RUSS 266 - Russian Short Fiction

Intended for lower-division students, this course is devoted to close readings of short stories and novellas by such nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century writers as Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Teffi, Bunin, Babel, Kharms, Nabokov, Kharitonov, Petrushevskaya, Pelevin, and Tolstaya. Our approach is twofold. First, we attempt “open” readings, taking our texts as representatives of a single tradition in which later works are engaged in a dialogue with their predecessors. Second, we use the readings as test cases for a variety of critical approaches. Conducted in English. An additional weekly session will be scheduled for students taking the course for Russian credit. Meets English departmental requirement for 200-level genre courses.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I - Arts, Literature, & Philosophy, Distribution Group I - non-English Language
Prerequisite(s): For Russian credit: RUSS 212 or equivalent.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LIT 266
Not offered: 2026-27
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 or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical or works of the visual or performing arts).
Use a language other than English to understand and convey meaning in spoken, written, or mediated contexts appropriate to the course level.
Analyze how meaning is constructed and negotiated in a language other than English by examining grammatical structures, discourse conventions, or communicative strategies in spoken and written contexts.