Melissa Frazier

To learn another language is to open yourself to another worldview, both as you gain entry into another culture and as your own sense of self is transformed. In another language, you are still you; but the tools that you use to create and express that identity do change. As English speakers find themselves in Russia and learning Russian, they first need to come to terms with an often complicated grammar. We will tackle that aspect of our work through a degree of analytical thought, a great deal of memorization, and the timely completion of our often lengthy, biweekly homework assignments. Even as I encourage students to reflect on the very different means of expression that Russian offers, I also ask that students engage in basic—but fully functional—conversational Russian at every point along the way. Our four hours of class each week will be devoted to actively using what we know in pair and group activities, role play, dialogues, skits, songs, etc. As a final project at the end of each semester, students will create their own video skits. In addition to class, students are required to meet weekly with the Russian assistant; attendance at our weekly Russian Table is strongly encouraged.

At the end of this course, students should feel that they have a fairly sophisticated grasp of Russian and the ability to communicate in Russian in any situation. After the first year of studying the language, students will have learned the bulk of Russian grammar; this course will emphasize grammar review, vocabulary accumulation, and regular oral practice. Class time will center on the spoken language, and students will be expected to participate actively in discussions based on new vocabulary. Regular written homework will be required, along with weekly conversation classes with the Russian assistant; attendance at Russian Table is strongly encouraged. Conference work will focus on the written language. Students will be asked to read short texts by the author(s) of their choice, with the aim of appreciating a very different culture and/or literature while learning to read independently, accurately, and with as little recourse to the dictionary as possible.

“Once it's proved to you, for example, that you are descended from an ape, there’s no use making a wry face; just take it for what it is,” the Underground Man says; Lebeziatnikov, in Crime and Punishment, attempts to educate the prostitute Sonia by lending her a copy of G. H. Lewes’s pioneering work in physiological psychology, The Physiology of Common Life. Ivan Karamazov rejects non-Euclidean geometry, while his brother Dmitrii worries that chemistry will displace God: “Move over a little, Your Reference, there’s no help for it, chemistry’s coming!” This one-semester course will frame a rich and multifaceted reading of Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov with an exploration of Dostoevsky’s complicated view of the interrelationships of mind and body and mind and material world. We will consider Dostoevsky’s response in the context of the very many of his contemporaries engaged in a new discourse of science, including his main ideological opponent, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, as well as writers whose more sophisticated approach helped shape Dostoevsky’s own: Balzac, Poe, Wilkie Collins, Dickens, George Eliot. We will also read some of the scientists and science writers whose works both influenced and were influenced by 19th-century European literature, including Darwin; French philosopher Auguste Comte and physiologist Claude Bernard; American philosopher, scientist, and mathematician Charles Sanders Peirce; and the English George Henry Lewes—the last-named not just a favorite of the fictional Lebeziatnikov but the common-law husband of the real George Eliot. As part of the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course collaborative, we will also finally put our own bodies and minds to work in the material world. While students are welcome to devote conference time to further work in literature and/or the intersections of literature and science, fieldwork addressing current issues in the environment is also encouraged. Over the course of the semester, we will also bring Dostoevsky and the insights of 19th-century science and politics to a wider audience as we participate in two two-week interludes devoted to climate justice and involving collaborative projects and research together with students and faculty from across the College and at Bronx Community College.

At the end of this course, students will know the fundamentals of Russian grammar and will be able to use those fundamentals to read, write, and, above all, speak Russian on an elementary level. Successful language learning involves both creativity and a certain amount of rote learning—memorization gives the student the basis to then extrapolate, improvise, and have fun with the language—and this course will lay equal emphasis on both. Our four hours of class each week will be spent actively using what we know in pair and group activities, dialogues, discussions, etc. Twice-weekly written homework, serving both to reinforce old and introduce new material, will be required. At the end of each semester, we will formalize the principle of rigorous but creative communication that underlies all of our work through small-group video projects. Students are also required to attend weekly meetings with the Russian assistant; attendance at Russian Table is strongly encouraged.