RUSS 362 - Red Sci-Fi: Science Fiction in Soviet Literature and Film

Though working behind the Cold War “iron curtain,” post-World War II Soviet writers and filmmakers were preoccupied with the same ideas and questions as their Western and American counterparts, often working in parallel genres. One such genre was science fiction, which became enormously popular in the Soviet Union starting in the mid-1950s. Relying on the rich tradition of the 1920s, the postwar writers and filmmakers used science fiction to reflect on urgent societal and philosophical issues. In the presence of state censorship and official ideology, science fiction became the venue for veiled and subversive critique of the regime. In this course, through reading and watching major works of Russian sci-fi fiction and cinema, we will explore how they imagined artificial intelligence and time travel; space exploration and alien species and transformations of gender and race; the quest for immortality; and the nuclear apocalypse. We will situate these works in their immediate artistic and cultural contexts and the wider, primarily American, comparative context of postwar science fiction. Readings and screenings from the Strugatsky brothers, Alexander Beliaev, Evgeny Zamyatin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Andrei Tarkovsky, Kir Bulychev, Sever Gansovsky, and others. All readings, screenings, and discussion 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 220
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LIT 362
Not offered: 2024-25
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).