Registration for Spring, 2010

November 4, 2009

Registration for Spring, 2010

Dear Students,

Here’s the brief line-up of my courses for Spring, 2010. First, some other Russian courses: Sasha Raskina is teaching Russian short stories in English — I’ll have to check the number for you — and Professor Brumfield is offering Russian Art and Architecture 353, I think it is.

Correction! I apologize for not noticing that Sasha Raskina's class is Russian 303, third-year Russian in the language. She will focus on short stories, but you have to have roughly two years of Russian to enroll. 

I have Russian 102, the continuation of introductory, first-year Russian, with all skills taught, especially speaking. Prerequisite is Russian 101 or equivalent. Many students who have had a good smattering of Russian in the past might find 102 to their liking and to their level of proficiency; you need only interview with me and then revise your placement with the Language Learning Center, if this is necessary, with a note from me. You’ll find your Russian will come back to you in time, especially if you had some decent teaching and worked hard. Vanya in our class, who is now two or three years, I believe, into the future from his high school Russian, is benefiting from the review of 101, and has renewed confidence that his choice of 101 was a good one. I look forward to another variegated and interesting group. The class will meet the same hours as 101: MWF at 12:00-12:50 and T 12:30-1:20.

I am also teaching Russian 204, fourth-semester Russian, which is conceived as a portal into the study of literature in the language. We will read from my annotated textbook of Crime and Punishment, supplemented with selections from other works or other authors, by request. This will be a small class with, I hope, many of the brilliant 203 students continuing with Russian. It is to meet MWF at 2:00, despite what you may read in the preregistration schedule, which, Byron tells me, may be following its own scheduling whims that I’m not aware of. I will repair it as soon as I can.

Students in 204 will have access to my MP3 file of an actor reading the entire novel, which takes him about 24 hours, not including breaks. If you don’t like his voice you may give up early and read it aloud to yourself. As a pleasant alternative, I’ll give you my recording of the 3-hour radio program Crime and Punishment from the ‘90’s, which is very good indeed, with excellent actors, and which keeps scrupulously to the original text, as is the Russian (and Soviet) custom in adapting works of literature to stage or screen — no liberty permitted with the sacred words of the writer. In our case this is convenient.


In any case I look forward to this semester with you. Приятного, плодотворного чтения желаю!

gmc