About the course
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Cities and Civilizations is an introduction to the study of the region formerly occupied by the Russian and Soviet Empires, focusing on cities as the space of self-definition, encounter, and tension among constituent peoples. Eurasian Studies, the successor to Russian/East European and Soviet studies, focuses our attention on the multiethnicity, religious pluralism, hybrid identities, and regional diversity of the communities inhabiting the lands between East Asia and Central Europe.These include, but are not limited to, the state formations known as Kievan Rus', the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.

Cities and Civilizations examines the history and culture of these communities through an examination of their major centers of urban development: Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Odessa, and 'Little Odessa' (New York City's Brighton Beach). The East European and Eurasian cities will be compared with one another and with contemporary cities beyond the primary geopolitical foci of the course. We will approach the history and culture of our cities through reading and analysis of historical, literary, and theoretical texts as well as film, music, painting, and architecture.