SOCIETIES AND CULTURES IN MODERN EUROPE  -Fall 2008-    Dr. Ileana A. Orlich    480-965-4650    orlich@asu.edu
ENG 494/86061   REL 494/85835         SLC 494/83417 POS 494/80484    REL 598/80256         SLC 598/74421     “...identity and culture can be accounted for only if the broader political context is taken into account.  This does not simply mean that literature reflects the political climate, but that literature is an intersection of discourses latent in a given culture and made manifest by an individual author.”                                        Tomislav Z. Longinovic, Borderline     This interdisciplinary course will focus on issues relating to the three empires spread across Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet and Communist Gulag, Stalinist tactics, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, the dramatic execution of the Ceausescus in Romania, and the new, emerging democracies of a fragmented Central Eastern Europe.      Drawing on the disciplines of contemporary history and politics, literature, the plastic and visual arts, anthropology, sociology, and economics, and using a variety of critical approaches – literary criticism and film studies, psychoanalysis, Marxism, phenomenology, feminism, and reader-response – this course will explore various manifestations of culture in each of the countries of the Other Europe.     Reading selections will examine the politics and ideology that led to the fall of the regions’ empires; the rise of nationalism; the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing proletarian dictatorship; and the questions one feels compelled to ask in dealing with post-war totalitarianism and the emerging democracies of the newest members of the European Union.

COURSES TAUGHT at ASU (during the academic year)
Beginning Romanian 101, 102, 201, 202; Intermediate Romanian 313, 314; Advanced Romanian 494, 598
Courses listed below are cross listed with REL 494/598; POS 494; ENG 494: GCU
Society and Culture in Modern Europe
The Politics of Fiction in Central Eastern Europe
Stalinism in Literature and Film
Modern Short Story in Central Eastern Europe
Modern Drama in Central Eastern Europe
Literature and Film in Pre/Post Communist Europe
Literature and Politics in Pre/Post Communist Europe
Literature, Film and Politics in Pre/Post Communist Europe
Feminist Political Writing
Literature and Culture in Central Eastern Europe
English Composition and Introductory Courses in Writing
Critical Reading and Writing about Literature
World Literature
Writing about Literature
Survey of English Literature
The American Novel
American Literature Survey Course
American Short Stories
History of Drama
Special Topics Seminar: Henry James and the Decadent Fin-de-Siècle

COURSES TAUGHT IN THE ASU SUMMER PROGRAM TO ROMANIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE (with the same cross listings as regular academic year courses)
Religion in Central European Life and Thought
Pre/Post-Totalitarian Studies in Central Europe
Modernity in the Visual Arts
Jewish Culture

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