of a large number of exceptions, idioms, and stylistic nuances, enriching your spoken and written Russian and moving to the advanced level of the language mastery.

 

SECOND, we will read a wide array of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literary texts representative of a great variety of genres. In the Fall semester the majority of our texts will come from David Gillespie and Boris Lanin’s, Nineneenth-Century Russian Literature: an Introductory Reader.

 

While working with these texts we will learn

 

-the basic genres of Russian literature (short story, novella, poem, novel, narrative poem, etc.);

-to parse a text grammatically;

-to translate a text into English;

-strategies for discussing literary texts;

-a basic categorization of Russian literature (XIX c.: Sentimentalism, Romanticism, Naturalism, Realism; XX c.: Symbolism, Acmeism, Futurism, Modernism, Social Realism, Thaw Literature, Émigré Literature, Postmodernism).

 

THIRD, since it is pointless to study Russian without speaking it, we will keep developing our oral ability in Rus­sian. To this end classes will be conducted exclusively in Russian. I will ask that you adhere to a Russian-only policy in the classroom. We will acquire, memorize and use extensive Russian vocabulary which will include vocabulary culled from literary texts (focusing on common, useful words and phrases) and basic vocabulary needed to discuss and analyze literature. Russian literature dwells on a wide range of questions concerning the human condition--love, fidelity,(lack of) understanding, war, faith--to mention just a few. We will discuss these issues while analyzing our chosen texts.

 

FOURTH, we will write about our authors and texts, learning and reinforcing the strategies of composition writing in Russian. Important topics will include conjunctions, transitions, logical and temporal connectives among others.

 

LAST, but not least, in this course you will build several important skills, including typing in Russian (I will not accept hand-written essays!) and correspondingly Russifying your computer (installing Russian fonts); using Russian-English and Russian-Russian dictionaries to look up words from a Russian text and using Russian-English/English-Russian dictionaries to write correctly.

 

As you can see from this introduction, Advanced Russian is going to be both a stimulating and demanding course. Expect to spend about two hours preparing for each class. Please remember, that generating questions is an important moment in the process of learning and feel free to come to my office, e-mail or call me with your questions.

 

Good luck with your Russian venture!