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RUSS 384 / RUSS 690 AVANT-GARDES AND ÉMIGRÉS: DIGITAL HUMANITIES LAB

FALL 2016. TTH 11:35 – 12:50 HGS X, BEINECKE LIBRARY, DH LAB

PROF. MARIJETA BOZOVIC (SLAVIC) marijeta.bozovic@yale.edu OFFICE: 2708 HGS DH RESEARCH TEAM:

Trip Kirkpatrick (CTL); trip.kirkpatrick@yale.edu DH TEACHING FELLOW Peter Leonard (DH Lab); peter.leonard@yale.edu CARLOTTA CHENOWETH Anna Arays (Sterling Library); anna.arays@yale.edu carlotta.chenoweth@yale.edu Kevin Repp (Beinecke Library); kevin.repp@yale.edu DESCRIPTION: The Avant-Gardes and Émigrés Lab, a highly collaborative experimental seminar open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates, has two primary objectives: to familiarize students with the work of some of the most influential Russian artists, writers, and thinkers of the twentieth century; and to introduce students to new ways of conducting and presenting research, using digital tools. The flow of persons, texts, and ideas from the Soviet Union influenced the dynamics of American culture during the Cold War, through institutions, academic practices, theoretical approaches and methodologies, and cultural forums—from the Yale Slavic department to the New Yorker. In this course, we will foreground the continuity of Russian Formalism, structuralism, semiotics, and discourse theory with Digital Humanities work today. We will explore the close relationship between avant-garde aesthetics and Formalist theory, and the dissemination and evolution of interpretive practices through emigration. Our guiding questions are: How have these networks shaped our own education, training, tastes, and biases as scholars, as well as those of communities outside of academia? How do they shift over time? And how might all of the above be reimagined—indeed, how are they already being reshaped—in the digital age, given the technological, socio-economic, and political present? The seminar will frequently meet in the Beinecke Library’s archives and in the DH Lab in Sterling Library, and will include guest lectures, training workshops, and invaluable contributions from Yale’s CTL and DH Lab staff and Beinecke and Sterling librarians. All assignments for the course, including final written work, are designed to contribute to a course website that we will build together as our collective achievement from the seminar. REQUIREMENTS: Attendance and participation 20% Regular reading responses (Classesv2 /alternative platform) 20% Project proposals and progress presentations 20% Final research paper, online posting, and symposium presentation 40% • All students will be asked to post a short response, question, or intervention (1–2 paragraphs; other media welcome) based on the readings prior to each session. We will experiment with online platforms as part of our ongoing collaborative attempt to enhance and extend discussion beyond the classroom—and to think critically about media and technology even as we seek creative ways to use them in our academic work. • Halfway during the semester, students will identify research projects based on the course themes and materials. You will organize into research teams, and write and present project proposals and work in progress during the second half of the semester, en route to the final assignment. • Term papers will take the form of text to be published online and conference presentations at an end-of-term symposium. Alongside written analysis, students will practice presenting research and working with visual material, and will work collaboratively to create usable online tools for the ongoing research platform.

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SYLLABUS: Thurs. Sep. 1 Introduction: Digital Humanities and Slavic Studies; print and digital textual culture. Readings:

• Tynianov, “On Literary Evolution” + Matthew Jockers “Syuzhet” project (in class) Presentation: What are the Digital Humanities? UNIT 1: Theory Tues. Sep. 6 Formalisms I Readings:

• Tynianov and Jakobson, “Problems on the Study of Literature and Language” • Matthew Kirschenbaum, “What is Digital Humanities and What’s it Doing in English Departments?” Debates in the Digital_Humanities • Galin Tihanov, “Why did Modern Literary Theory Originate in Central and Eastern Europe? (And Why Is It Now Dead?)” * optional • Joanna Drucker, “Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship,” Debates in the Digital_Humanities *

Thurs. Sep. 8 Formalisms II Readings:

• Shklovsky, “Art as Technique” • Eikhenbaum, “The Theory of the Formal Method” • Katherine Hayles, “How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine,” ADE Bulletin (2010) • Alan Liu, “The State of the Digital Humanities: A Report and a Critique” * • Tara McPherson, “Why Are the Digital Humanities So White? Or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation” *

Presentation: Voyant

Tues. Sep. 13 Formalisms III Readings:

• Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” “Two Aspects of Language” • Yohei Igarashi, “Statistical Analysis at the Birth of Close Reading” • Jonathan Guillory, “Origin of the Media Concept” * • Matthew Jockers, “Foundation,” Macroanalysis *

Thurs. Sep. 15 Formalisms IV Readings:

• Jakobson, Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry (selections) • Bozovic, Chenoweth, Lassin, Kirkpatrick, “Digital Humanities and Slavic Studies” (working draft) • Ilya Kliger, “Dynamic Archeology or Distant Reading: Literary Science between Two Formalisms” (conference paper) * • Franco Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature” Distant Reading *

Presentation: Topic Modeling TBA DH LAB PRACTICUM: TOPIC MODELING I Tues. Sep. 20 Discourse Theory I Readings:

• Bakhtin, The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship (selections) • Goldstone, Andrew and Ted Underwood. “What Can Topic Models of PMLA Teach Us About the History of Literary Scholarship?” • Katerina Clark, Michael Holquist, Mikhail Bakhtin (selections) * • Kristeva, “Word, Language, and the Novel” *

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Thurs. Sep. 22 Discourse Theory II Readings:

• Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel” • Lotman, “On the Semiosphere” • Chang, Boyd-Graber, Wang et al., “Reading Tea Leaves: How Humans Interpret Topic Models” * • Special Edition of Journal of Digital Humanities on Topic Modeling. JDH. Vol 2. No. 1 Winter 2012 *

Presentation: Topic Modeling

UNIT 2: Avant-Gardes Tues. Sep. 27 Avant-Garde Poetry I: Kruchonykh Readings:

• Kruchenykh, “Дыр бул шыл,” “Фрот фрон ыт,” “ЗАБЫЛ ПОВЕСИТЬСЯ,” “Я в ЗЕМЛЬЮ ВРОС,” “Русь,” “Смерть художника,” “Евген. Онегин в 2 строч,” “Искариоты вы” • Charlotte Douglas, “Views From the New World: Kruchenykh and Malevich,” Russian Literature Triquarterly 12 (1975) [352-370] * • Gordon McVay, “Kruchenykh: Bogeyman of Russian Literature,” Russian Literature Triquarterly 13 (1976) [571-590] *

Thurs. Sep. 29 Avant-Garde Poetry I: Kruchonykh Readings: • Kruchenykh, “Новые пути слова”

• Nina Gurianova, Russian Av-G Book, “A Game in Hell, hard work in Heaven” [24-32] • Gerald Janacek, Russian Avant-Garde Book, “Kruchenykh contra Gutenberg” [41-49]

• Bolter and Grusin, “Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation,” Remediation • Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment, “The Word Set Free: Text and Image” [116-161] *

• Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word, “Semiotics, Materiality, Typographic Practice” + “Visual and Literary Materiality in Modern Art” [9-48] *

Presentation: Russian Avant-Gardes at the Beinecke

TBA DH LAB PRACTICUM: TOPIC MODELING II

Tues. Oct. 4 Avant-Garde Poetry II: Khlebnikov Readings: • Khlebnikov & Kruchenykh, “Слово как таковое” • Roman Jakobson, Poetics Today 2.1a (1980), “Subliminal Verbal Patterning in Poetry”

• Charlotte Douglas, ed. The King of Time, “Introduction” (1-10) • Marjorie Perloff, 21st Century Modernism, “Khlebnikov’s Soundscapes” [121-153] * • John McKay, Inscription and Modernity, “Absolutely Mundane Language” [165-169] * • Raymond Cook, Velimir Khlebnikov, “The Tower of the Word,” etc. [67-160] * Thurs. Oct. 6 Avant-Garde Poetry II: Khlebnikov Readings:

• Khlebnikov, “Заклятие смехом,” “Боэоби пелись губы,” “Кузнечик”, “Гонимый— кем, почем я знаю?,” “Курган,” “Годы, люди и народы,” “Ветер—пение,” “Иранская песня,” “Русь, ты вся поцелуй на морозе!”

• Jakobson, “Modern Russian Poetry: Velimir Khlebnikov” • Drucker and Nowviskie, “Speculative Computing: Provocations…” *

Presentation: Networks

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Tues. Oct. 11 Avant-Garde Poetry III: Mayakovsky Readings: • Mayakovsky, “А вы могли бы?,” “Нате,” “Послушайте,” “Я все-таки,” “Юбилейное,” “Небоскреб в разрезе,” “Бруклинский мост,” “Сергею Есенину” • Edward J. Brown, Mayakovsky: A Poet in the Revolution, [selections] *

• Clare Cavanagh, Rereading Russian Poetry, “Whitman, Mayakovsky…” [202-222] * • Charles Moser, Russian Review 25.3 (1966), “Mayakovsky and America” [242-256] * Thurs. Oct. 13 Avant-Garde Poetry III: Mayakovsky Readings: • Mayakovsky, visual materials

• Mayakovsky, “Стихи о советском паспорте,” “Я знаю силу слов...,” “Я люблю” • Mayakovsky, Облако в штанах; Во весь голос • Shklovsky, Mayakovsky and his Circle [selections] * • Michael Holquist, “The Mayakovsky Problem,” Yale French Studies 39 [126-136] * Presentation: Mayakovsky at the Beinecke TBA DH LAB PRACTICUM: NETWORK ANALYSIS I UNIT 3: Émigrés Tues. Oct. 18 Russia Abroad Readings:

• Raeff, selections from Russia Abroad • Glad, selections from Russia Abroad • Boym, selections from The Future of Nostalgia • Scott Weingart, “Topic Modeling and Network Analysis” + “Contextualizing networks with maps” * + discuss project proposals

Tues. Oct. 25 Émigrés I: Tsvetaeva Readings:

• Tsvetaeva, “Кто создан из камня, кто создан из глины...,” “Федра,” “Магдалина,” “Попытка ревности,” “Писала я на аспидной доске...,” “Куст”

• Lilly Feller, Double Beat, “Correspondence with Rilke and Pasternak” [168-180] • Peter Brooks, Body Work, “Transgressive Bodies” [257-288] * • Barbara Johnson, Mother Tongues, “Correctional Facilities” [1-25] * Thurs. Oct. 27 Émigrés I: Tsvetaeva Readings: • Tsvetaeva, Поэма горы; Поэма конца • Tomas Venclova, Собеседники на пиру, “«Поэма Горы» и «Поэма Конца»” [163-173] *

• Helene Cixous, selected writings on Tsvetaeva * Presentation: FEMTECHNET Tues. Nov. 1 Émigrés I: Tsvetaeva Readings:

• Tsvetaeva,”В Париже,” “Читатели газет,” “Маяковскому,” “Пастернаку,” “Новогоднее” • Alyssa Dinega Gillespie, A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind of MT (selections)

• Adriane de Souza e Silva, “Mobile Narratives: Reading and Writing Urban Space…” * + project proposals due in class; discuss and modify

TBA DH LAB PRACTICUM: NETWORK ANALYSIS II

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Thurs. Nov. 3 Émigrés II: Brodsky Readings:

• Brodsky, “Я входил вместе дикого зверя в клетку,” “Большая элегия Джону Донну,” “Бабочка,” “Муха,” “Торс” • Brodsky, “Less than One,” “In a Room and a Half” • Boym, “Joseph Brodsky’s Room and a Half,” Future of Nostalgia * • Lev Loseff, selections from Brodsky: A Literary Life * • David Bethea, “A Polemical Introduction,” Joseph Brodsky and the Creation of Exile *

Presentation: Brodsky at the Beinecke

Tues. Nov. 8 Émigrés II: Brodsky Readings:

• Brodsky, Часть речи + translations • Brodsky, Brodsky, Watermark • Lawrence Venuti, selections from Scandals of Translation * • Hokenson and Munson, selections from The Bilingual Text: Literary Self-Translation *

Thurs. Nov. 10 Émigrés II: Brodsky Readings:

• Brodsky, “Конец прекрасной эпохи,” “Декабрь во Флоренции,” “Elegy: For Robert Lowell,” “Осенний крик ястреба,” “Подруга, дурнея лицом,” “Elegy: whether you fished me bravely out of Pacific” • Roman Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation,” On Translation * • Galya Diment and Brodsky, “English as Sanctuary: Nabokov’s and Brodsky’s Autobiographical Writings,” SEEJ (1993): 346-361 *

Presentation: Émigrés at the Beinecke *Sat. Nov. 12 *Digital Humanities and Russian and East European Studies Symposium (all day)* Tues. Nov. 15 Émigrés III: Nabokov Readings:

• Nabokov, Pnin (first half) • Brian Boyd, selections from VN: The American Years

• Bozovic, introduction to Nabokov’s Canon * • Moretti, “Network Theory, Plot Analysis,” Distant Reading *

Thurs. Nov. 17 Émigrés III: Nabokov [option: cancel for ASEEES convention attendance] Readings:

• Nabokov, Pnin (finish) • Hoyt Long and Richard So, “Network Analysis and the Sociology of Modernism” * • Nicholas Mirzoeff, “Network Subjects: or, The Ghost is the Message” * Presentation: Networks

UNIT 4: Projects Tues. Nov. 29 Specialized topics and student-led presentations Thurs. Dec. 1 Specialized topics and student-led presentations Tues. Dec. 6 Specialized topics and student-led presentations Thurs. Dec. 8 Specialized topics and student-led presentations TBA Final Presentations + Deadline for Online Materials [Fri. Dec. 16?]

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NOTES: