RUSSL 3389

The Revolutionary as Author: Autobiography and Political Myth

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2024-2025 Catalog. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

In this course, we will read some of the most influential examples of a genre at the intersection of literature and history: the memoir of the revolutionary. Along the way, we will consider some of the fictional works (e.g. by Turgenev, Dostoevsky) that have been important in this nonfictional tradition, as well as poetry produced by the revolutionary currents we discuss. As we study the autobiographies of Russian, American, and German leftist political figures like Piotr Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Ernst Toller, and Angela Davis, we will consider the literary methods these writers use to intertwine their own life stories with political history. How is life-writing a form of revolutionary self-fashioning? How have literary movements intersected with revolutionary writings? With special attention to the questions of gender, ethnicity, and race.

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP, 2024SP

Distribution Category (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (CA-AG, HA-AG, LA-AG)

When Offered Spring.

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