Intellectual Conversation: Advanced Speaking

This course targets the development of extensive argumentation and advanced/superior level fluency in Russian through daily roundtables and debates on broad and controversial topics. Students will learn advanced vocabulary associated with selected academic/disciplinary fields such as philosophy, sociology, religion/theology, human rights, non-proliferation, disinformation, art history, ethnography/anthropology, natural sciences, cybersecurity, and environmental studies. Each week will be devoted to one disciplinary field and will include a daily roundtable and weekly debates on topics closely connected to that discipline. Students will learn a number of discursive strategies for taking a position and developing an argument, and improve their spontaneous speaking and argumentation in Russian.