Applications open
Life Changing Texts
23 Nov to 30 Jan · Apply by 6 Jan
Free
Completed · 2024
Eastern European Literature
An intensive look at the works that shaped Eastern European thought and identity, read by students whose countries were at war with each other.
Online · 1 Jun to 30 Aug 2024 · Twelve weeks, summer 2024
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About this course
An intensive look at the works that shaped Eastern European thought and identity. Students from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus came together each week despite the war between their countries, building trust through Socratic dialogue.
Even while their countries were at war, these students found they could talk honestly with each other, using literature as common ground.
What we read, watched, and listened to
- Text
The Gulag Archipelago
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ·
Russia · 1973A history of the Soviet camps built from the voices of those who survived them. What does it take to tell the truth about a country, and what does it cost?
- Text
Secondhand Time
Svetlana Alexievich ·
Belarus · 2013Ordinary people talk about the end of the Soviet Union and what came after. History told by the ones who lived it, with all its contradictions.
- Text
How the Steel Was Tempered
Nikolai Ostrovsky ·
Ukraine · 1932A Soviet classic about a boy who becomes a believer. Why did it move a whole generation, and what does it ask of a reader today?
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