RSNST-262 Siberian Text
This course is an exploration of five centuries of writing in and about Siberia. While we will root ourselves in the socio-historical context, our main goal is to engage meaningfully with the very process of the formation of the Siberian Text. By this, scholars of the region mean the body of works that emerged out of the geographical, political, anthropological, and cultural categorizations of Siberia. The plurality of voices and the diversity of spatial experiences engaged in the process of creating the Siberian Text include travelers, criminals, political prisoners, religious dissenters, shamans, hunters, ethnographers, missionaries, vagabonds, and peasants. Probing the fraught legacy of the current spatial discourse on Siberia, the course will examine a variety of media and genres, including official documents, travelogues, oral tradition(s), works of fiction, autobiographies, pictorial art, and film. In addition to the transnational and transhistorical dimensions, we will engage with theories of space and place, imagined geographies, and ecocriticism.
Standard Course (40)
Credits
1
Cross Listed Courses
AIIS-262, LIT-262
Notes
Taught in English.