Slavic Languages and Literatures

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2019-20 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Spring 2020 COVID-19 Measures

Overview

The Slavic Department studies and teaches languages, literature, and cultures of the Russian and other Slavic peoples and their immediate neighbors in East and Central Europe (Hungary and Romania) as well as the Caucasus and Central Asia (hence the terms “Eurasia” and “Eurasian”). Over the centuries, these peoples shared linguistic, literary, cultural and historical experiences, which both united and divided them. These experiences include their intermediary position between the “West” and the “East,” participation in large multi-national states and empires, membership in the Soviet bloc in the twentieth century, and, in recent decades, the transition to post-socialism. In a word, we represent peoples who have influenced the history of a large part of the world.

Our department, which celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary in 2001, was one of the first departments of its kind in the United States. It was home to UC Berkeley’s only Nobel Prize winner in the Humanities, Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004). Over the years, it has remained in the vanguard of Slavic, East European and Eurasian studies because of the breadth of coverage and interdisciplinary approach to the field. Our faculty members have a wide range of interests and train students to discover the links between language, literature and other aspects of culture (including history, religious thought, visual arts, theater, film, popular culture) as well as between our subject matter and that of other related disciplines. Thus, students find that our courses complement their studies in other fields as different as History, English, Political Science, or Business.

Undergraduate Programs

Slavic Languages and Literatures: BA (with concentrations in "Russian/East European/Eurasian Languages and Cultures" or "Russian Language and Literature")

Armenian Studies: Minor

Russian Culture: Minor

Russian Language: Minor

Russian Literature: Minor

East European/Eurasian Languages and/or Cultures: Minor

Graduate Program

Slavic Languages and Literatures: PhD

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Courses

Literature, Linguistics and Culture:

Languages:

Slavic Languages and Literatures

Armenian

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian

Bulgarian

Czech

Hungarian

Polish

Russian

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

David A. Frick, Professor. Slavic languages and literatures.
Research Profile

Lyubov (Luba) Golburt, Associate Professor. Pushkin, Russian literature and art of the 18th and 19th centuries, Derzhavin, Turgenev, history and literature, historical novel.
Research Profile

Darya Kavitskaya, Associate Professor. Phonological theory, opacity, contrast, Slavic phonology, phonetics/phonology interface, field linguistics (Slavic, Turkic, Uralic).
Research Profile

Eric Naiman, Professor. Sexuality, history, comparative literature, Slavic language, ideological poetics, history of medicine, Soviet culture, the gothic novel.
Research Profile

Anne Nesbet, Associate Professor. Culture, film studies, Slavic languages, early Soviet culture, Sergei Eisenstein, silent film, Soviet film, GDR history, children's literature and Stalinism, the Soviet Union, American minority movements.
Research Profile

Irina Paperno, Professor. Russian language and literature, intellectual history.
Research Profile

Harsha Ram, Associate Professor. Russian and European romanticism and modernism, Russian and European avant-gardes, Russian, European, Near Eastern and South Asian poetic traditions, Indian literature, Italian literature, Georgian history and literature, theories of world literature, literary theory, comparative poetics, genre theory, literary history, comparative modernisms and modernities, vernacular and high culture, cultural and political history of Russia-Eurasia and the Caucasus, postcolonial studies, theories of nationalism, imperialism and cosmopolitanism, the city and literature .
Research Profile

Edward Tyerman, Assistant Professor. Early Soviet culture, Soviet internationalism, cultural connections and exchanges between Russia and China, Russian and Soviet Orientalism, theories and experiences of post-socialism, politics and aesthetics, subjectivity and self-narration .
Research Profile

Lecturers

Myrna Douzjian, Lecturer.

Ellen R. Langer, Lecturer.

Anna Muza, Senior Lecturer.

Antje Postema, Lecturer.

Eva Soos Szoke, Lecturer.

Katarzyna Zacha, Lecturer.

Emeritus Faculty

Ronelle Alexander, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, Balkan Slavic dialectology, Balkan linguistics, language contact, oral tradition, Parry-Lord theory of oral composition, South Slavic epic singers, issues of language and identity.
Research Profile

Joan Grossman, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, Russian symbolism and decadence viewed especially as a cultural process, questions of literary evolution, and Russian modernism .
Research Profile

Olga Hughes, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, literature and culture of the 20th century, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Remizov, autobiographical prose, history and literature of Russian emigration, Russian literary developments and cultural life of the early 20th century .
Research Profile

+ Robert P. Hughes, Professor Emeritus. Critical theory, comparative literature, Slavic languages and literatures, Pushkin, Russian and European modernism, Russian poetry, Nabokov, Russian prose in the 1920s, Khodasevich's poetry, forms of autobiography, Andrei Belyi.
Research Profile

Olga Matich, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, Russian symbolism and post-Stalin literature, women in Russian literature, Zinaida Gippius, Russian emigre literature, conceptualization of love in Russian culture, theory and practice of private life.
Research Profile

Johanna Nichols, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, Slavic languages, syntax, historical linguistics, typology, including historical typology, linguistic geography and areal linguistics, languages of northern Eurasia, particularly languages of the Caucasus.
Research Profile

Walter Schamschula, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, influences of cultural contacts on Czech literatures, especially Germanic, movement and migration of literary themes and topics in Europe, Czech cultural history and theory of literature, theory and practice of translation.
Research Profile

Alan Timberlake, Professor Emeritus. Slavic languages and literatures, descriptive grammar of Russian, chronicles.
Research Profile

Contact Information

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

6303 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-2979

Fax: 510-642-6220

issa@berkeley.edu

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Eric Naiman

naiman@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Student Services Adviser

Amanda Minfao

6303A Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-4661

issaug@berkeley.edu

Graduate Student Services Adviser

Seth Arnopole

6313 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-9051

slavicadmit@berkeley.edu

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