Russian Studies Major

Major Requirements

The Russian Studies major prepares students for meaningful personal and professional interactions with Russian speakers all over the globe. Russian majors achieve advanced fluency in one of the world’s most widely spoken languages, and gain a profound understanding of Russian culture as well as the historical and political contexts in which it has developed.

A major in Russian Studies consists of 44 credits, distributed as follows:

1. Russian department courses: 36 credits, to include:
   1. Basic language sequence beyond RUSS 101 - Elementary Russian I  and RUSS 102 - Elementary Russian II , 16 credits: RUSS 203 - Intermediate Russian I  and RUSS 204 - Intermediate Russian II , 8 credits, and another 8 credits of Russian language abroad in the third year, or equivalent. Russian Studies majors are expected to complete the equivalent of three years of Russian language in a combination of courses taken on campus and abroad. Students with significant language background when they come to Macalester may substitute courses listed below.
   2. Literature, culture, special language courses, 16 credits: RUSS 151 - “Things Don’t Like Me”: The Material World and Why It Matters , RUSS 251 - 19th Century Russian Literature , RUSS 252 - Experiments in Living: 20th Century Russian Literature and Culture , RUSS 255 - Fierce and Beautiful World: Russian Culture Before the Revolution , RUSS 256 - Mass Culture Under Communism , RUSS 257 - Tolstoy’s War and Peace , RUSS 261 - Making History: Russian Cinema as Testimony, Propaganda, and Art , RUSS 265 - Translation as Cross-Cultural Communication , RUSS 270 - Wrongdoing in Russian Literature , RUSS 363 - Orientalism and Empire: Russia’s Literary South , RUSS 366 - Nabokov , RUSS 367 - Dostoevsky and Gogol , and topics courses offered as RUSS 194 , RUSS 294  or RUSS 294 . Majors should strive for a combination of courses that provides coverage of both the 19th and the 20th century.
   3. RUSS 488 - Senior Seminar , 4 credits, designed as the integrative capstone experience. May be taken upon completion of RUSS 204 . Since the topic changes from year to year, students may repeat RUSS 488  for credit under b), with the consent of the instructor.
2. Study abroad
   A semester study abroad program as approved by the department and the Macalester Study Abroad Committee. Most students will study abroad in the fall semester following completion of RUSS 204 . Courses taken abroad may count for up to 8 credits in the language sequence, as well as four credits under sections I.b. or III.
3. Supporting courses (8 credits)
   Two supporting courses, as approved by the department. Such courses are significantly devoted to the area of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Preapproved courses include:RUSS 272 - The Post-Soviet Sphere , RUSS 364 - Culture and Revolution , HIST 260 - Rise/Fall of Tsarist Russia , HIST 262 - Soviet Union and Successors , RUSS 246 - Comparative Democratization , INTL 225 - Comparative Economic Systems , INTL 325 - China, Russia and Central Europe in Transition , INTL 285 - Ethnicity and Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe , INTL 317 - Writers and Power: The European East in the 20th Century . SOCI 280 - Indigenous Peoples’ Movements in Global Context  may count toward the major if the final project concerns an indigenous group in Russia/the former Soviet Union. Appropriate topics courses include HIST 294  - Vikings, Tatars, Slavs - and  MUSI 394  - Shostakovich.