COML 3012 - [Remembering Socialism: Literature and Film after the End of History]

(crosslisted) ENGL 3903
(ALC-AS, HST-AS, LA-AS)

Fall. Not offered: 2022-2023. Next offered: 2023-2024. 3 credits. Student option grading.

S. Pinkham.

More than thirty years after the end of the Soviet Union, we have the distance needed to view the twentieth-century state socialist project from a historical perspective–even as Cold War tropes are revived amid another major confrontation with Russia. In this course, we will analyze memoirs, historical fiction, films, and TV shows that look back at this period of history. How do the makers of these works use genre as a political as well as artistic tool? What are the political implications of comedy, cosplay, or melodrama when applied to communism? How does the portrayal of this period change as state socialism recedes into the distance? Texts from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Albania, the UK, and the United States. All readings are in English.