Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Bridging Two Fields: Game Theory And Crime And Punishment, Sarah Matthews, Mark Purves

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Many scholars have drawn on the tools of Game Theory to explore the Humanities as a whole, but have failed to make sense of the great contributions of Russian literature. In fact, the only two articles dealing with Russian literary works and Game Theory were made in 1968 and 1988. Therefore, the purpose of our project was to frame Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment through a reading of Game Theory. Approaching the novel in this light allowed us to better understand Raskolnikov’s behavior and the moral implications of his actions and the novel itself.

Borscht, Bliny, And Burritos: The Benefits Of Peer-To-Peer Experiential Learning Through Food, Naomi Caffee, Colleen Lucey

Russian Language Journal

Like other disciplines in the humanities, Russian Studies faces an ongoing crisis of recruiting and retaining majors and minors for the longevity of undergraduate programs (Looney and Lusin 2018). Shrinking budgets and limited resources compound the problem as language and culture departments across the United States are asked to do more with fewer resources (Gerber 2015). In the context of an increasingly corporatized academy where language and cultural studies are marginalized, faculty in Russian Studies have a powerful means at their disposal to attract new students and build cross-campus alliances: the common language of food. Courses on foodways can reinvigorate …

Defining The Accessibility Of A Literary Text: Contemporary Russian Literature In A Cefr B2 Russian As A Foreign Language Classroom, Sofya Yunusova

Russian Language Journal

In the last three and a half decades, a considerable number of publications in foreign-language methodology have addressed the use of literary texts (LTs) in foreign-language classrooms. While at the beginning of the twentieth century learning a foreign language still meant a close study of canonical LTs for linguistic and humanistic purposes following the grammar-translation method (Kramsch and Kramsch 2000; Iatsenko 2017b), by the middle of the century, literature was replaced by more functional models of learning (Carter 2007). The 1980s opened new perspectives on the didactic role of L2 literary reading, which are commonly associated with the confluence of …

Introduction

Russian Language Journal

The editorial team of Russian Language Journal is pleased to present volume 68. This issue sees five articles received through our regular blind review process, one review article, and five book reviews.

In our first section on Pedagogy and Practice, Yunusova provides a theoretical framework for assessing the appropriateness of literary texts for use in foreign language classrooms. Caffee and Lucey describe an innovative peer-to-peer experiential learning project based around foodways. Both of these articles should provide concrete and innovative ideas for Russian language classrooms.

Our second section on Linguistics, contains three articles. Soboleva tackles the thorny question of aspect, …

Cherchez La Femme! Cherchez Laura A. Janda!, Michal Korenar

Russian Language Journal

In The Mohicans of Paris (1871), Dumas’s detective concludes at some point that a woman was necessarily involved in an investigated crime, leading him to famously exclaim: “Cherchez la femme!”, which is translated to English as “Look for the woman!” (Horn, 1991). One does not need to be an actual detective to reveal the purpose of the reviewed book Each Venture a New Beginning: Studies in Honor of Laura A. Janda. Needless to say, I do not want to imply in any way that Janda has committed a crime. Still, I find the expression rather apposite because the reader can …

Review: A Convenient Territory: Russian Literature At The Edge Of Modernity, Joe Peschio

Russian Language Journal

The Festschrift is an odd, performative genre, and it tends to comprise loose collections of gestures—gestures of gratitude, gestures of respect, gestures of celebration. Not so with this Festschrift. With only a few exceptions, the works here are very form- and literature-centric, something as rare these days as it is welcome. This is as good a reflection as any of the honoree’s place in our field. As the astonishing bibliography of Barry Scherr’s works at the end of the book attests, he has been a strong force in formal analysis, poetics, exact methods, and, in general, empirically minded literary scholarship …

Загадки “Слинкса” (Slynx) Татьяны Толстой. Дешифровка Мифологии Романа “Кысь” В Переводах На Французский И Английский Языки, Филипп Фризон, Елена Гаврилова

Russian Language Journal

“Кысь” (фр. Le Slynx, англ. The Slynx) - первый роман Т.Н. Толстой, увидевший свет в 2000 г. Его появление не осталось незамеченным: в следующем году книга стала победителем конкурса “Лучшие издания XIV Московской международной книжной выставки- ярмарки” (г. Москва) в номинации “Проза-2001” и удостоена литературной премии “Триумф”. На французском языке “Кысь” вышла в 2002 г. в переводе с комментариями Кристофа Глоговски, на английском - в 2003 г. в переводе Джейми Гэмбрелл, без комментариев, но с перечнем цитат в приложении. Предметом рассмотрения настоящей статьи стали именно иронические и фольклорные моменты повествования и подход французского и английского переводчиков в их стремлении передать …

Review: Limits To Interpretation: The Meanings Of Anna Karenina; Russian Science Fiction Literature And Cinema: A Critical Reader, Serenity Stanton Orengo, Alla A. Smyslova

Russian Language Journal

Limits to Interpretation is a staple of Tolstoy scholarship. Newly reprinted in paperback, it is worth revisiting, even for those already familiar with this work. Alexandrov’s aim in the book, outlined on the first page, is to “propose a text-specific reading methodology, one that is tailored as much as possible to a particular work, and that is thus designed to minimize the circularity of interpretation, or the process of mediation, inherent in any act of reading” (3). Alexandrov seeks to demonstrate how a work of literature can prompt a fixed range of contradictory and divergent interpretations simultaneously. He wants to …

Вторичные Имперфективы В Системе Русского Глагола В Свете Классификации Глагольных Предикатов По Вендлеру, Валентина C. Соболева

Russian Language Journal

В данной статье представлена попытка проанализировать семантические особенности вторичных имперфективов и их видо- вых коррелятов на основе классификации глагольных предикатов по Вендлеру.1 Следует отметить, что наличие в аспектологической литературе необозримого количества исследований по самым разным вопросам, касающимся функционирования категории глагольного вида в русском языке, говорит о том, что в данной области многие кардинальные проблемы остаются нерешёнными, включая как видовую парность глаголов при наличии видовых троек и одновидовых глаголов, так и семантическое содержание каждого вида.2 И, наверное, в связи с нерешённостью этих кардинальных вопросов, глаголам вторичной имперфективации не уделяется достаточного внимания, хотя некоторые исследователи отмечали «загадочное» поведение вторичных имперфективов (О. Swan, …

Review: Studies In Phonological Theory And Historical Linguistics, James Joshua Pennington

Russian Language Journal

This volume represents a definitive collection of Bill Darden’s research over his career of more than forty years as a linguist. The book is divided along his main areas of expertise into two parts: (1) “Historical Linguistics,” consisting of 17 chapters that cover a variety of problematic issues in Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, and Slavic historical phonology, morphology, and syntax; and (2) “Phonological Theory,” comprising 10 articles, which illustrate Darden’s approach to tackling difficult issues in phonological theory through examples from Russian and Greenlandic.

Cultural Differences In Russian And American Magazine Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach, Emily Furner

Russian Language Journal

Though some may think that TRANSLATION and LOCALIZATION are two words that represent the same function, many scholars make a distinction between the two terms, and some even add a third term, GLOBALIZATION, into the mix. Translator and localization specialist Bert Esselink (1998) perhaps best defined the distinctions in these terms: Globalization […] is typically used in a sales and marketing context, i.e., it is the process by which a company breaks free of the home markets to pursue business opportunities wherever their customers may be located. Translation is the process of converting written or displayed text or spoken words …

Review: Russian Science Fiction Literature And Cinema: A Critical Reader, Alla A. Smyslova, Alexandra Portice

Russian Language Journal

Anindita Banerjee’s critical reader provides excellent insight into the development of science fiction literature and cinema in Russia from the early nineteenth century all the way to the mid-2000s. The book features four sections, each of them comprising four articles by different authors, and an introduction from the editor. The latter provides a brief but brilliant overview of Russian nauchnaia fantastika, or “scientific fantasy,” positioning it within the context of literary, social, and scientific life in the USSR, as well as outlining the existing scholarship on the topic. From the very beginning, when the genre first emerged at the turn …

Full Issue

Russian Language Journal

No abstract provided.