Contemporary Russia in the Mirror of Literature

This course is dedicated to the study of the most politically relevant texts of contemporary post-Soviet literature. Students will read short works of Viktor Pelevin, Tatyana Tolstaya’s anti-utopian novel Kys, Pelevin’s latest sharply political novel Den’ oprichnika, and short works of the Russian-Israeli writer Dina Rubina. Students will analyze the political connotations of the texts and their polemical strategies. Our study of post-Soviet reality, as well as postmodernist techniques, contemporary language, neologisms, and slang could prove especially fascinating and useful to students.