RUSS 172 - Beyond the Looking Glass: Nonsense and Absurd in Russian and European Literature and Visual Arts (in English)

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This course investigates anti-rational movements in 20^th century literature and visual arts, including theatre and film, such as the Russian Alogism and Transrational (Beyond Mind) Language, DADA, Surrealism, Absurdist literature in Russia, and the French Theatre of the Absurd. The authors and artists include Andrei Bely, Franz Kafka, Aleksey Kruchenykh, Velimir Khlebnikov, Kazimir Malevich, Vassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Daniil Kharms, Samuel Beckett, and Eugene Ionesco. We trace the connections between these developments and their 19^th century antecedents in the work of such masters of English Nonsense as Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll and also give special attention to the unsurpassed Russian absurdist genius Nikolai Gogol. Nikolai Firtich.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS