SLAV-S320: Fools and Misfits in Russian Literature
S2011 2nd 8 weeks
3 credits, A&H
Mondays and Thursdays, 5:30-8:00 pm, BU406 Instructor Bethany Braley (bbraley@indiana.edu) Section 35192
Are the wise truly wise? Are fools always foolish? What does it mean not to fit in? Keeping an eye out for irony and paradox, this course explores Russian literature as a landscape populated with "fools" and "misfits."
First, we will consider the figure of the fool in Russian folklore, Orthodox hagiography (in the lives and icons of "holy foolish" saints), literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leskov, Babel, etc.), and other cultural texts. A look at boundary figures (Ivan the Terrible, the faith healer Rasputin) will invite provocative comparisons, challenge assumptions, and reveal unexpected uses of foolish behavior. Discussion topics include the fool’s dual role as social outcast and social institution and the fool as an evolving literary type.
We will also examine images of the social misfit in works by Gogol, Nabokov, Erofeev and others, discussing a spectrum of departures from the "norm." Macro-themes include social belonging and isolation, alienation, delusion, ab-normality and a-typical perception.
Class consists of lecture and discussion, with occasional slide presentations and short film screenings. Course work includes a reading journal, two short papers and a final exam.
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