RSEE 2312a / CPLT 2530a / HIST 1260a / HUMS 2550a / RUSS 2312a, Tolstoy's War and Peace TR  Staff

This course is a semester-long study of the quintessential big Russian novel, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869).  Set against the backdrop of Napoleon’s failed 1812 Russian campaign, the novel is a sweeping panorama of nineteenth-century Russian society and an unforgettable gallery of artfully drawn characters.  It also poses profound philosophical and moral questions.  What are the limits of individual agency, both in private life and in grand political arenas?  Do historical events have identifying causes?  What is a meaningful, well-lived life?  We also explore Tolstoy’s strategies for fictionalizing history.  What myths does he destroy and construct?  And how is this patriotic war epic also an imperial novel?  Reading the novel closely, we situate it both in its historical context and in our contemporary world.  Secondary materials include readings in history, political theory, philosophy, international relations, and literary criticism. All readings and class discussions in English.  No prerequisites required.   HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* RSEE 3120a / FILM 3007a / SLAV 3120a / UKRN 3120a, Cinematic Ukraine: Culture, Identity, and Memory  Olha Tytarenko

This course traces the evolution of Ukrainian cinema from the avant-garde experiments of the 1920s to the vibrant post-2014 film resurgence. Exploring themes of national identity, historical memory, and resistance to political and cultural oppression, we analyze how filmmakers have shaped Ukraine’s self-conception through film. Topics include the poetic cinema of the 1960s, post-Soviet transition films, and contemporary works responding to war and cultural sovereignty. Students will engage critically with cinematic language, narrative structures, and visual aesthetics while incorporating perspectives from postcolonial theory and memory studies. The course features guest lectures from Ukrainian film directors and hands-on cinematographic workshops. Weekly thematic units pair films with historical and theoretical readings, offering a dynamic exploration of Ukraine’s place in global cinema and cultural history. None  HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm, Th 6pm-9pm

* RSEE 3316a / CPLT 3003a / EALL 2880a / EAST 3250a / RSEE 316 / RUSS 3316a, Socialist '80s: Aesthetics of Reform in China and the Soviet Union  Jinyi Chu

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of the complex cultural and political paradigms of late socialism from a transnational perspective by focusing on the literature, cinema, and popular culture of the Soviet Union and China in 1980s. How were intellectual and everyday life in the Soviet Union and China distinct from and similar to that of the West of the same era? How do we parse “the cultural logic of late socialism?” What can today’s America learn from it? Examining two major socialist cultures together in a global context, this course queries the ethnographic, ideological, and socio-economic constituents of late socialism. Students analyze cultural materials in the context of Soviet and Chinese history. Along the way, we explore themes of identity, nationalism, globalization, capitalism, and the Cold War. Students with knowledge of Russian and Chinese are encouraged to read in original languages. All readings are available in English.   WR, HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* RSEE 3329a / HIST 3498a / MMES 3300a / RUSS 3329a, Introduction to Modern Central Asia  Claire Roosien

An overview of the history of modern Central Asia—modern-day Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. This course shows Central Asia to be a pivotal participant in some of the major global issues of the 20th and 21st centuries, from environmental degradation and Cold War, to women’s emancipation and postcolonial nation-building, to religion and the rise of mass society. It also includes an overview of the region’s longer history, of the conquests by the Russian and Chinese empires, the rise of Islamic modernist reform movements, the Bolshevik victory, World War II, the perestroika, and the projects of post-Soviet nation-building. Readings in history are supplemented by such primary sources as novels and poetry, films and songs, government decrees, travelogues, courtly chronicles, and the periodical press. All readings and discussions in English.  HU
TTh 1:05pm-2:20pm