Russian & Slavonic Studies

Russian and Czech Cultures in the Age of Empire and beyond

This module gives an overview of Russian and Czech cultures with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will critically examine the concepts of statehood, empire, nationalism, totalitarianism and democracy by studying the two nations' different experiences through visual sources, literature and language usage. It thus introduces students to topics dealt with in greater depth in optional modules at Levels 2 and 3, and helps them to learn how to analyse cultural artefacts and sources of different kinds.

Russian and Czech Cultures in the Age of Empire and beyond

This module gives an overview of Russian and Czech cultures with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will critically examine the concepts of statehood, empire, nationalism, totalitarianism and democracy by studying the two nations' different experiences through visual sources, literature and language usage. It thus introduces students to topics dealt with in greater depth in optional modules at Levels 2 and 3, and helps them to learn how to analyse cultural artefacts and sources of different kinds.

Intersections: Text, Image, Thought in the French-speaking world

This module will focus on two important French texts per semester (with 'text' taken in its largest sense of book, film, art work, piece of music, cultural product, etc.). Each text will form the basis for a close reading, followed by analyses using French cultural, historical, literary and critical theory approaches as well as adaptations into other media (such as film, art and music) where appropriate. The module will be taught and assessed in English, but the materials will be made available in both French and English, with French students required to use and cite the French materials. The aim of the module is to introduce students to significant French texts and to illustrate and explore a range of possible critical approaches to them, including cross-media or intermedial reinterpretations.

An Introduction to the Social and Political History of Iberia & Latin America 

This module examines the historical trajectory of Spain, its emergence as a state in the Iberian Peninsula, its imperial expansion overseas into Latin America, the eventual independence of the colonies and their development and consolidation into the various modern-day states we know today. The module will explore the social, political, linguistic and cultural characteristics of these states and its peoples and highlight the importance of understanding their complex history in the formation of their identities, their languages and their cultural and political values. The module has a particular emphasis on the importance of myths and how, regardless of their historical veracity, they can condition behaviours, mould identities and shape future history.

Resist! The Art of Protest in Berlin and Amsterdam

Berlin and Amsterdam: two capitals at the forefront of protest and alternative lifestyles from the early 20th century right up to the present. Where did their radical traditions spring from? What do these protests say about how the cities and nations see themselves? How does creative resistance fuel gentrification and urban tourism? 

This module explores the culture of resistance and protest from the first women's march for the vote and posters and activism against war and fascism, to the creative resistance of the Amsterdam PROVO movement in the 1960s to Black Lives Matter/Kick out Zwarte Piet. 

We will cover concepts such as populism, activism, colonial resistance, feminism, BLM, climate activism. How do these movement use art and image to press their causes?  

Comparative Visual Cultures

Visual literacy is a key skill and visual culture remains one of the most accessible and important modes through which we represent, understand and critique our world. This module provides an introduction to some of the major trends within visual cultures in European languages, and the development of visual media. Students will work on a selection of visual texts across national frameworks and historical periods to examine their conditions of production, distribution and reception and to explore how meaning is constructed and critiqued in visual culture. In seminars we will engage with detailed analysis of core texts and with critical materials. Students will be encouraged to consider country-specific, transnational and comparative trends through a critical lens. 

Understanding Spanish and Latin American Culture

Why has the gypsy culture of Andalucía been so crucial to ideas about Spanish identity and how and why has this changed? How did gender politics and the role of women change after the Franco dictatorship in Spain? How and why was modernity experienced as a crisis in Latin America? How does class struggle shape Latin America? What does Revolution really mean in the context of Latin America? These are just some of the questions that will be explored in this module. This course examines the literature and culture of modern Spain and modern Spanish-speaking Latin America. In each semester, three cultural products from one of these two areas are studied, and may include poetry, theatre, narrative fiction or film. We will build up a picture of the cultural history of Spain and Latin America, as well as looking at key themes to emerge from selected literary, dramatic and/or cinematic outputs. By focussing on different genres in each semester, students will be able to explore different types of cultural product and to develop analytical skills gradually by moving from shorter pieces to a larger body of writing.Students taking post-A Level or equivalent will study primary texts in their original Spanish version. Beginners will study primary texts in English translation. This module is strongly recommended as a foundational core course for further study in Spanish and Latin American Studies.

The Soviet Union 1917-1991

Overview of the formation, development and collapse of the USSR, beginning from c.1900. Covers historiographic problems in analysing primary materials, ideological problems in dealing with the revolutionary movement and subsequent developments, debates over the nature and trajectory of the USSR and its place in the wider world.

The Slavonic Languages: Structure, History and Variation

This module investigates the grammars and histories of two Slavonic languages, Russian and Czech, introducing students to the discipline of linguistics through the languages they study. Selected topics in the grammar of Slavonic languages highlight how structures of Russian and Czech have developed differently, how they are changing in the current world, and where they came from. Among the topics are case meaning and case forms; aspect; verb conjugation; animacy; and word order. Students learn how to design and implement their own linguistic research projects using sing corpora and experimental methods.

Restrictions on availability: Completion of at least the L1 beginners' Russian or Czech course or the L1

Realities Embodied: the Russian Nineteenth-Century Novel

Russian literature is famous for its great novels. But how did they emerge in a literary tradition which had only relatively recently established itself to become one of the most famous facets of Russian culture? Through works by Pushkin, Gogol, Pavlova and Turgenev we shall consider, among other things, how irony and satire and the connection between personal failure and the failings of wider society not only relate to ambitions for political and social reform but go beyond them. This development becomes more pronounced in the second half of the nineteenth century. The psychological intensity of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is among the most striking of the literary reactions to the proto-revolutionary ambitions of the Russian radical intelligentsia. We will compare the responses of both to questions such as individual and social justice, freedom of action and human dignity. We then turn to Anna Karenina to see how Tolstoy's characters make the choices they do when faced with questions of war, sexual passion, illness, religion, family relations and, in the final analysis, good and evil? Throughout the module, we will think about the novel as a genre and the reasons for its enduring appeal far beyond Russia's borders.

Restrictions on availability: SLC students must be taking Russian language modules.

Language and Society in Luxembourg and the French Borderlands

This module introduces key issues in the field of sociolinguistics, which studies how language constructs rather than simply mirrors social reality and, more specifically, the ways in which people position themselves and others in relation to language use. With a sharp focus on the French borderlands, students will obtain an overview of the status and function of the French language in relation to its speakers and to speakers of other languages. We will begin by discussing how language works and the ways in which linguists and laypersons sometimes disagree about language issues. We will then relate aspects of these theoretical discussions to issues concerning linguistic minorities in the officially monolingual country of France, in addition to the bordering multilingual countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland. We will explore the ways in which language becomes the target of struggles and debates that are embedded in broader socio-political issues. Students will have the opportunity to conduct their own small-scale analyses based on case studies. Crucially, this module underlines the necessity of questioning the presupposed homogeneity conveyed by the use of labels such as the 'French language' and 'French-speaking countries', which potentially mask the social and linguistic complexity inherent to the social world.

Restrictions on availability: CEFR A2 Level French

Realities Embodied: the Russian Nineteenth-Century Novel

Russian literature is famous for its great novels. But how did they emerge in a literary tradition which had only relatively recently established itself to become one of the most famous facets of Russian culture? Through works by Pushkin, Gogol, Pavlova and Turgenev we shall consider, among other things, how irony and satire and the connection between personal failure and the failings of wider society not only relate to ambitions for political and social reform but go beyond them. This development becomes more pronounced in the second half of the nineteenth century. The psychological intensity of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is among the most striking of the literary reactions to the proto-revolutionary ambitions of the Russian radical intelligentsia. We will compare the responses of both to questions such as individual and social justice, freedom of action and human dignity. We then turn to Anna Karenina to see how Tolstoy's characters make the choices they do when faced with questions of war, sexual passion, illness, religion, family relations and, in the final analysis, good and evil? Throughout the module, we will think about the novel as a genre and the reasons for its enduring appeal far beyond Russia's borders.

The Slavonic Languages: Structure, History and Variation

This module investigates the grammars and histories of two Slavonic languages, Russian and Czech, introducing students to the discipline of linguistics through the languages they study. Selected topics in the grammar of Slavonic languages highlight how structures of Russian and Czech have developed differently, how they are changing in the current world, and where they came from. Among the topics are case meaning and case forms; aspect; verb conjugation; animacy; and word order. Students learn how to design and implement their own linguistic research projects using sing corpora and experimental methods.

Languages & Cultures Project

Guided by individual supervision and support seminars, you will plan and execute an extended piece of independent research on a topic that complements but does not duplicate work you have done (or will do) in SLC taught modules. Alternatively, you may translate a substantial text into English accompanied by a full commentary to contextualize it. Your project must relate to at least one of the countries or cultures whose languages you are studying. As well as writing an extended piece of work, all students present their work at the end of the year.

Restrictions on availability: A L2 module relevant to your proposed topic or registered on a relevant L3 module. An average of at least 62 in your optional modules at L2, with no optional module mark lower than 58. Supervisor must be agreed.

Social Approaches to Multilingualism

This module provides students with an overview of key topics in multilingualism, with an emphasis on the ways in which issues of language are linked to broader socio-political practices and debates. It allows students to gain insights into how theories of nationalism and globalisation may be applied to the analysis of texts and images in multilingual settings - with a particular focus on those in which Romance and/or Germanic languages play a central role - and it shows how debates about language are bound up with struggles over social equality and reactions to social transformations.

Comparative Critique of Consumer Culture

Critiques of consumer cultures are as old as capitalism itself. This module takes the long view, starting in the eighteenth century and tracing our conflicted identities as modern consumers into the present day. Especially applying German cultural theory to European cultural history, we shall ask what is meant by economic and social liberalism, and whether even culture owes a debt to consumer society. Consumerism can entail complicity in exploitative modes of production (causing poverty and displacement, and profiting from serfdom and slavery). It has been both celebrated and satirised for enabling hedonism and individual bad taste (or kitsch). And consumption has been nationalist, yet also cosmopolitan; today, it threatens our shared environment. Theory, the visual arts, and literature have all been critical of capitalism - but ironically, they can themselves be packaged as consumer goods. Examining a wide range of primary texts (including film and caricature) and critical reflections, you will translate and write a commentary on a historical source, and submit an essay on a topic of your choice.