Syllabus

Reading List

Alexander Pushkin. “The Bronze Horseman” (1833)*

Andrey Bely, Petersburg (1916; 1922)

Bible: Revelation

“A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1912)*

Alexander Blok, “The Stranger” (1908)**

“The Twelve”   (1918)*

Eugene Zamyatin, We (1920)

Mikhail Zoshchenko, Stories*

“On Party Policy in the Field of Belles-Lettres” (1925)*

VAPP  platform  (1925)*

Isaac babel’, Stories from Red Cavalry (1926)*

Yury Olesha, Envy (1927)**

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1940)

Bible: The Gospel According to Saint Matthew

Nabokov, “The Return of Chorb,” “A Visit to the Museum”**

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), “Matryona’s Home” (1963)**

Andrey Bitov, “Life in Windy Weather” (1963-4)*

Vasily Aksenov, “The Victory” (1965)*

Fazil Iskander, “Belshazzar’s Feasts” (1978)*

Bible: Book of Daniel

Yuz Aleshkovsky, “From the Book of Final Statements” (1984), “The Song of Stalin,” “Nikolai Nikolaevich”*

Sergei Gandlevsky, Trepanation of the Skull (1994)

Liudmila Petrushevskaya, The Time: Night (1992)

Background

The Holy Bible

Writing Requirements

Three short papers (about 4 pages) to be re-written after peer review

A final exam

Course Format

Lecture, discussion, student presentations (10 minutes)

*Course packet to be ordered from http://www.coursepacksetc.com/store/wesleyan-university

** In The Portable 20th Century Russian Reader, ed. Clarence Brown