Reading the Russian Classics

Adele Barker
Fall 2019
Tuesdays |  
10 AM - 12 PM
October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, November 5, 12, 19, December 3, and 10, 2019
Course Format: Hybrid
Location: Main Campus
Tuition: $185

What makes Russian literature so Russian? This course will take us through two of the best-known Russian classics—Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov—as well as Turgenev’s little-known Sportsman’s Sketches as we uncover the world of mid-to-late nineteenth-century Russia. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky tackled what is known as “the cursed questions” of God, death, morality, and how to live a good life. Turgenev’s book, with its very different focus, ushered in some of the most radical social changes Russia has ever witnessed. Our journey back into Russia’s literary past will open doors into peasant life, the Russian penal system, Russian Orthodoxy, life on the land, and the music and art of the times in which these writers lived.

Registration Opens Online: Monday, August 12, 2019 at 8AM (AZ Time)

Required Reading

Since we will be looking at them closely it would be helpful if we are all using the same editions. This is particularly true in the case of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov. Below are the editions I will be using of each of the books:

  • Turgenev, Sketches from a Hunter’s Album, trans. Richard Freeborn (Penguin, 1990)
  • Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Pevear and Volokonsky (Penguin, 2004).
  • Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Pevear and Volokonsky, (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002).

Meet Your Instructor

Professor Emerita

ADELE BARKER is professor emerita in the Russian Department and has taught Russian and Soviet literature and film for 35 years. She has lived, studied, and traveled widely throughout Russia and the Soviet Union. She is the author/editor of five books on Russian literature and popular culture and works in creative nonfiction. She has taught seven courses for the Humanities Seminars Program.

Location

POETRY CENTER
Dorothy Rubel Room
1508 E Helen
Tucson, AZ 85721
United States

Located on the SE corner of Helen Street and Vine Avenue, one block north of Speedway and three blocks west of Campbell Ave.

Street map image of Poetry Center

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