RUSS 367 - Envisioning Modernity: Central Asia and the Caucasus through Literature, Film, and the Arts

This course introduces students to a part of the world frequently stereotyped by outsiders as “frozen in time,” and “shrouded in mystery,” yet which has long been at the center of discourses of modernity and their attendant political, intellectual, and cultural projects. Through a survey of 20th and 21st-century works by leading cultural figures from Central Asia and the Caucasus, we will examine modernity as an idea depicted in, and conveyed through literature and the visual arts, as well as cutting-edge media forms like the periodical press, filmmaking, photography, television, and social media. Secondary readings on the history of Central Asia and the Caucasus will enable us to examine the connections between visions of modernity, forms of anticolonial resistance, and ideologically-driven constructions of nation, ethnicity, and race. Students will develop a working knowledge of the cultures, languages, and environments of present-day Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. All readings and discussions are in English. An additional weekly session will be scheduled for students taking the course for Russian credit.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): For Russian credit: RUSS 212 or equivalent.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LIT 367
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).