English and Anglo-American Studies

Introduction to Russian Culture An overall introduction to Russian culture will be performed, focusing on invariant social patterns, range of collective imagination, relationship between common psychological ground and undefined boundaries of space, role of arts and individual poetic creation in a highly collectivizing society. The course is divided in distinct sections, dedicated to History, Art, Literature and Cinema. In addition to textbooks, a list of novels/poetry books and movies (attached) allows working on individually chosen samples of Russian creativity (one book and one movie to be selected).

Fluent English. It's not requested any knowledge of Russian

Nicholas Rzhevsky (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture, Cambridge University Press, 1999 (second edition 2012) Available at: https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00nich/page/n9/mode/2up?view=theater Students who cannot attend classes will integrate with the following materials: Orlando Figes, Natasha’s Dance, Penguin, 2003 (Introduction, chapters 3, 4, 7, 8) James H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture, Vintage Books (Random House), 1972 (parts I, V, VI) (in this case, there won’t be questions about the classes themes, but the analysis of a book and a movie from the attached list is still compulsory)

Highly recommended.

Students will have to answer questions both about the matters discussed during classes and about textbook content. An individual analysis of materials, texts, cultural trends is always welcomed.

The course themes are firstly introduced by the teacher, then discussed together with students; everyone's mind is considered, then details and case studies are focused depending on needs and interests of the class