Oksana Lutsyshyna

Description:

“(Russian) Icons and Propaganda” is a course about signs, symbols, and the contexts that give them meaning. The particular types of signs and symbols that we explore in this lower division course are religious iconography and political propaganda. Our exploration involves many of the sites where these images are found (e.g. cathedrals, public spaces, private homes, etc.) and many of the various media in which they occur (e.g. paintings, posters, television, film, etc.). While it would certainly be possible to study them separately, the two sets of symbols that we examine in this course share a context that allows us to consider them together: Russia.

Without a context, symbols are just pictures – maybe not even that! Within a context, however, they function in many of the same ways that language does. Signs and symbols convey meaning, and as with language, the more developed the system, the more information it is possible for them to convey. The “languages” of Russian icons and propaganda are quite developed and very much alive. Moreover, the amount of overlap between them may seem surprising… but it shouldn’t. The reason for this is that the imagery – the “language” – of Russian propaganda grew out of the already-existing symbolism of Russian religious iconography. And while the signs and symbols of Russian propaganda have since developed along their own paths, they still share much in common. To a certain extent, to understand one of these symbolic systems is to understand them both. 

The symbolism of Russian Orthodox iconography reached its impressive capacity to convey meaning in part because of a need to teach often complicated religious ideas to illiterate peasants before (and even during) the twentieth century. By pulling heavily from a symbolic “language” that the Russian masses already understood, propagandists were able to enter the scene with symbolically sophisticated messages in a “language” that everyone could already read. In this course students learn to read the signs and symbols of icons and propaganda in their Russian context. From subway ceilings to cathedral walls, living room shrines to murals on municipal buildings, kid’s cartoons to epic film, students will engage with the both the symbols and their contexts using basic semiotic (symbols) and discursive (contextual) techniques for analyzing and interpreting meaning in these two fascinating and surprisingly similar symbolic “languages.”

Selected Readings:

• Bonnell, Victoria E. Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin. Berkeley [u.a.: Univ. of California Press, 2007. 
• Hall, Stuart, Jessica Evans, and Sean Nixon. Representation: Edited by Stuart Hall, Jessie Evans and Sean Nixon. London: Sage Publications, 2013.
• Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons. Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999.

Please check back for updates.

Course description:

This is an introductory course of the Ukrainian language for the learners who already have a very basic background in one of more Slavic languages, can read Cyrillic, and are familiar with some grammatical concepts. Drawing on the knowledge, no mater how basic, that the learners already possess, we will focus on developing the four skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing, as well as work on grammar. We will also integrate crucial information on the Ukrainian culture and life.

Texts:

 Yabluko. Elementary Ukrainian. Lviv 2015.

 (Reference: Yuri Shevchuk, Beginner’s Ukrainian).

 Course materials/readings of fiction and non-fiction, exercises, poems, etc. Distributed in class.

Grading:

 Two oral exams 20%

 Two in-class written exams 20%

 Reading assignments, vocabulary work 30%

 Culture presentation 20%

 Participation

Please check back for updates.

Please check back for updates.

Course Description:

An intensive Russian language instruction course developing functional proficiency in listening, speaking, and reading. Writing will be developed primarily through workbook and computer-based home assignments.  We will cover all of Volumes One and Two of the textbooks, Units One through Unit Fourteen in the textbooks, spending about one week on each unit. In addition, this course aims to develop computer literacy skills – in Russian – for you to be truly functional and competitive in the language.

The entire first-year sequence is covered in one semester.

Readings:

Textbook: 

• Davidson, Gor, and Lekic.  Russian: Stage One: Live from Russia! 2nd ed., vols. 1 and 2, (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co. 2008 and 2009). These packaged sets comprise two basic textbooks, two workbooks, two audio CDs, and two DVDs. Available at the University Co-op.

Recommended:           

• Russian/English Dictionary
• Gerhart, G., The Russian’s World, Orlando: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
• Garza, T., Fundamentals of Russian Verbal Conjugation for Teachers  and Students, Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt and ACTR Publications, 1993.

Grading:

There are five components of your final course grade.  These components and their relative weights are:

1.  Testing:  35%

Unit tests: 15%

Final exam: 20%

2.  Homework:  15% 

3.  Participation:  15% 

4.  Portfolio:  15%

5.  Oral Presentation:  20%

Please check back for updates.

Description:

This course will offer a survey of the Ukrainian authors from the 1920s through the present. We will examine the writings from the times of the “Executed Renaissance,” underground literature, and postmodernism. We will focus specifically on works that, in one way or another, challenge the set paradigm of socialist realism, either ethically or aesthetically, by discussing forbidden subjects (famine, religion, Gulag), or even simply accentuating the themes that are not considered “major” (personal life). Book excerpts and articles will supplement literary works, to enable better understanding of the historical context.

Readings:

Conflict and Chaos: Desperate Times. Trilogy of Selected Prose, Volume 3. Language Lantern, 2010.

Stories from the Ukraine. Transl. and ed. George Luckyj.

Dovzhenko, Oleksandr. “Zemlia” (“The Land”) Film.

Tychyna, Pavlo. Selected poems. Transl. Michael Naydan.

Semenko, Mykhayl. Selected poems.

Teliha, Olena. Selected poems.

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Vasic Books, 2012. (excerpts on famine)

Bahriany, Ivan. The Hunters and the Hunted. A novel.

Stus, Vasyl. Selected Poems.

Paradhanov, Serhii. “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.” Film.

From Three Worlds: New Writing from Ukraine. Eds. Ed Hogan and Askold Melnyczuk. (Valeri Shevchuk, Yuri Vynnychuk, Oksana Zabuzhko, Yevhen Pashkovsky, others).

Andrukhovych, Yuri. Recreations. A novel. Trans. Marko Pavlyshyn.

Zabuzhko, Oksana. Girls. Transl. Askold Melnyczuk.

The Art of the Maidans. Selected poems, stories and articles. 

Grading:

Presentation:  20%

Participation: 10%

Short papers (2): 30%

Term (final) paper prospectus: 15%

Term (final) paper: 25%

Since the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union 1991, a range of protest movements and revolutions have resulted from the tectonic changes, as well as perceived political injustices, of the transition.  As the Iron Curtain parted, the doors opened to a number of changes, political, social, and artistic.  This course will use a range of literary and non-fiction texts and films to explore such developments in Ukraine, as well as Poland, Belarus, Russia, and some other countries. It will examine, for example, new women’s rights movements, LGBT rights movements, and others. Finally, the course will explore the dismantling of the “socialist realism” paradigm in literature and the arts in what some have termed the “post-colonial” states of the former Soviet Union.

Texts 

Andrukhovych, Yuri. The Moscoviad. Spuyten, 2009. 

Babina, Natalka. Down Among the Fishes. Glagoslav, 2014. 

Maslowska, Dorota. Snow White and Russian Red. Grove Press, 2005. 

Pavlychko, Solomea. Letters from Kiev. CIUS, 1992. 

Viets, Susan. Picnic at the Iron Curtain: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Delfryn, 2012. 

Gender, Politics, and Society in Ukraine. Ed. Olena Hankivsky. U Toronto Press, 2012. 

Selected essays and films by Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and Polish authors. 

Course description:

This is the second part of the introductory course of the Ukrainian language for the learners who already have a very basic background in one of more Slavic languages. In the course, we will continue to work on basic skills, such as reading, writing, speaking and listening, and also grammar. In addition to basic textbook exercises and speaking assignments, the students will work on reading authentic texts and writing responses to them. The course will combine the content-based approach with interactive perspective. We will also continue to integrate crucial information on the Ukrainian culture and life.

Texts:

• Yabluko. Elementary Ukrainian. Lviv 2015.
• (Reference: Yuri Shevchuk, Beginner’s Ukrainian).
• Course materials/readings of fiction and non-fiction, exercises, poems, etc. Distributed in class.

Grading:

• Two oral exams                                                                                          20%
• Two in-class written exams                                                                     20%
• Reading assignments, vocabulary work                                     20%
• Essays                                                                                                          20%
• Culture presentation                                                                                10%
• Participation                                                                                               10%

Why did communism collapse? Are we in another Cold War? Is Putin the next Stalin? This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to these and other key issues, topics, and events that are central to the field of Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. It features frequent UT faculty guest speakers from across the university with diverse disciplinary specialities including History, Slavic languages and literature, Anthropology, Geography, Political Science, and Ethnomusicology. The course format consists of lectures, discussion, and frequent interactive, student­driven exercises and projects. This is a core course required for a degree in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and it carries a global studies flag.

Course description:

This course will examine works of a number of Eastern European women writers, such as Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus), Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Herta Muller (Romania – Germany), Sofi Oksanen (Finland), and Ludmila Petrushevskaya (Russia), and trace their role and involvement in resisting not only political regimes but also gender-based oppression. We will also read supplemental articles, interviews, and secondary sources to provide a general understanding of contemporary politics and ethnic conflict as well as gender roles in Eastern Europe. Through class discussion, students will discuss the many forms and repercussions of women's resistance to recent issues and events within this strategic region. 

Readings:

• Muller, Herta. The Land of Green Plums. Transl. Michael Hofmann. Picador, 2010. ISBN-10: 0312429940
• Alexievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear 
• Disaster. Trans. Keith Gessen. Picador, 2006. ISBN-10: 0312425848.
• Oksanen, Sofi. Purge. Trans. Lola Rogers. Grove Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 0802170773.
• Petrushevskaya, Ludmila. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales. Trans. Keith Gessen. Penguin, 2009. ISBN-10: 0143114662.
• Tokarczuk, Olga. Primeval and Other Times. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Twisted Spoon Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 8086264351.
• Ugresic, Dubravka. The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays. Penn State UP, 1998. ISBN-10: 027101847X.
• Ugresic, Dubravka. Thank You for Not Reading. Dalkey Archive Press, 2003. ISBN-10: 1564782980
• Zabuzhko, Oksana. Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex. Trans. Halyna Hryn. AmazonCrossingEnglish, 2011. ISBN-10:1611090083.

Grading:

Journals, 1-2 page long, on authors of choice (4): 20 %

To in-class exams: 20 %

Final paper (may be based on one of the journals): 30 %

Presentation: 20%

Participation:10%­

Course description:

This is an introductory course of the Ukrainian language for the learners who already have a very basic background in one of more Slavic languages, can read Cyrillic, and are familiar with some grammatical concepts. Drawing on the knowledge, no mater how basic, that the learners already possess, we will focus on developing the four skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing, as well as work on grammar. We will also integrate crucial information on the Ukrainian culture and life.

Texts:

• Yabluko. Elementary Ukrainian. Lviv 2015.
• (Reference: Yuri Shevchuk, Beginner’s Ukrainian).
• Course materials/readings of fiction and non-fiction, exercises, poems, etc. Distributed in class.

Grading:

• Two oral exams                                                                                            20%
• Two in-class written exams                                                             20%
• Reading assignments, vocabulary work                                            30%
• Culture presentation                                                                         20%
• Participation                                                                                     10%

Since the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union 1991, a range of protest movements and revolutions have resulted from the tectonic changes, as well as perceived political injustices, of the transition.  As the Iron Curtain parted, the doors opened to a number of changes, political, social, and artistic.  This course will use a range of literary and non-fiction texts and films to explore such developments in Ukraine, as well as Poland, Belarus, Russia, and some other countries. It will examine, for example, new women’s rights movements, LGBT rights movements, and others. Finally, the course will explore the dismantling of the “socialist realism” paradigm in literature and the arts in what some have termed the “post-colonial” states of the former Soviet Union.

Texts 

Andrukhovych, Yuri. The Moscoviad. Spuyten, 2009. 

Babina, Natalka. Down Among the Fishes. Glagoslav, 2014. 

Maslowska, Dorota. Snow White and Russian Red. Grove Press, 2005. 

Pavlychko, Solomea. Letters from Kiev. CIUS, 1992. 

Viets, Susan. Picnic at the Iron Curtain: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Delfryn, 2012. 

Gender, Politics, and Society in Ukraine. Ed. Olena Hankivsky. U Toronto Press, 2012. 

Selected essays and films by Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and Polish authors. 

This course is an equivalent of two semesters of Intermediate Ukrainian. In this course, we will continually focus on developing basic listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. We will also use the language to explore aspects of Ukrainian culture, media, and daily life. There will a portfolio of exercises/tasks due at the end, via online platforms, and also a reading project, where you select a book or a set of readings to complete and to be written about at the end.

Grading:

Reading project                       25%

Two in-class written exams 20%

Portfolio                                 25%

Homework                                 10%

Oral exam                                 10%

Participation                          10%

Course description:

This course will examine works of a number of Eastern European women writers, such as Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus), Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Herta Muller (Romania – Germany), Sofi Oksanen (Finland), and Ludmila Petrushevskaya (Russia), and trace their role and involvement in resisting not only political regimes but also gender-based oppression. We will also read supplemental articles, interviews, and secondary sources to provide a general understanding of contemporary politics and ethnic conflict as well as gender roles in Eastern Europe. Through class discussion, students will discuss the many forms and repercussions of women's resistance to recent issues and events within this strategic region. 

Readings:

• Muller, Herta. The Land of Green Plums. Transl. Michael Hofmann. Picador, 2010. ISBN-10: 0312429940
• Alexievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear 
• Disaster. Trans. Keith Gessen. Picador, 2006. ISBN-10: 0312425848.
• Oksanen, Sofi. Purge. Trans. Lola Rogers. Grove Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 0802170773.
• Petrushevskaya, Ludmila. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales. Trans. Keith Gessen. Penguin, 2009. ISBN-10: 0143114662.
• Tokarczuk, Olga. Primeval and Other Times. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Twisted Spoon Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 8086264351.
• Ugresic, Dubravka. The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays. Penn State UP, 1998. ISBN-10: 027101847X.
• Ugresic, Dubravka. Thank You for Not Reading. Dalkey Archive Press, 2003. ISBN-10: 1564782980
• Zabuzhko, Oksana. Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex. Trans. Halyna Hryn. AmazonCrossingEnglish, 2011. ISBN-10:1611090083.

Grading:

Journals, 1-2 page long, on authors of choice (4): 20 %

To in-class exams: 20 %

Final paper (may be based on one of the journals): 30 %

Presentation: 20%

Participation:10%­

Course description:

This course is an introduction to the Ukrainian language. In this course, we will focus on developing basic listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, as well as covering grammar fundamentals. We will also use the language to explore aspects of Ukrainian culture, media, and daily life. 

The material covered during one semester will correspond to the material covered during two semesters of non-intensive study.

Text:

Rozmovliaimo! (Let’s Talk!): A Basic Ukrainian Course with Polylogs, Grammar, and Conversation Lessons. R. Delossa, R. R. Koropeckyj, et al. Slavica Pub., 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0893573195.

Course packet. TBA.

Grading:

• Two oral exams                     20%
• Two in-class written exams     30%
• Homework                             25%
• Culture presentation               15%
• Participation                          10%

Description:

This course will offer a survey of the Ukrainian authors from the 1920s through the present. We will examine the writings from the times of the “Executed Renaissance,” underground literature, and postmodernism. We will focus specifically on works that, in one way or another, challenge the set paradigm of socialist realism, either ethically or aesthetically, by discussing forbidden subjects (famine, religion, Gulag), or even simply accentuating the themes that are not considered “major” (personal life). Book excerpts and articles will supplement literary works, to enable better understanding of the historical context.

Readings:

Conflict and Chaos: Desperate Times. Trilogy of Selected Prose, Volume 3. Language Lantern, 2010.

Stories from the Ukraine. Transl. and ed. George Luckyj.

Dovzhenko, Oleksandr. “Zemlia” (“The Land”) Film.

Tychyna, Pavlo. Selected poems. Transl. Michael Naydan.

Semenko, Mykhayl. Selected poems.

Teliha, Olena. Selected poems.

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Vasic Books, 2012. (excerpts on famine)

Bahriany, Ivan. The Hunters and the Hunted. A novel.

Stus, Vasyl. Selected Poems.

Paradhanov, Serhii. “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.” Film.

From Three Worlds: New Writing from Ukraine. Eds. Ed Hogan and Askold Melnyczuk. (Valeri Shevchuk, Yuri Vynnychuk, Oksana Zabuzhko, Yevhen Pashkovsky, others).

Andrukhovych, Yuri. Recreations. A novel. Trans. Marko Pavlyshyn.

Zabuzhko, Oksana. Girls. Transl. Askold Melnyczuk.

The Art of the Maidans. Selected poems, stories and articles. 

Grading:

Presentation:  20%

Participation: 10%

Short papers (2): 30%

Term (final) paper prospectus: 15%

Term (final) paper: 25%

FLAGS:   GC

Course description:

This course will examine works of a number of Eastern European women writers, such as Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus), Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Herta Muller (Romania – Germany), Sofi Oksanen (Finland), and Ludmila Petrushevskaya (Russia), and trace their role and involvement in resisting not only political regimes but also gender-based oppression. We will also read supplemental articles, interviews, and secondary sources to provide a general understanding of contemporary politics and ethnic conflict as well as gender roles in Eastern Europe. Through class discussion, students will discuss the many forms and repercussions of women's resistance to recent issues and events within this strategic region. 

Readings:

Muller, Herta. The Land of Green Plums. Transl. Michael Hofmann. Picador, 2010.

ISBN-10: 0312429940

Alexievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear

Disaster. Trans. Keith Gessen. Picador, 2006. ISBN-10: 0312425848.

Oksanen, Sofi. Purge. Trans. Lola Rogers. Grove Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 0802170773.

Petrushevskaya, Ludmila. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her

Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales. Trans. Keith Gessen. Penguin, 2009. ISBN-10: 0143114662.

Tokarczuk, Olga. Primeval and Other Times. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Twisted

Spoon Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 8086264351.

Ugresic, Dubravka. The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays. Penn State UP, 1998.

ISBN-10: 027101847X.

Ugresic, Dubravka. Thank You for Not Reading. Dalkey Archive Press, 2003. ISBN-

10: 1564782980

Zabuzhko, Oksana. Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex. Trans. Halyna Hryn.

AmazonCrossingEnglish, 2011. ISBN-10: 1611090083.

Grading:

Journals, 1-2 page long, on authors of choice (4)             20 %

To in-class exams                                                                   20 %

Final paper (may be based on one of the journals)           30 %

Presentation                                                                             20%

Participation                                                                             10%­

Since the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union 1991, a range of protest movements and revolutions have resulted from the tectonic changes, as well as perceived political injustices, of the transition.  As the Iron Curtain parted, the doors opened to a number of changes, political, social, and artistic.  This course will use a range of literary and non-fiction texts and films to explore such developments in Ukraine, as well as Poland, Belarus, Russia, and some other countries. It will examine, for example, new women’s rights movements, LGBT rights movements, and others. Finally, the course will explore the dismantling of the “socialist realism” paradigm in literature and the arts in what some have termed the “post-colonial” states of the former Soviet Union.

Texts 

Andrukhovych, Yuri. The Moscoviad. Spuyten, 2009. 

Babina, Natalka. Down Among the Fishes. Glagoslav, 2014. 

Maslowska, Dorota. Snow White and Russian Red. Grove Press, 2005. 

Pavlychko, Solomea. Letters from Kiev. CIUS, 1992. 

Viets, Susan. Picnic at the Iron Curtain: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Delfryn, 2012. 

Gender, Politics, and Society in Ukraine. Ed. Olena Hankivsky. U Toronto Press, 2012. 

Selected essays and films by Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and Polish authors. 

Course description:

This course is an introduction to the Ukrainian language. In this course, we will focus on developing basic listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, as well as covering grammar fundamentals. We will also use the language to explore aspects of Ukrainian culture, media, and daily life.

Text:

Rozmovliaimo! (Let’s Talk!): A Basic Ukrainian Course with Polylogs, Grammar, and Conversation Lessons. R. Delossa, R. R. Koropeckyj, et al. Slavica Pub., 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0893573195.

Grading:

Two oral exams                    20%

Two in-class written exams     30%

Homework                           25%

Culture presentation              15%

Participation                         10%