Russian Language / Literature vs. Russian Studies?

[Lewis B. Sckolnick]

  Or maybe it is the alphabets.

Lewis



>   Populations differ in what appeals. To look at the lowest common
> denominator: Some graduate students at Youngstown State University did
> a study of incoming freshman and their attitudes toward learning a
> Foreign Language and presented their results at an in-house conference.
> When asked what language they would NEVER consider studying, 21%
> indicated Russian (the only lower-rated language was Arabic). One of
> the reasons cited: "B/c Russia is so far away&  isolated. 3/4 of the
> country is so cold that no one can live there. I don't see much value
> in learning Russian."
>
> In other words, public institutions have a hard sell.
>
> Melissa Smith
>
> On 12/18/10 2:48 PM, Benjamin Rifkin wrote:
>> Dear SEELANGers:
>>
>>
>> I will be discussing this and related matters in my talk at the
> upcoming AATSEEL Conference, from a dean's office perspective.
>>
>> Best wishes to all,
>>
>>
>> Ben Rifkin
>> The College of New Jersey
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "David Graber"<david_graber2 at YAHOO.COM>
>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>> Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 2:15:35 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada
> Eastern
>> Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian Language / Literature vs. Russian Studies?
>>
>> Dear Seelangs Subscribers,
>>
>> As I hear of departments being cut or eliminated, I wonder if it
> matters how we present the *purpose* of our course material--on the one
> hand, as language learning leading to the study of
> literature/linguistics or, on the other, as part of a more general
> humanities/social sciences-based Russian Studies.
>> Does it make a difference if we package our classes as ways of
> understanding "civilization", "culture", "cultural history", "cultural
> studies", "area studies", "history of ideas", etc, as opposed to
> classes that suggest that our ultimate goal is understanding
> "literariness" (e.g., "Russian literature", "19th Century Russian
> Literature", "Romanticism", "Pushkin/Dostoevsky/Tolstoy", "Russian
> Poetry", etc) and linguistics?
>> I'd be curious to know whether anyone on the list has any experience
> with reworking the departmental offerings into a Russian Studies
> program, what is gained/lost in doing so, and whether that seems to
> affect how students, administrators, and the public view the department
> and its usefulness to the institution and society.
>> Dave Graber
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Melissa T. Smith, Professor
> Department of Foreign Languages and
> Literatures
> Youngstown State University
> Youngstown, OH 44555
> Tel: (330)941-3462
>
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-- 

Lewis B. Sckolnick
The Ledge House
130 Rattlesnake Gutter Road, Suite 1000
Leverett, MA 01054-9726
U.S.A.

Telephone 1. 413. 367. 0303
Facsimile 1. 413. 367. 2853
info at runanywhere.com

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