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RUSS 0811: Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture Fall 2012

Tuesdays, Thursdays, 9:30-10:45pm in 5130 Wesley W Posvar Hall CRN#11830

Instructor: Beach Gray Office: 1417 Cathedral of Learning (14th floor)

Phone: (412) 624-5906 Email: rbg10@pitt.edu Office Hours: Wednesdays, 2:45-3:45pm or by appointment

Other Contacts  (name) (phone#) (E-mail) (name) (phone#) (E-mail) Credits, Prerequisites, and Format This course carries three credits and satisfies the CAS requirement in international/ foreign culture. It is intended for a general undergraduate audience and has no prerequisites. Previous knowledge of Russian culture is advantageous, but by no means necessary. The course meets twice a week and combines lecture and discussion format. The course meets twice a week and combines lecture and discussion format. Despite the relatively large size of the class, I am committed to giving each one of you ample opportunity to participate in class discussions. Since participation has a significant share in the final grade, those of you who, for one reason or another, feel inhibited to share your thoughts and opinions with the class are advised to consider not staying enrolled in the course. Course Rationale and Goals This course explores interpretations and representations of madness in Russian culture from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Our primary texts will be verbal and visual: fairy tales, folk narratives, literature, film. These primary texts will be supplemented by a significant number of theoretical and other scholarly works. Since madness is not an exclusively Russian phenomenon, we will need to place its Russian history within the broader context of European ideas and treatments. This is not a medical course, and it will not treat madness as synonymous with “mental illness” or “mental disorder.” We will study different medical approaches to madness, understanding that “mental illness” is only one, limited and problematic, answer to the question “What is madness?” As we will witness, many other interpretations are possible. Our goal is not to decide which one of them is “correct,” but rather

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to see how representations of madness— including the medical/scientific—express cultural politics, values, and tensions. Required Texts: You are not required to buy any books for this course. Readings will be made available on CourseWeb. Course Requirements and Grading: You will be required to:

• Complete reading assignments for each class meeting and be prepared to discuss them intelligently in class on the pertinent day.

• Participate actively in class discussions. An A (100%) for participation means valuable contributions (quality of intellectual engagement, not just quantity) on a consistent basis. B (85%) means valuable contributions on a weekly to bi-weekly basis. C (75%) means contributions on a bi-weekly to monthly basis. D (65%) means that you have made a few contributions during the semester. F (30%) means you made almost no contributions. The participation grade is ultimately up to the discretion of the instructor. You are encouraged to meet with the instructor regularly to discuss participation grades and your progress in the course. (20% of final grade)

• Complete the pop quizzes on readings that will be given throughout the semester. The lowest quiz grade will be dropped. (15% of final grade)

• Complete the preparatory thesis statement/proposal for the final paper. Due Sept. 20, 2012 by 5pm. (10% of final grade).

• Complete the outline and bibliography (at least five sources, three non-internet) for the final paper. Due Oct. 11, 2012 by 5pm. (15% of final grade)

• Complete a first draft of the final paper. It should be 8-10 pages. Due Nov. 8, 2012 by 5pm (20% of final grade)

• Complete a final draft of the final paper, taking instructor’s comments and suggestions into consideration. It should be 8-10 pages. Due Dec. 13 by 5pm. (20% of final grade)

Submitting Assignments: All written assignments (proposal, outline, first draft, final paper) MUST be submitted via Turnitin.com by 5pm on the date due. Please use MLA format for all written work (1” margins, 12 point font, proper citation). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/, or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition. Evaluation of Written Work: The written assignments for the semester will assist you in the path to writing to an academic research paper. Rubrics for the grade evaluation of each assignment will be handed out well before the assignment is due. Your instructor will be providing you with a list of possible topics

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for the paper and a list of secondary sources. You are encouraged to speak with your instructor at any and all stages of the writing process. The final research paper should be on a specific literary work by a Russian author, a Russian cultural motif, or the representation of a specific historical figure. If you choose the third of these options, you are discouraged from writing a “biography,” and encouraged to analyze the different ways a specific person has been represented and the repercussions of these representations. If you would like to write on something not covered in the three categories above, please consult your instructor. Grading Scale: 93-100—A 87-89—B+ 77-79—C+ 67-69—D+ 90-93—A- 83-86—B 73-76—C 63-66—D < 59 = F 80-82—B- 70-72—C- 60-62—D- Attendance Policy: Students are expected to attend all classes. Missing classes jeopardizes your participation record and puts you in danger of missing important discussions. There are no excused absences. Each student gets two “free” absences. After two missed classes, each additional absence counts as a zero in class participation for that day. Missing screenings will count as missed class time. In the event of a serious emergency that results in an extended absence, please talk to the instructor as soon as possible. In case of absence, it is your responsibility to obtain from your classmates any information passed out during the class you missed. You are, therefore, encouraged to exchange telephone numbers and e-mail addresses with your classmates.

Academic Integrity:

By remaining enrolled in the course, you not only agree to abide by the above stipulations, but also understand that I will follow rigorously the rules spelled out in the Arts and Sciences Academic Integrity guidelines regarding cheating and plagiarism, available at: http://www.as.pitt.edu/faculty/policy/integrity.html. Any infraction of this policy will result in automatic course failure. Disability Policy:

If you have a disability that requires special testing accommodations or other classroom modifications, you are required to notify both me and Disability Resources and Services by the second week of the term. You may be asked to provide documentation of your disability to determine the appropriateness of accommodations. To notify Disability Resources and Services, call 412-648-7890 (voice or TDD) to schedule an appointment. The Internet address is: http://www.pitt.edu/˜osaweb/drs/drs.html. The office is located in William Pitt Union, Rm. 216.

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Email Policy: Each student is issued a University e-mail address (username@pitt.edu) upon admittance. This e-mail address may be used by the University for official communication with students. Students are expected to read e-mail sent to this account on a regular basis. Failure to read and react to University communications in a timely manner does not absolve the student from knowing and complying with the content of the communications. The University provides an e-mail forwarding service that allows students to read their e-mail via other service providers (e.g., Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo). Students that choose to forward their e-mail from their pitt.edu address to another address do so at their own risk. If e-mail is lost as a result of forwarding, it does not absolve the student from responding to official communications sent to their University e-mail address. Week 1—What is Madness? Tuesday, August 28, 2012 No reading due Topics:

• Introduction and Syllabus. • Expectations for the course. • What is our project for the course?

Thursday, August 30, 2012 Reading due:

• Porter, Ray. “Introduction” and Ch. 1 “Gods and Demons.” Madness: A Brief History. 1-33.

• Epstein, Mikhail. “Methods of Madness and Madness as Method.” Madness and the Mad in Russian Culture. 263-82.

Topics:

• Laying the theoretical groundwork for the course. • How is madness defined? By whom and for what purposes? • How are Russian representations of “madness” different from Western ones?

Week 2—Folk And Religious Interpretations of Madness Tuesday, September 04, 2012 Reading due:

• Ivanits, Linda J. “’Spoiling’ and Healing.” Russian Folk Belief. 102-124. • Ivan the Fool fairy tales; “Emelya” • Sinyavsky, Andrei. Chapter 4 of Ivan the Fool: Russian Folk Belief: A Cultural History.

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Topics:

• Brief and grand introduction to Russian culture and history • Manifestations of madness in folk life • Folk understandings of madness • Ivan the Fool

Thursday, September 06, 2012 Reading due:

• Ivanov, Sergey A. Selections from Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. 245-284. • Thomson, Ewa. Ch. 1. Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture. 1-23.

Topics:

• The Holy Fool • Connections to Ivan the Fool

Week 3—The Mad Tsar: Ivan the Terrible Tuesday, September 11, 2012 Reading due:

• Curran, Michael W. and David MacKenzie. "Ivan the Terrible," Chapter 11. A History of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Beyond. 118-132

Topics:

• Ivan the Terrible as Madman • Madness and Political Power • Sergei Eisenstein and the Stalin era

In-class screening:

• Coronation scene from Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 (Sergei Eisenstein, 1944) • Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 (Sergei Eisenstein, 1944/1958)

Thursday, September 13, 2012 Reading due:

• Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Rabelais and His World. Introduction 4-12, “Popular Festive Forms and Images in Rabelais” 196-200.

Finish in-class screening of Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 Topics:

• Bakhtin and Carnival • De-crowning the King

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• Carnival in Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 Week 4—Mad Women & Catherine the Great Tuesday, September 18, 2012 Reading due:

• Goscilo, Helena. “The Crazy Creatrix and the Procreative Iurodivaia.” Madness and the Mad in Russian Culture. 226-241.

• Worobec, Christine. Introduction; Cc. 4-5. Possessed: Women, Witches and Demons in Imperial Russia. 3-9; 166-206.

Topics: • Issues of Gender • Feminist Interpretation

Thursday, September 20, 2012 Reading due:

• Vinitsky, Ilya. “A Cheerful Empress and Her Gloomy Critics: Catherine the Great and the Eighteenth-Century Melancholy Controversy.” Madness and the Mad in Russian Culture. 25-45.

Topics:

• Catherine the Great as rational center from which all insanity is defined • Rationality, Voltaire, and the Enlightenment • Potemkin villages • Catherine and the myth of Peter the Great

PROPOSAL FOR FINAL PAPER DUE TO TURNITIN.COM BY 5PM Week 5—The Imperial Capital of Madness: St. Petersburg Tuesday, September 25, 2012 Reading due:

• Pushkin, Alexander. The Bronze Horseman Topics:

• History of St. Petersburg • Peter the Great as mad reformer and Westernizer • Alexander Pushkin—life as text

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Thursday, September 27, 2012 Reading due:

• Gogol', Nikolai. “Diary of a Madman.” Topics:

• St. Petersburg, con’t • Self-diagnosis and the diary • Nikolai Gogol'—life as text

Week 6—The Imperial Capital of Madness: St. Petersburg, part 2 Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Reading due:

• Gogol', Nikolai. “The Nose.” Topics:

• More on Gogol' and St. Petersburg • The city as mad, evil force • Mad bureaucracy • Psychological preoccupations

Thursday, October 4, 2012 Reading due:

• Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Part 1 of Notes from the Underground. • Bakhtin, Mikhail. Selection from “Discourse in Dostoevsky.” Problems of Dostoevsky’s

Poetics. Topics:

• The irrationality of rationality • Bakhtin and Dialogism: the structure of madness in the text • Dostoevsky—life as text • Dostoevsky as psychologist

Week 7—Madness Spreads to the Provinces Tuesday, October 9, 2012 NO CLASS Go to Monday classes

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Thursday, October 11, 2012 Reading due:

• Chekhov, Anton. • “The Man in the Case” • “The Black Monk” • “Ward No. 6”

Topics:

• Chekhov—life as text. Chekhov as author and physician. • Medical definitions of madness • Chekhov as psychologist

OUTLINE OF FINAL PAPER DUE TO TURNITIN.COM BY 5PM Week 8—Mad Scientists and Mad Medicine Tuesday, October 16, 2012 Reading due:

• Foucault, Michel. Selection from The History of Madness. Topics:

• Introduction to Foucault • History according to Foucault • Structures of power and control • The Russian context

Thursday, October 18, 2012 Reading due:

• Segal, Boris. "Involuntary Hospitalization in the USSR." Psychiatry and Psychology in the USSR. 267-284.

• Wanke, Paul. Selection from Russian/Soviet Military Psychiatry. Topics:

• Mad Soviet doctors and mad Soviet practices • Pavlovian dogs • Stalinist mad scientists: Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, Sergei Brukhonenko, Vladimir Demikhov • Yefim Shubentsov—modern-day mad Russian scientist

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Week 9—Rasputin and Revolutionaries Tuesday, October 23, 2012 Reading due:

• Purishkevich, Vladimir. Selection from The Murder of Rasputin • Wikipedia page on Grigorii Rasputin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigorii_Rasputin • Wikipedia page on representations of Rasputin in popular culture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputin_in_popular_culture Topics:

• Mad popular culture • Enduring popularity • Clips from Agoniia (Elem Klimov, 1975) • YouTube Clips • Rasputin and the Tsarina’s hysteria

Thursday, October 25, 2012 Reading due:

• Kropotkin, Pyotr. Ch. 1-3 of The Conquest of Bread. • Bakunin, Michel. Part I of “God and the State”

Topics

• Anarchism, Communism, and anarchist communism • Pyotr Kropotkin and the roots of Russian revolution • From Michel Bakunin to Vladimir Lenin • Political madness

Week 10—Dystopian Madness Tuesday, October 30, 2012 Reading due:

• Kharms, Daniil. • “The Old Woman” • “The Plummeting Old Woman” • “Blue Notebook No. 10” • “Anecdotes from the Life of Pushkin”

Topics:

• Absurdism • Life under Stalinism • Zhiznetvorchestvo and Kharms as performer

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Thursday, November 1, 2012 Reading due:

• Adamova-Sliozberg, Olga. “My Journey.” Till My Tale is Told. • Glinka, Elena Semenova. Ch. 18 in Remembering the Darkness

Topics:

• The Gulag • Women testimonials • Madness and Disbelief • Faith in Stalin • Clips from Solovki Power (Marina Goldovskaya,1988)

Week 11—Joseph Stalin’s Mad Vision Tuesday, November 6, 2012 Reading Due:

• Ryklin, Mikhail. “The Best in the World.” The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space.

Topics:

• Industrialization and Collectivization under Stalin • Projecting “reality” • The disconnect between representation and reality

In-class screening:

• Cossacks of the Kuban (Ivan Pyr'ev, 1949) Thursday, November 8, 2012 No reading Finish screening Cossacks of the Kuban Topics:

• High Stalinist Aesthetics • The Collective Farm and the Moscow Metro • Mad workers: Stakhanovites

FIRST DRAFT OF FINAL PAPER DUE TO TURNITIN.COM BY 5PM

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Week 12—Mad Soviet Obsessions: Sports and the Body Tuesday, November 13, 2012 Reading due:

• Makoveeva, Irina. “Soviet Sports as a Cultural Phenomenon: Body and/or Intellect” Topics

• Conceptualizing the Soviet body • Obsession and competition with the West • The Olympic Games as battleground • Alcoholism and the anti-Soviet body

Thursday, November 15, 2012 NO CLASS Week 13—Mad Soviet Obsessions: Animation Tuesday, November 20, 2012 Reading due:

• MacFadyen, David. Selection from Yellow Crocodiles and Blue Oranges: Russian Animated Film Since World War Two.

Topics

• Soviet Animation and competition with the West • Mad animator: Yuri Norshtein—life as text • Hedgehog in the Fog, Tale of Tales

In-class screening

• Hedgehog in the Fog (Norshtein, 1975) • Tale of Tales (Norshtein, 1979)

Thursday, November 22, 2012 HAPPY THANKSGIVING! No class. Week 14 Sex-Crazed Youth and the Beginning of the End Tuesday, November 27, 2012 Reading due:

• Pilkington, Hilary. Selection from Russia’s Youth and its Culture.

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Topics • Perestroika and glasnost' • Sex-crazed youth • Western influence • Female Hysteria

In-class screening

• Little Vera (Vasilii Pichul, 1989) Thursday, November 29, 2012 No reading Finish Little Vera Topics:

• Explosion of youth culture • A cure to madness? • Mad Russian film genre: chernukha • Desecration and destruction: back to Carnival

Week 15 Drugs and Postmodernism Tuesday, December 4, 2012 Reading due:

• Erofeev, Viktor. “My Life as an Idiot.” Topics:

• Second-World Postmodernism • Characters as characters, not people • Words as words, not realities • Shock value • Art creates madness

Thursday, December 6, 2012 Reading due:

• Sorokin, Vladimir. Selection from Day of the Oprichniki. Topics:

• Postmodernism • Drug consumption • Ivan the Terrible returns • Political madness in literature

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• Cultural schizophrenia Week 16 Rock ‘n’ Roll, Putin and Political Madness Tuesday, December 11, 2012 READING TO BE ANNOUNCED Topics:

• Vladimir Putin as symbol of stability and rationality • Putin Pop Madness • Representations of Putin in popular culture

Thursday, December 13, 2012 READING TO BE ANNOUNCED Topics:

• Political opposition to Putin as madness • The case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky • Pussy Riot—women’s issues? Return of the iurodovaya? • The Orthodox Church and its connection to Putin

FINAL PAPER DUE TO TURNITIN.COM BY 5PM