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REES 495/550 Seminar in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Identities, Narratives, Cultural Values, and Change:
Monday 3-5 pm
Syllabus Fall 2007
Coordinator: Professor Richard Tempest
Course Description This interdisciplinary course seeks to understand Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian life by exploring the interplay of social identity, values and change. Through a series of mini-seminars on selected topics taught by a variety of REEC-affiliated faculty, we will investigate diverse dimensions of social identity (group, regional, ethnic, national, transnational, religious, gender) and sources of socio-cultural values (from constructions of tradition, heritage and authenticity, to the poetics and politics of socialism, to the impact of globalization and transnational media) during pertinent eras (including the present) of revolution, transition, upheaval, and conflict. Students will be introduced to a set of methodologies and analytical tools helpful for the study of these subjects and topics. The course aims to help students comprehend the experiences of people in the region during key periods of change and social stress, and to explore interdisciplinarity as an intellectual and academic practice.
Credit: 4 hours.
Course Requirements and Grading Specifications
1. Attendance at, preparation for, and active participation in weekly discussions (50%).
2. In lieu of class on 24 September, students will be required to attend the REEEC Annual Conference, “Building the Balkans Anew: From Metaphor to Market,” to be held on 21-22 September at UIUC. Write a brief summary (no more than 3 double-spaced pages) of one of the presentations given at the conference. Discuss the speaker’s objectives and conclusions, highlighting his/her discipline, methodological approach, the area studies relevance of the presentation and, if pertinent, how it reflected new research directions and/or a changing vision of the region it addresses. Your essay is due at classtime on Monday, October 8. (10%)
3. A research paper (20–25 pages) that explores a particular, REEES-related issue, to be chosen in consultation with the course coordinator by 1 October. Resources for this project should include literature by scholars from at least two disciplines as well as primary sources (when appropriate and possible) in different genres (newspaper articles, literary works, ethnographic interviews, etc.). Once your topic is approved, you should also locate a REEEC-affiliated faculty mentor who will agree to read and evaluate the final draft of your paper together with the course coordinator. You should submit your paper to BOTH professors on or before 10 December. (30%)
4. An oral presentation of your project to be delivered in class on 3 December. (10%)
Required Readings
Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001)
Drakuli, Slavenka. How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993 [1991])
These sources will be supplemented by articles, essays and chapters distributed to the class on a regular basis or available through an online database to which our library system subscribes. Please read the material in the order presented.
Course Schedule
22 August Course introduction. Syllabus overview. Key terms and concepts. The Nature of Area Studies: Problematizing the Region and its Scholarship. A Moscow cab driver’s nocturnal rant amid the detritus of an empire: an ethnic Russian, he is the son of a Stalin-era political prisoner, grew up in Uzbekistan, loves Khrushchev, admires Putin, hates the oligarchs, abhors Western life styles, sees Moscow as a den of vice, and judges its culture and life styles with reference to Moslem cultural values. Cultural/political nostalgia as a syndrome, symptom and cause in Russia, the former East Germany and Bulgaria. Read: *Rafael, Vincente. 1994. “The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States.” Social Text 41:91–111.
*Steinberg, Mark. 1999. “Reforming the Area Studies Curriculum: Three Views.” NewsNet 39(4):1–3.
*Orenstein, Mitchell A. 2001. “A New Direction for AAASS in the Social Sciences.” NewsNet 41(3):1, 6–7.
Rozman, Gilbert. 2002. “Expanding the Definitions of Area Studies: Integrating Russian Studies into Northeast Asian Studies.” NewsNet 42(2):1–4.
*Voll, John O. 2002. “Expanding the Definitions of Area Studies: Crossing Traditional Area Studies Boundaries: A ‘Middle East’ View.” NewsNet 42(2): 1, 4–6.
Cain, Michael J.G. 2002. “Area Studies and the Development of Social Theories.” NewsNet 42(3):1–4.
Zlotnik, Marc. 2004. “Outside of the Ivory Tower: Non-Academic Careers for Slavic Area Specialists.” NewsNet 44(2):1–4.
*Kennedy, Michael D. 2005. “Public Relations: How Should the Scholarly and Political Communities Relate to Each Other?” NewsNet 45(2):1–6.
*Verdery, Katherine. 2006. “What’s in a Name, and Should We Change Ours?” (and accompanying discussion) NewsNet 46(2): 1–6.
27 August Notions of Empire and the Envisioning of Eurasia: Of Orientalism and the “East” Read: *Said, Edward. 1978 [1979, 1994, 2001].“Introduction.” In Orientalism, 1–28. NY: Vintage Books.
Knight, Nathaniel. 2000. “Gigor’ev in Orenburg, 1851–1862: Russian Orientalism in the Service of Empire?” Slavic Review 59(1): 74–100.
Khalid, Adeeb. 2000. “Russian History and the Debate over Orientalism.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1(4):691–99.
Knight, Nathaniel. 2000. “On Russian Orientalism: A Response to Adeeb Khalid.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1(4):700-16.
Todorova, Maria. 2000. “Does Russian Orientalism Have a Russian Soul? A Contribution to the Debate between Nathaniel Knight and Adeeb Khalid.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1(4):717–27.
Recommended (for those intending to research this topic further): Brower, Daniel R. and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds. 1997. Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Bassin, Mark. 1999. Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840–1865. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slezkine, Yuri. 1994. Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
*Bassin, Mark. 1991. “Inventing Siberia: Visions of the Russian East in the Early Nineteenth Century.” The American Historical Review 96(3):763–94.
Humphrey, Caroline. 2002. “‘Eurasia’, Ideology and the Political Imagination in Provincial Russia.” In Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia, ed. C. M. Hann, 258–76. New York: Routledge
3 September No class. Labor Day holiday.
10 September Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies: the Bibliographical Dimension Read: Basic English-language Resources for the study of Russia, East Europe and Eurasia
17 September Further Spatial Imaginings: Balkanism and its Implications Read: *Todorova, Maria. 1997. Imagining the Balkans. Chapters 1 & 2. NY: Oxford University Press.(On reserve in History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library, and one copy available in REEEC Conference Room.)
*Baki-Hayden, Milica and Robert Hayden. 1992. “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans’: Symbolic Geography in Recent Yugoslav Cultural Politics.” Slavic Review 51(1):1–10.
*Bjeli, Dušan I. 2002. “Introduction: Blowing up the ‘Bridge.’” In Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation, eds. Dušan I. Bjeli_ and Obrad Savi_, 1–22. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
24 September No class. Students will attend the REEEC Balkans Conference, to be held on 21-22 September.
1 October Slavic Review and Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
Assignment: Choose 4 of the following Slavic studies journals, spend about an hour or two with each. Be prepared to describe how you would define the editorial orientation of each journal and what questions reading these suggested to you about the field, disciplines, how the journal makes decisions, etc. It is suggested that you begin examining the journals in question at least one week before this session.
East European Politics and Societies Europe-Asia Studies Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Nationalities Papers Problems of Post-Communism Russian Review Slavic and East European Journal Slavic Review
8 October Russia and the Critique of Modern Civilization at the End of the Eighteenth Century
Read: Rousseau, J. J. 1992. “The First Discourse.” In Discourse on the sciences and arts : (first discourse) and Polemics. Translated by, Judith R. Bush, Roger D. Masters, and Christopher Kelly. Hanover: University Press of New England. Reading to be provided.
Shcherbatov, Prince Mikhail. 1969. On the Corruption of Morals in Russia. London, Cambridge U.P: pp. 113-157.Reading to be provided.
15 October From Idyll to Modernity: Russian Literature on Social and Cultural Changes in Mid-Nineteenth Century Russia
Read: Goncharov, Ivan. An Ordinary Story. On Reserve, Main Library; one copy in REEEC.
22 October Russian Culture in the Revolutionary Era
Read: Kelly, Catriona and David Shephard, eds. 1998. Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution, 1881–1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press: pp. 1-217.
29 October Understanding Socialism as Everyday Life, with reference to the representation of group identities through the media of popular culture
Read: *Verdery, Katherine. 1996. “What Was Socialism, and Why Did It Fall?” In her What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next?, pp. 19–38. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Reading to be provided.
*Creed, Gerald W. 1998. “Introduction.” In his Domesticating Revolution: From Socialist Reform to Ambivalent Transition in a Bulgarian Village, 1-31. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Reading to be provided.
Drakuli, Slavenka. 1993 [1991]. How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. NY: HarperPerennial. On Reserve, History Library; one copy in REEEC.
5 November What Comes Next? Postsocialism as Paradigm and Practice. Popular Culture, Postsocialism, and Putin’s Russia: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
12 November Ethnic Conflict, National Identity, and Political Discourse in the Balkans and Caucasus. 19 November No class. Thanksgiving holiday.
26 November TOPIC TO BE ANNOUNCED
3 December Oral presentations
7 December REEEC Winter Reception
10 December Papers due by 5:00 p.m. E-mailed papers will not be accepted. Please bring your paper to the REEEC office and put it in Professor Tempest’s mailbox. |
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Russian,
East European, and Eurasian Center • College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences • University
of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign 104 International Studies Building • 910 S Fifth Street • Champaign, IL 61820 Phone: 217-333-1244 • Fax: 217-333-1582 • email: reec@uiuc.edu |