Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

SLA200H1. Spring 2018

Culture and Politics in Europe

Class meets on Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM in Carr Hall 403

Assignment 2 is due at the beginning of class in week 8, Mar 1, 2018. You must submit a paper copy in class.

You must write a brief essay of 2 pages, no less than 600 words. Essays should be formatted with 1 inch margins, double spacing, and 12 point type. Put your name on top of page 1. Please do not use a separate sheet for a title page.
Write clearly. Choose the right words, shape your ideas into meaningful sentences, and structure your argument into cohesive paragraphs. Make sure you say EXACTLY what you mean, not something almost similar to what you thought you might want to say. Be brief and get to your point directly, without lengthy introductions or digressions. Express your insights. Demonstrate that you have given some consideration to the ideas you are expressing and that you understand how these ideas relate to other ways of looking at the topic.

You must choose one of these three topics, based on classes 5 through 7.

1. Women play a peculiar role in Borys Antonenko-Davydovych's novel Duel. How does the presentation of women in this novel relate to the thematic concern with establishing one's own political loyalty?

2. Examine the character of Doctor Ivan Arnoldovich Bormenthal (Professor's Preobrazhensky’s assistant) in both the novel and the movie versions of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog. Choose no more than two or three points of comparison that help show how the two versions (novel and film) reflect different ideological positions.

3. On the internet or anywhere else, select 2 short extracts of multilingual or multisemiotic language use from different genres (e.g., informal discussion, social media, lyrics, text messages, e-mail messages etc.). Transcribe the data and provide a translation of any multilingual or multisemiotic data into English. For ethical reasons, do not reveal the identity of any real individuals. Write a short analysis describing the relationship between language practices and different identity representation based on your selected data excerpts and the articles that you have read for week 7.