Russ Lit Fights Xenophobia

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The course will address various ways the poetics of Russian Fiction address prejudices-- head on. First, they are put in the foreground as the motifs in the plots-- e.g., motifs of racism or othering/ de-othering the Other in Russia's imperial Islamic invasions and government of territories; the motif of objectifying prisoners or women, or pre-assigning gender roles, or that of religious sects and schismatics in Russia, the later motif, including anti-Semitism, although it involves aspects of racism and cultural / linguistic Xenophobia as well. Mostly, the examples we will examine will come from 19th c but we shall possibly address a couple of stories from 20th c and perhaps from 21st c (Makanin, Shalamov), including films.