Undergraduate Course: The Post-Soviet Word, Image and Memory (Ordinary) (ELCR09001)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 9 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course provides an approach to post-Soviet Russian culture through a consideration of different media, including literature, cinema, television and newspapers. It encourages an interdisciplinary approach to post-Soviet Russian culture and, through textual analysis, the development of reading skills in Russian. The emphasis on individual project work enables students to pursue aspects of the subject that are of particular interest to them, while gaining the perspective offered by the wider cultural context. |
| Course description |
The course will study several important films, paintings, monuments, media texts and literary texts in order to analyse the most significant cultural and political trends that emerged in the post-Soviet period. The course will examine the relevance of established postmodernist theoretical and semiotic approaches to Russian culture of the 1990s-2000s. Through a close textual study of key texts and artefacts of the post-Soviet period, this option aims to foster an understanding of the ways writers, artists, educationalists and journalists engage with contemporary society and culture to produce texts, programmes, artefacts and films that contribute to the construction of new identities, the ongoing reinvention of the past and to the preservation of collective and personal memories. It will examine: (i) why the texts, films and other artefacts can be defined as postmodernist and post utopian; and (ii) how they reject, engage with and/or critique the changing social, political and cultural landscape of Russia in the 1990s-2010s.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | BA/Ordinary students and Visiting Students. Students should attend classes alongside ELCR10014. |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | In order to be eligible to take 4th Year Options, Visiting Students should have the equivalent of at least two years of study at University level of the appropriate language(s) and culture(s) |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 3 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
172 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Discussion board/participation - 20% (a minimum participation: 4 entries=8%)
Final essay (submitted in week 12): 2,000 words=60 %;
Presentations in the end of the course (week 10): 5 min podcasts uploaded to Learn=20%;
Annotated bibliography (300 words)=0% (formative assessment: submitted by week 10) |
| Feedback |
Written feedback on essay outlines and essays. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- To gain a historically-informed understanding of the socio-political, cultural and literary contexts of Russia after 1991.
- Use and apply close knowledge of the works studied and to analyse these in terms of the cultural contexts in which they were first read, circulated and perfomed.
- Use familiarity with critical ideas and terms relevant to Russian culture after 1991and apply these critically.
- Recognise the complexity of the subject.
- Offer alternative perspectives and show awareness of contrasting viewpoints.
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Reading List
Pelevin "Genertaion P"
Tolstaya: a few stories and essays
Kibirov: a few poems
Petrushevskaya: a few stories
Films:
Zviagintsev: The Return
Balabanov: Brother 1, Brother 2, and War
Mikhalkov: Burnt by the Sun
Uchitel': The Stroll or Bychkova: Piter FM
Sokurov: Russian Ark
Paintings, monuments and installations by these artists: Tsereteli, Komar and Melamid, Shemiakin, Kabakov, and Butalov
Secondary sources:
*Mikhail Epstein, Alexander Genis, Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover
Russian Postmodernism :
New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture.
New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1999.
*Lipovetsky, Mark.Russian Postmodernist Fiction: Dialogue with Chaos. Ed. Eliot Borenstein. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research, communicative, analytical and writing skills relevant for literary studies, cultural studies, journalism, history, film studies and political science. |
| Keywords | Post-Soviet culture; film; memory; Russian literature. |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Alexandra Smith
Tel: (0131 6)51 1381
Email: Alexandra.Smith@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Craig Adams
Tel: (0131 6)50 3646
Email: craig.adams@ed.ac.uk |
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