A more clear outline on russian participles …

I did a bit of a quick run through participles in class yesterday, and I just wanted to direct you to a useful resource in case you’d like  more systematic approach.  In particular, I mixed the adverbial and adjectival participles together (which could be a little confusing).  The site has all kinds of hilarious little [...]

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Annotated Class 13/11

(For your assignment for Tuesday, please click here.)
To make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s a list of the main points I hit today:
(Please take a close look at them and ask if you have any questions because I’ll be asking you about this material next week!)
1.    Pushkin did not come from nowhere. [...]

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Tuesday Assignment

Here are the two reading assignments for Tuesday: also make sure to help out with our PROROK translation!
Also remember to bring a copy of these poems along with you to class on Tuesday with all of your mark-ups on them.
Now after our class on Pushkin and The Myth Of Pushkin, it might be an opportune [...]

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our class’s PROROK translation

NB: the original is here.
1“Spiritual thirst torments me,
I wandered in a gloomy desert,-
And a six winged seraph
Appeared before me at the crossroads.”
3 His ears touched me / My ears touched him (???)
And they are filled with sound and chime
And I heed Heaven shuddering / And shuddering I heed Heaven (damn Russian word order!)
And mountain angels [...]

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Update for Thursday’s class

I’ll be handing out “Gypsies” tomorrow in class along with the reading assignment for next Tuesday.
For tomorrow: let’s start getting up parts of the PROROK translation (you’ll see below that I have marked the poem numerically)
Again, tomorrow’s class will be one part lecture, and one part discussion section that will be class lead.  Please be [...]

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For Thursday

Hey all: today we’re going over two Pushkin poems.
For tomorrow we’re starting work on Pushkin’s “Gypsies”.  You should already have found and read the text in English.
A Russian version is available here.
We’ll have a total of three classes on the piece.

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nashi nashi nashi

As some of you may know, after my presentation on the nashi last year, I got a little…fascinated. Oh my, that sounds suspicious. Anywho, check out their clothing line!! We simply must invest upon our visit! Aaah it’s so strange!
http://www.nashi.su/shapovalova (see the guy on the top right pulling the teddy bear in the sledge!!)
http://www.nashi.su/
http://news.sawf.org/Fashion/49525.aspx

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Annotated Lecture: Thursday Nov. 6

I wanted to give you guys some further reading on some of the material I raised in Thursday’s class:
On Putin’s “Sovereign Democracy”
On “NASHI” and “American plots”
On the American passport that was found in Georgia to “prove” US involvement
On how Dima Bilan is “Russia’s Justin Timberlake”

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A Question of Culture

Since we will be discussing the very slippery term “culture” this year, I thought it would interesting to come up with a more contemporary example of how the same object can be portrayed in different cultures.
Advertising present an interesting element when discussing culture – since the content is geared towards the assumed wants, needs, and [...]

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Roundtable Discussion: What’s Worthy of Representation?

Sarah ran a lecture last Thursday discussing icons and the dilemma of whom and what to represent.
This is one of those problems that doesn’t really seem like such a big deal at first glance – icon material and the religious symbols that make the cut almost seem like “natural” or even “common-sensical” choices.
But, as you [...]

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