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Academic Year 2000/2001


In Search of the Lost Hero
RUSS 276 SP

Crosslistings:
REES 276

Set in Kiev, Vienna, Israel, Portugal, England and Moscow, the stories of ONE-WAY TICKET, on which this seminar is based, are concerned with the duplicitous world of the emigre, Russian patriots and expatriates, and depict the idiosyncratic nature of their encounters with the Western world, which Zinik had been recording for the last 20 years following his departure from the Soviet Union in 1975. The person, equipped with double vision, is capable in his consciousness to remain on both sides of the border at one and the same time. As a result, Zinik's alter ego, his emigre narrator, gets caught in the most hilarious emotional traps that the author uses to expose peculiar ideological predicaments of his generation of displaced persons and superfluous men, following the great tradition of Russian literature and connecting it to its Western roots. The seminar is about life and the art of writing, about some professional secrets of creating a story and translating it into the new milieu. Zinik's stories will be read in Russian; his sources in English and Russian, according to the students' abilities. Students will be asked to write their own double-world stories, in Russian or English.

MAJOR READINGS

Zinovy Zinik, "One Way Ticket" (in Russian)
Wilhelm Gauff, "The Nose Dwarf" (in English)
M. Lermontov, "The Hero of Our Time" (Extracts)
A. Chekhov, (Short Stories)
Somerset Maugham, "Cakes and Ale" (Short Stories)
Muriel Spark, "Girls of Slender Means"
Graham Greene, "The End of the Affair"
V. Nabokov, THE GIFT (Excerpts)
Mavis Gallant, "Overhead in the Balloon"
I. Bashevis Singer, "The Captive"

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Three short papers, one term paper and oral presentations

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RUSS    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: RUSS201 Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001


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