CMPL 242 - From Pushkin to Pussy Riot: Literature Meets Music in Russia and Beyond

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
What happens to a literary text when it becomes part of a musical piece? What does an “anti-opera” sound like? What makes music socialist, formalist, or post-modernist? From the classical texts by Pushkin and Gogol that inspired Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, to Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, to prison memoirs of feminist rockers who dared to perform a “punk prayer” in the major Moscow cathedral, this course explores the rich tradition of literary and musical encounters, leading to a broader discussion of the relationship between the written word and sound in a larger context of art, society, and politics.

This course is appropriate for new students.
This course is cross-listed with RUSS-242