| Unit name | Russian Orthodox Culture |
|---|---|
| Unit code | RUSS20044 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Coates |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of Russian |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
What is the point in studying Russian Orthodoxy? Isn’t religion irrelevant in modern societies? This unit takes as its starting point the contention that, despite the increasing secularisation of culture in the developed world, religion remains a vital phenomenon in the twenty first century. You have only to think of the influence of Christian evangelicalism on US politics, or the tensions arising out of competing religious ideologies in the multi-ethnic communities of Israel-Palestine, India, and Western Europe. In Putin’s Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church has once again become a pillar of national-imperial conservatism and a standard-bearer for Russian ethnic exceptionalism. This unit aims to develop your understanding of the significance of medieval Rus’s adoption of Eastern Christianity for Russian history and culture and the national myths that have shaped Russia’s self-identity: both in relation to empire and the post-Soviet space, and to its perennial ‘Other’. An understanding of Orthodox culture is the gateway to understanding enduring Russian political, cultural, and spiritual values.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
Russia and the ‘West’ are indeed cultures divided by a common religion, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw. Students in SML and other Schools will develop their intercultural understanding by taking Russian Orthodox Culture. As an interdisciplinary unit, you will bring experience of your respective disciplines gained from your first-year units to bear on the sphere of religion, whilst also developing competency in new disciplinary approaches. Russian Orthodox Culture complements other second-year units such as ‘The 19th-century Novel’ and ‘Engineers of the Human Soul’ and prepares you for specialised final-year units such as ‘Dostoevsky’ and ‘Russia and the World, 1991-present'.
Overview of content
Topics include Orthodoxy and Russian national identity, the theology of the icon, church architecture, and Orthodox spirituality. Primary sources include chronicles, hagiographies, sermons, monuments, and religious buildings.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit?
The understanding of Russian Orthodox culture that you gain will transform your understanding of Russia itself, not least its tortured relationship to questions of national identity and empire. You will have the confidence to apply your knowledge to current events such as the war in Ukraine and the geopolitical realignment that is emerging from this, and you will be equipped to facilitate others in their efforts to understand. You will have the tools to understand the culture-shaping role of religion in your own societies. You will have an expanded understanding of human spirituality which may help you with your own spiritual development.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of the unit, students will be able to:
Each week, you will have one two-hour class or two one-hour classes that will include, broadly, three types of learning: lecture, discussion, and presentation.
Lecture: Lectures equip you with foundational subject knowledge. Far from being a passive mode of learning, lectures help you build critical analysis and evidence-gathering skills by modelling textual interpretation and posing key questions related to the discipline. We will often have a lecture followed by plenary or small-group activities. The lectures will provide the basic contextual knowledge that will facilitate the analysis of specific documents.
Discussion: discussions are a student-centred mode of learning. You will discuss key questions about the texts, developing, sharing and defending your own arguments as we discuss the material together as a class, and/or in pairs and small groups.
Presentation: All students will deliver a presentation. Through participation in presentations, both as a presenter and an audience member, you will become familiar with the key critical debates on the topic and learn to engage with and critique existing ideas. You will also sharpen your presentation skills.
Beyond the classroom, you will devote much time to primary and secondary reading, essential in the humanities. You should anticipate reading in a number of different genres and media: play texts, memoirs, manifestos, visual illustrations, video clips, scholarly articles and book chapters. Reading is sometimes misunderstood as a ‘passive’ activity, but engaged reading is an active process, as you will not only be expanding your subject knowledge, but also developing your sense of empathy, imagination and critical judgment judgement.
In total, you will have 22 hours of class teaching and 178 hours of independent learning.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare for summative tasks (formative):
Class discussion of primary sources in seminars, together with modelling of primary source analysis in lectures, will help you to prepare for both summative tasks: the recorded individual presentation and the research essay.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
The presentation will analyse a cultural artefact (image, object, monument or text) using a format of your choice (e.g. slide show, podcast, filmcast) with the objective of explaining the historical and cultural significance of the artefact to the educated general viewer.
You will design your own research question based on a menu of topics, in consultation with the unit director.
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. RUSS20044).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
