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CS92PROD
Reading Stories: Great Short Works from Tolstoy to Petrushevskaya
RUSS 240
Fall 2017
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: REES 240, RULE 240

This course is designed to help students improve their writing through the close reading and analysis of short stories and novellas by Russian masters of the form. In each class, we will discuss one or two literary works. Students will be asked to bring to each class their ideas on how to construct an argument that could be developed into a written interpretation of the work. These discussions, along with work on English grammar and style as elucidated by Strunk & White and R. L. Trask, will inform students' own writing (four 5-page papers). We will read works in the realist tradition from the mid-19th century to the late 20th century that include Tolstoy's novellas of faith, adultery, and facing death; Chekhov's subtle psychological tales; Bunin's reflections from exile on a lost Russia; Babel's stories of the Civil War and of Jewish Odessa; Bulgakov's sketches of life as a country doctor; and Petrushevskaya's modern stories of the tortured lives of women in the late Soviet period.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA REES
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (REES-MN)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on NOV-21-2024
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