This course approaches the Russian and Soviet avant-gardes through three central themes: things, forms, and thinking. 'Things' speaks to such key concepts as dialectical materialism, nonobjective art, and faktura. 'Forms' encompasses the intricate paths of Russian Formalism as well as Constructivist design. 'Thinking' threads through things and forms as they were understood to shape subjectivities. We will consider many arts: literature and poetry, visual arts, fashion, architecture and film, placing the greatest emphasis on film. Our reading will be wide-ranging in terms of time and discipline. It will include, among others, avant-garde artists such as Kazimir Malevich and Sergei Eisenstein and their contemporaries Viktor Shklovsky and Boris Eikhenbaum. We will also read more contemporary art historians such as Christina Lodder, Yves-Alain Bois, John Bowlt, T. J. Clark, Christina Kaier, and Aglaya Glebova; film and literary scholars such as Jessica Merrill, Nariman Skakov, and Emma Widdis; and Russian historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick, Terry Martin, and Yuri Slezkine. Films range from melodrama (Olga Preobrazhenskaya's 1927 The Peasant Women of Ryazan) to Dziga Vertov's documentaries and Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (1945 and 1958). We will also make time to look at archival materials in Special Collections.
5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
This course approaches the Russian and Soviet avant-gardes through three central themes: things, forms, and thinking. 'Things' speaks to such key concepts as dialectical materialism, nonobjective art, and faktura. 'Forms' encompasses the intricate paths of Russian Formalism as well as Constructivist design. 'Thinking' threads through things and forms as they were understood to shape subjectivities. We will consider many arts: literature and poetry, visual arts, fashion, architecture and film, placing the greatest emphasis on film. Our reading will be wide-ranging in terms of time and discipline. It will include, among others, avant-garde artists such as Kazimir Malevich and Sergei Eisenstein and their contemporaries Viktor Shklovsky and Boris Eikhenbaum. We will also read more contemporary art historians such as Christina Lodder, Yves-Alain Bois, John Bowlt, T. J. Clark, Christina Kaier, and Aglaya Glebova; film and literary scholars such as Jessica Merrill, Nariman Skakov, and Emma Widdis; and Russian historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick, Terry Martin, and Yuri Slezkine. Films range from melodrama (Olga Preobrazhenskaya's 1927 The Peasant Women of Ryazan) to Dziga Vertov's documentaries and Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (1945 and 1958). We will also make time to look at archival materials in Special Collections.
Offered in Winter 2027 at Stanford University.