UNC-Chapel Hill Carolina Courses Online

RUSS 270: Russian Literature of the Nineteenth Century

Course Home Page Blackboard Instructor E-mail
Course Overview and Objectives Texts Reading Assignments
Discussion Forums Written Assignments Exams
Grading Honor Code Course Mechanics
Lesson Schedule

Course Overview and Objectives

Over the course of the nineteenth century, Russian literature underwent a brilliant development, out of which emerged some of the greatest writers in history. Each of these writers pushed the limits of literature, solving problems of representation in original and creative ways. Because of their tendency to respond to and build upon what their predecessors had accomplished, these writers created a dynamic “literary evolution.” Our study will not only explore the dynamic evolution of literary life in Russia, but also the importance of the writer in the political development of a nation. Nineteenth-century Russian writers were intensely engaged with contemporaneous social, political, and cultural phenomena in Russia. For this reason, reading the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky gives us an excellent glimpse at Russian history of the period, as well as revealing the philosophical and moral issues that concerned writers of Russia (and often the West) at the time.

This course will help you

The themes we will follow are the

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Texts

Required Texts

It is important that you read the translation specified. Friday Center Books & Gifts carries only the correct translations. You can order these books from Friday Center Books & Gifts at the Friday Center, online, or by using the book order form. ISBNs are provided to assist you if you purchase your books elsewhere.

Alexander Pushkin, Tales of Belkin and Other Prose Writings, Penguin; ISBN #0-14-044675-3

Lermontov, Mikhail (Paul Foote, trans.), A Hero of Our Time, Penguin; ISBN #0-140-44795-4

Nikolai Gogol (David Magarshack, trans.) The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil, W. W. Norton; ISBN # 0-039-00304-3

Karolina Pavlova (Barbara Heldt, trans.), A Double Life, Barbary Coast Books; ISBN #0-936041-09-9

Ivan Turgenev (Michael R. Katz, trans.), Fathers and Sons, W. W. Norton; ISBN #0-393-9672-2

Feodor Dostoevsky (Jessie Coulson, trans.), Crime and Punishment, W. W. Norton; ISBN #0-393-95623-7

Leo Tolstoy (Pevear and Volokhonsky, trans.), Anna Karenina, Penguin; ISBN #0-14-200027-2

Anton Chekhov (Ralph E. Matlaw, ed.), Anton Chekhov's Short Stories, W. W. Norton; ISBN #0-393-09002-7

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Dover Thrift Editions; ISBN #0-486-26682-6

The required texts published by W. W. Norton contain very useful secondary literature.

Required Texts on E-Reserve

I've placed some required reading on e-reserve (electronic reserve) at University Libraries. There will be a link to e-reserves when these readings are assigned.

Required Film

Sometime during the semester you will be required to watch a video copy of a film adaptation of a piece of Russian literature of your choice, and write a one-page response to it. (You should be able to easily borrow one from your local library or rent one from your local video rental store. If you are in Chapel Hill, the UNC-Chapel Hill Undergraduate Library has many Russian films available.) We will discuss this assignment more thoroughly in the class discussion forum for Week 1. (See Written Assignments below).

Optional Text

I will provide optional assigned readings from Victor Terras' A History of Russian Literature. While this reading is not required, it will help you to have a supplemental source of background information in addition to the lesson notes.

Victor Terras, A History of Russian Literature, Yale University Press, 1994

Additional Resources

I've compiled a list of additional resources for the study of Russian literature.

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Reading Assignments

This course requires A LOT of reading, so get cracking! Read ahead—you should have the reading assignment done by the beginning of the week for which it is assigned. Remember, the readings from Victor Terras' A History of Russian Literature are optional.

I have designed the course so that the reading assignments slowly ramp up, allowing you to get in the groove, and giving late enrollees a chance to catch up, but you should always feel free to read ahead if you have finished the week's assignments early (especially in the first couple of weeks).

I urge you to take notes as you read, making lists of characters, scenes, and quotes you enjoy or find significant—a reading journal like this will help jog your memory if you finish the reading before the lesson is due, and is invaluable when you are writing papers. (Do not use Cliff's Notes and the like for this purpose—your own notes are far superior because they are personalized, and I want to hear your voice on the discussion forum and in papers, not yukky Cliff-speak!)

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Discussion Forums

The discussion forum is our virtual classroom, the place where you will ask and answer questions and generally share insights about the lesson notes, readings, and each other's comments. I hope you will also think of the discussion forum as a kind of interactive journal, in which you will not only respond to the specific questions that I pose for each reading, but will feel free to post your unique thoughts and ideas about the texts. In support of your remarks on the forum, I highly encourage you to cite passages from the text you are discussing (using quotation marks and page numbers, of course). You should feel comfortable asking any question you have on the forum—odds are, someone else has the question, too, and it will most likely lead to a great discussion!

Each lesson has its own discussion forum. I expect you to read the required works carefully before posting to the forum. With careful reading, your responses will be thoughtful and worthwhile. My role in the forum is that of facilitator, not leader. I will monitor the forum daily and poke my head in from time to time if things seem to be dragging or if you have specific questions for me, but for the most part I expect you to respond to each other and the discussion questions with minimal intrusion from me. There are no wrong answers when it comes to interpreting literature. I can help you by providing standard readings or criticism, but I find that usually students come to them on their own, without lots of research or lectures. Furthermore, I am much more interested in having you draw your own conclusions about the texts, and find what is meaningful in them to you. I look forward to learning new ways of looking at these works from you!

You are required to respond to at least five of the weekly discussion questions using the forum, but I hope you will think of this as a minimum. Please check the forum frequently (daily, if possible, or at least several times a week) and try to respond promptly to your classmates' postings responding to yours.

Week 1 contains a fun introduction to the discussion forum, so that those of you who are unfamiliar with how it works will have a chance to learn the ropes. If you have never used an online discussion forum before, it's best to dive in fearlessly.

Please use the same name on your posts throughout the course so that I can easily find all your contributions.

It goes without saying that any offensive speech, attacks on others, and other such undesirable postings will not be tolerated.

Our discussion forums are on the UNC Blackboard site. See Course Mechanics below for details on Blackboard.

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Written Assignments

You will write three papers. See complete instructions for writing and submitting them:

All due dates are in the schedule below.

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Exams

Midterm exam

The midterm is an open-book exam, designed to take from two to three hours to complete. The exam will be available on Blackboard on the scheduled date (see Schedule), and will remain available over the course of the day. Type your answers into a Word document and e-mail it to me as an attachment. Your answers are due the same day by 11:59 pm. The exam is in two parts:

Final exam

The final is an open-book exam, designed to take from two to three hours to complete. The exam will be available on Blackboard on the scheduled date (see Schedule), and will remain available over the course of the day. Type your answers into a Word document and e-mail it to me as an attachment. Your answers are due the same day by 11:59 pm. The exam is in two parts:

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Grading

Your success in this course greatly depends on how well you keep up with the reading and participate regularly in the class discussion forums. I expect you to post responses to at least five of the discussion questions each week. (More is even better.) It will be impossible for you to share meaningful responses if you have not finished the reading assignments in time.

Discussion forum participation 20 percent
Paper 1 20 percent
Midterm exam 20 percent
Film response paper 5 percent
Paper 2 15 percent
Final exam 20 percent

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Honor Code

As a Carolina Courses Online student, you have agreed to abide by the University's Honor Code: "It shall be the responsibility of every student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obey and support the enforcement of the Honor Code, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing when these actions involve academic processes or University students or academic personnel acting in an official capacity." Plagiarism is a particularly serious Honor Code violation. See the UNC-Chapel Hill Writing Center's handout on plagiarism.

This code applies not only to paper-writing and exam-taking, but also to your postings to the discussion forum. Any idea that is not your own must be cited, whether that idea is taken from a published book or article, an Internet Web site, an oral interview, or another classmate's postings to the discussion forum.

As an online student, you are probably even more Internet-savvy than most, and have the temptation of thousands of seemingly untraceable Web sites, not to mention paper-mill sites, to choose from. These sources, like Cliffs Notes, SparkNotes, and so on, are generally inferior, and I would much prefer to see your own ideas developed and argued in a paper.

For that reason, I heartily recommend that you consider the following method when writing papers: Come up with your own idea, develop it into a strong thesis and paper outline, and then begin your research for substantiary evidence in support of the thesis you already came up with on your own. Further, in an effort to help you avoid the volume of misinformation and garbage that is available on the Internet, I would ask that you do not do your research entirely on the Internet if you have access to a library as well. If you do use an Internet source, please take care to find out where the Web site originates, and remember to cite it properly. Do not copy and paste from the Internet into a paper. Plagiarism is still plagiarism even if it is unintentional. If you are uncertain about a source you are using or how to cite it, please consult the Writing Center's handout on citation, or me.

Most students do not cheat, and I apologize to you if you do not need to read the following sentences. But I must say that it is very easy to spot a plagiarized paper, paragraph, and even sentence, very easy to track down the source, and very easy to have one's reputation and record tarnished. It's really not worth it. Please be aware that any violations of the UNC Honor Code will be dealt with severely.

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Course Mechanics

Blackboard

Some of your class components (discussion forums, exams, and the class listserv) are accessed through a software package called Blackboard, and you will need to log into Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.

Use your Onyen to log into Blackboard, then click on the “RUSS 270 CCO” link. You will see navigation buttons on the left taking you to the Discussion Forums.

If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:

Library Services and E-reserves

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves and e-journals.

E-mail

All communication from your instructor will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC e-mail using Webmail. You can have your e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward e-mail” at the Onyen Web site.

If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses “blind carbon copy” to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than forwarding to Hotmail for this course.

It is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to your instructor via e-mail. If your instructor doesn't receive your work, you must have a copy of the e-mail with the attached file, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment on time. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered.

Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to your instructor, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit to your instructor and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course.

Other Questions

Contact your instructor with questions regarding the content of the course and your progress. (There is an e-mail link at the top of every lesson page.) Please include “RUSS 270 CCO” in the subject line of your e-mail.

Contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center about problems with this Web site, including bad links.

If you have any logistical questions as you work through the course (enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on), contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).

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Schedule

Remember to read ahead—you should have the reading assignment finished by the beginning of the week for which it is assigned (except, of course, Week 1). Our lessons generally begin on a Tuesday and end the following Monday. All times are Eastern Time.

Week 1
Introductions; The Roots of Russian Literature; Russian Society in the Early Nineteenth Century
Week 2
Karamzin and Pushkin
Week 3
Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
Week 4
Pavlova, A Double Life
Week 5
Gogol, short stories
Week 6
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
Week 7 Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Week 8 Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Paper 1 Topic due
Week 9
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Midterm exam: available on Blackboard
Week 11
Paper 1 due

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Week 12 Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Week 13 Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Paper 2 Topic due
Week 14 Chekhov, short stories
Week 15 Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
Course Review Write your papers and prepare for the final exam.

Film response paper due

Paper 2 due
Final exam: available on Blackboard
Please complete a brief online course evaluation. Your opinion is important to us.

Week 1

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