Lecture (LEC)

• IUB GenEd A&H credit
• IUB GenEd World Culture credit
• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inq
• COLL (CASE) Global Civ & Cultr

• Above class open to undergraduates only
• IUB GenEd A&H credit
• IUB GenEd World Culture credit
• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit
• COLL (CASE) Global Civ & Culture credit

What is culture? A way of living? A collection of social practices? Institutions? Literature and arts? Memory? Each historical epoch has its own definition of culture. Nowadays, most scholars agree that culture first and foremost refers to the realm of the intangible¿symbols, myths, representations, interpretations, values, and perspectives that distinguish groups of people. This is precisely how we will address culture in this course. We shall try to understand how Russian culture constructs and interprets the world, while also seeking to explain how and why elements of ancient culture (folk music, icons, historical dramas) are being recycled today, especially in the context of Russia¿s invasion of Ukraine. We will be study a vast range of materials sources¿e.g., icons and paintings, literary stories and chronicles, journalistic texts, cinematic works, photography, and symphonies as well as popular music¿to discern major themes, motifs, and ideas. We will map artistic developments onto a broader historical canvas to see the connections between socio-historical contexts and culture. The primary purpose of this course is to help students develop necessary analytical and interpretive skills to identify, compare, and analyze Russian cultural products, practices, and perspectives as they are related to basic socio-historical contexts. Knowledge of Russian not required.