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Courses & Schedules
English 139 - Winter, 2013
Topics in Global Literatures and Cultures
Topic: Dostoevsky: Literature at the Crux of Modernity
Class Information
Instructor:
Brown, Nathan
Time:
TR 1:40-3:00
Location:
1150 Hart
Description
At the end of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the protagonist's nightmares of a future apocalypse are followed by an idyllic scene of nomadic tribes on the plains. In both cases we are cast outside of modernity: in the first case, to its bitter conclusion; in the second case, to an apparently simpler time prior to its contradictions and complexities.
Dostoevsky's work, however, was written at the crux of modernity: at the center of those contradictions. In this course we will read his major novels in that context, as texts expressive of the historical forces, social antagonisms, and spiritual crises agitating Russia and the world in the midst of the 19th Century.
Grading
Essay 1: 25%
Essay 2: 35%
Discussion Posts: 15%
Participation: 15%
Attendance: 10%
Texts
Notes From Underground
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov
, Fyodor Dostoevsky