Assignments

from Yakov Protazanov's film Aèlita

* A weekly contribution to the course blog, about 500 words. If you feel shy about sharing, give me a page or two of written or typed notes. In either form. due each Thursday at the beginning of class. This will be folded into your grade for attendance and participation.

* Short paper (5-7 pp.) or equivalent web presentation, due February 9. See the list of possible topics on the syllabus.

* One-hour take-home midterm exam, self-scheduled, due March 16.

*One longer paper (10-12 pp.) or equivalent web presentation, due April 6. Topic: compare/contrast one work we're reading to one we aren't; OR to a similar work from the Western tradition; OR to a TV or film adaptation.

* One additional project, due on April 27:

Write a new article on Wikipedia, or expand/edit an article that is already there. If you know one of the relevant languages, translating from Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, or Ukrainian Wikipedia would be very much appreciated too. Choose your topic after consulting with the instructor. Possibilities will vary depending on the author or topic you choose. You'll work on research practices, attributing statements, and following the key policies, The writing you do should come out to about 2000-2500 words total; this means it's possible to work on more than one topic if that's how you prefer to distribute your time. (I will of course look at your work on Wikipedia, but since it may, and eventually probably will, be edited there I will need the "original" copy for my files. 

* Final examination (short answer and essay): a 3-hour self-scheduled exam, due to me by May 11 (or, if you're a Bi-Co student, by May 6).

* Extra credit: collect and prepare info on a writer of SF from Russia, East Europe or Central Asia (who's available in English translation) for use in future editions of this course. OR: translate a short story that is not yet available in English. To be arranged after talking with the instructor.

Mikhail Bulgakov, "The Fatal Eggs"

 

 

Mikhail Bulgakov, "The Fatal Eggs"

Mikhail Afanas'evich Bulgakov (1891-1940) was born in Kiev. He trained and practiced as a doctor, but in 1920 he decided to quit and become a writer. He is best known for his plays ("Days of the Turbins," "Zoyka's Apartment," "The Crimson Island," "Molière," and others) and his novel The Master and Margarita (left not quite finished when he died), but he wrote some shorter fiction as well. "The Fatal Eggs," written in 1924, was published in the collection Diavoliada ('The Diaboliad') in Moscow in 1925 and fairly enthusiastically received. Bulgakov was skeptical of the Bolshevik revolution, and as a result he experienced all kinds of unpleasant censorship - indeed, by 1927 (a year before most of the action in "Fatal Eggs" takes place!) Bulgakov's prose was banned, and he never published any more prose in his lifetime. His success as a dramatic author lasted a bit longer, but Stalin did not let him emigrate when he asked to in 1930. Bulgakov's third wife preserved his archive after his death from nephrosclerosis, and when The Master and Margarita was finally published in the 1960s - in a censored edition! - it was a big surprise for readers everywhere.

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Contact

Sibelan Forrester

Office: Kohlberg 340
Phone: 610.328.8162
Email: sforres1@swarthmore.edu

Office Hours:

Monday: 11:00-12:00
Tuesday: 10:00-11:00
Thursday: 1:30-2:30
...or by appointment