Speak, Memory: The Russian Memoir
RUSS 220
Fall 2020 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
REES 220, RULE 220, WLIT 243 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Writing Certificate |
Memoirs offer a chance for individuals to make sense of their relationship to larger historical forces and allow writers of fiction and poetry to reflect on the tensions between biography and the creative process. We will read memoirs of prison and of Stalinist terror by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Nadezhda Mandelstam; visions of childhood by Lev Tolstoy, Vladimir Nabokov, and poets Osip Mandelstam and Marina Tsvetaeva; and works of autobiography by Viktor Shklovsky and Sergey Gandlevsky that create their own worlds of literary experimentation. The course will also consider the theoretical problems of autobiographical writing. Students will write a memoir of childhood (3-5 pages) to better understand the technical problems faced by Tolstoy in writing about his childhood. Students will also write a piece of memoiristic prose, or a parody or imitation of one of the writers in the course (minimum 10 pages), as one of their three papers. We will devote one class session to a writing workshop session on the creative project. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA REES |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (REES-MN)(REES-Lang/Lit/C) |
Major Readings:
Fyodor Dostoevsky, THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD
Lev Tolstoy, CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH
Osip Mandelstam, THE NOISE OF TIME
Viktor Shklovsky, ZOO
Eugenia Ginzburg, JOURNEY INTO THE WHIRLWIND
Nadezhda Mandelstam, HOPE AGAINST HOPE
Marina Tsvetaeva, essays
Vladimir Nabokov, SPEAK, MEMORY
Joseph Brodsky, essays
Sergey Gandlevsky, TREPANATION OF THE SKULL
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two 5-page analytical papers, one 3-5 page memoir of childhood, one 10-page creative project |
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