SLAVIC 182: The Political Novel
Slavic 182: The Political Novel
Fall 2024 Monday, Wednesday 12-1:15 p.m.
Prof. Jonathan Bolton (jbolton@fas.harvard.edu)
No novel can be reduced to a set of political beliefs, and yet we often feel that novels speak to our political theories and practices. What makes a novel “political”? Can the novel make a contribution to political theory? How does our understanding of political power change when we imagine detailed and dramatic confrontations between individuals and the state, individuals and empire, or individuals and global ideologies? How does narrative form reinforce or undermine ideology? What archetypal dramas—protest against authority, the loss of political innocence, the battle between tolerance and conviction—have shaped the political novel in its various traditions from the nineteenth century to the present?
We will consider these questions through some classic and lesser-known political novels from the nineteenth century to the present day. About half our works will come from Russia and East Central Europe: Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, set during the Pugachev Rebellion against the rule of Catherine the Great; Dostoevsky's existentialist classic Notes from Underground, attacking the rationalism and optimism of contemporary revolutionaries; Ivan Olbracht's Nikola the Outlaw, about a bandit fighting against ever-shifting imperial power structures in a small village; Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, about the twisted politics of the Communist International and Stalin's show trials; and Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, set in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring and the subsequent political crackdown. We will also read a number of novels from other traditions as well for comparative perspective: Ursula Le Guin's classic of political science fiction The Dispossessed, drawing on the philosophies of Russian anarchism; the alternate-history July's People by South African novelist and Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer; Don Delillo's Mao II, one of the first true "post-Cold War" political novels; and Season of the Shadow by the Cameroonian novelist Léonora Miano, reimagining the first depredations of the Atlantic slave trade in Africa as they might have appeared to a small village.
Although we will have occasional short readings in theory, our main focus will be on the attentive reading of complex literature that cannot be reduced to allegories of political conflict or unlocked through primarily "ideological" reading.
All readings will be in English.
Notes for Pre-Registration
I've given some basic information about the course here. If you have any specific questions, please don't hesitate to write to me at jbolton@fas.harvard.edu.
Tentative Reading List for Fall 2024
Aleksandr Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter (1836)
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1862)
Ivan Olbracht, Nikola the Outlaw (1933)
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (1940)
Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974)
Nadine Gordimer, July's People (1981)
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Don Delillo, Mao II (1992)
Léonora Miano, Season of the Shadow (2013)
We will occasionally supplement the novels with brief historical and theoretical readings, which will all be posted on Canvas.
For Fall 2024, this class will not have a section. As we expect a relatively small class, our regular two class meetings (MW 12-1:15) will give us plenty of time for close reading and discussion of the novels we'll be reading.
Basic Information about Course Requirements
Attendance and participation at class sessions (30 %)
Occasional Reading Journal (ungraded) (10 %)
Three short papers (two pages each): 3 x 10 % (30 %)
In-class hour exam (short-answer) on November 25 (15 %)
Final paper (five to eight pages) due during exam period (15 %)
Some course policies
Collaboration policy: You are free to discuss your journal entries with others; be sure to give credit for ideas that are not your own. All other written work (the short papers, final exam, and final paper) should be your own. Be sure you have read and understood the Harvard College Honor Code. If you have questions about plagiarism, citation, or other matters of academic integrity, please talk to one of the instructors.
AI: You may not use AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Writerly, etc., for any purpose in this class. It is okay to use spelling and grammar checkers (like Grammarly) to correct spelling errors and make minor grammatical corrections.
Screens: Please do not use laptops, mobile phones, or other screen-based devices during class.