This course examines how politico-ideological and environmental discourses have shaped cities and their architectures in colonial and postcolonial Asia. Paying close attention to select cities including Almaty, Dhaka, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Islamabad, New Delhi, Pyongyang, Phnom Penh, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Tashkent and Tokyo, it aims to provide a preliminary answer to the increasingly urgent questions: what are the specificities of `Asian' modernity, and how was this modernity embraced and contested in urban contexts throughout Asia? For each city under study, a notable work of architecture will be singled out and subjected to close reading.

This is a survey of the history of Russian multinational empire from the late 1600s to the Revolution of 1917. Students will learn how the Russian Empire expanded, and why it collapsed in 1917. Special attention will be paid to the history of Russian colonialism, the policies of Russification, religious conversion and imperial assimilation in Ukraine, Alaska, Caucasus, Central Asia, Poland, and other national borderlands.

This seminar explores the history of Ukraine from the early 20th century through the present day. Though it covers a rather long period, this course is geared towards the contemporary events in the 21st century. We will try to understand how despite a relatively peaceful transition from communism to independence in the 20th century Ukraine became engulfed by a new war with unprecedented destruction. We start this seminar by setting up historical background of Ukrainian territories between the empire in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. We will end the course with discussion and analysis of most recent events in Ukraine.

Socialist governments saw the urbanizing project as an arena and a showcase for the transcendence of the shortcomings of past urban life. This course will explore the great variety of socialist cities with an emphasis on thematic and comparative approaches. An introductory survey of the late nineteenth-century context and the "urban question" will be followed by a roughly chronological movement through some localities of socialist urbanisms across the twentieth century. It will conclude with reflections on post-socialist transitions. No prior knowledge is required.

A historical and analytical survey of Russian music from the seventeenth century to the present. Topics of discussion and analysis include the liturgical and folk traditions, nationalism and imperialism, Russian pianism, the relationship between composers and poets of the Russian Symbolist era, the World of Art movement and the Ballets Russes, Soviet film music, Soviet arts doctrine, popular music and outlaw music.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked the greatest crisis since the Cold War and has put Eurasia again at the center of global politics. This course examines the evolution of American foreign policy toward Eurasia from 1991 onward. It seeks to identify the factors that have driven American policy, placing theoretical perspectives that emphasize geopolitical and balance-of-power considerations alongside those that focus on domestic politics and regime type. What are American objectives in Eurasia and how have they evolved? What roles do ideas, institutions, and individuals play in the formulation and execution of foreign policy?

An introduction to the cinematic tradition of Russia and the former Soviet Union. This course will offer close, contextualized, and comparative analysis of major films from the 1920s to the present. We will examine the films in terms of their formal structures and their reception, and in light of the epochal social, political and cultural changes that took place in the region's last, turbulent century. Filmmakers to be studied include Eisenstein, Vertov, Tarkovsky, Shepitko, Parajanov, and others. All films will be offered with subtitles and no prior knowledge of East European cinema is required.

This seminar will focus on the legal, moral, religious, social, psychological, & political dimensions of crime, blame, shame, & punishment as discussed in major works of Russian literature considered against Western cultural background. The 1st part of the course will compare & contrast visions of justice in Eastern & Western Europe and emphases on divine versus human justice. The 2nd part will move to the psychology of the individual person, the criminal. Part three of the course will focus on the state institutions of criminal justice. Students will discuss from their perspectives both the literary & moral critiques of legal justice.

An examination of significant trends in Russian literature from the 2nd half of the 19th century to the Russian Revolution and a bit beyond. The course focuses on many masterpieces of 19th & 20th-century Russian literature. The works (mostly novels) are considered from a stylistic point of view and in the context of Russian historical and cultural developments. The course also focuses on questions of values and on the eternal "big questions" of life that are raised in the literature. Authors read include Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bely, Nabokov, and Kharms.

This interdisciplinary survey explores Soviet literature, art, and film after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Students will learn to analyze a rich body of works produced in the Soviet Union, including avant-garde poetry and movies, official and underground artists and writers, and Princeton's extensive collection of late-socialist posters. In the analysis, we will focus especially on the relationship between cultural production and the shifting political and ideological demands of the regime and on the role of writers and artists in society.

Exploration of the theme of madness in the works of Gogol, Tolstoy, Garshin, and Chekhov. Discussion of various meanings of madness: as romantic inspiration or confinement; as a reaction to a personal loss or a rebellion against the social system; as a search for the meaning of life or a fight against the world's evil; as craziness or holy foolishness. Readings, discussions, oral presentations, and written papers in Russian. Special emphasis is placed on active use of language and expansion of vocabulary. This course is envisioned as both a language and literature course.

"Nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language," writes Raymond Williams in his celebrated book Keywords. This course explores the many meanings of "nature" and attitudes towards the environment in East European literature. We will examine responses to political projects such as collectivization, industrialization, and resource extraction, and trace how ideas about progress competed with aspirations for conservation and agrarian living. Looking at works from Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, and the former Soviet Union, we will investigate how literary forms shape our understanding of ourselves in relation to the more-than-human world.

Responding to the widespread injustices and social inequalities of their day, Russian writers turned to their literary craft to wrestle with the essential question: "What is to be done?" We will join our authors and the characters they create as they debate competing ideologies, struggle with timeless human questions, imagine more equitable ways of organizing society, and explore the ethical and moral concerns at the root of pressing social and political issues. How do Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and our other captivating writers confront the problems of their era and transform them into literary masterpieces that transcend time and place?

We start with Tolstoy's artistic stimuli and narrative strategies, exploring the author's provocative visions of war, gender, sex, art, social institutions, death, and religion. The emphasis is placed here on the role of the written word in Tolstoy's search for truth and power. The main part is a close reading of his masterwork "The War and Peace" (1863-68) - a quintessence of both his artistic method and philosophical insights. Each student will be assigned to keep a "hero's diary" and speak on behalf of one or two major heroes of the epic (including the Spirit of History).The roles will be distributed in accordance with the will of fate.

Analysis of works of one of Russia's most important contemporary writers. Focus on major novels, including "Pushkin House," the 1st Russian postmodernist novel. We explore his wide-ranging concerns, such as psychology; philosophy; science; other arts (including jazz & cinema); people's relationship to other biological species; integrity & societal and psychological obstacles to it. We examine him as a Petersburg writer. Focus also on his relationship to time, history, & other writers; his place in Russian & Soviet literature & culture.