Module RUSS3361: RUSSIAN CULTURE 1912 - 1932

Department: Modern Languages and Cultures (Russian)

RUSS3361: RUSSIAN CULTURE 1912 - 1932

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• To impart an understanding of the complex range of circumstances - social, political, ideological, and 'cultural' - that informed the nature of Russian culture as it developed through and beyond Revolution.
• To examine specific domains of culture, namely Literature, Visual Arts, the Critical Environment, in the above context.

Content

• week 1 Introduction: The Rise of the Avant-Garde [L]
• week 2 Introduction: Culture and Ideology [L]
• weeks 3-5 Literary Culture 1912-1932 [S]
• weeks 6-7 Theatre and Cinema [L]
• week 8-10 Theatre and Cinema [S]
• week 11-12 Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts [L]
• week 13-15 Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts [S]
• week 16-17 Cultural Revolution [L]
• week 18-19 From Avant-Garde to Stalinist Socialist Realism [S]

Learning Outcomes

• Students will acquire a thorough and sophisticated knowledge of the factors that drove the development of Russian culture between 1912 and 1932, and an understanding of the ways in which the relation ship between cultural production and the State changed through the period. They will also acquire detailed knowledge of the main agents of cultural development across the full artistic and political spectrum.

• Students will acquire the ability to evaluate a range of texts — including the literary, critical, and cinematic — in the original Russian, and to identify and utilise appropriate primary and secondary sources for that purpose. Students will also develop their ability to deal with the technical specificity of different kinds of text, and to assess them in terms of their inter-related ideological and aesthetic function.

• Students will further develop their ability to work independently within a prescribed framework, with great emphasis being placed on the rudiments of the research process. On completion of the course, students will be able to present a cogent and structured argument in both oral and written form.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures are designed to set the historical and conceptual framework, and to introduce key concepts specific to each particular domain of culture.
• Seminars provide a forum for presentation of the results of independent study, and are designed to stimulate and facilitate detailed engagement with particular aspects of the period.
• The assessment gives equal weight to the two essays and the examination (which takes the form of a single essay, written under exam conditions).

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

None.