82-398 Love, Sex, and the Avant-Garde in Pre-Revolutionary Russia

6 units, Carnegie Mellon University

The Silver Age of the late nineteenth century began a sexual revolution in Russia. It encompassed daring experimentation with prevailing cultural forms and content. Poets, writers, painters, and musicians rebelled against traditional conventions to create a new and exciting avant garde, which nurtured a new erotic sensibility. This course focuses on the erotic aspects of Russian cultural production in this period, including the link between eroticism and decadence. We will explore the literary and philosophical texts of leading writers, poets, and philosophers. We will study the eroticism of the Silver Age within its larger European context, examining its relationship to Freudianism, as well as prominent new ideas about death and history.

Prerequisites: none listed

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