RUTR 2730

This course at the 2000 level is pretty easy and interesting. You just read a short story or part of a novel for each class and the professor will lecture for some time and there'll usually be some group discussion. The grade's just made up of various ways to earn participation points, two mini projects where you create a profile for one of the characters from the literature, and two exams (a midterm and a final) that you can take from home. You don't need to know Russian for this course, so if you like reading and are interested in some fictional stories to break up the rest of your homework, I would recommend this course. I personally found some of his later works especially to be less interesting/captivating and more philosophical/religious than I had expected, but that all just comes down to personal taste. The readings can get pretty heavy at times as well, but you'll be fine as long as you get the general concepts by the time you take the exam.
#tCFspring2022

Dr. Stuart is one of the best professors I've had at UVA. She is incredibly kind, and compassionate, and it is very clear she loves the material she is teaching. As an instructor, she is super organized, and makes class expectations, schedule, and grading scale very clear. She truly cares about the experience you have in the class and genuinely wants everyone to succeed, and gain the same appreciation for Russian lit that she has.

The class is reading-intensive, but not impossible. Lectures are always based on the author/themes found in the week’s assignment and if you haven’t done the reading yet, it’s not as interesting (so do the reading!). I personally found the lectures super helpful in understanding the readings (some of them are dense), and I think Dr. Stuart did a great job with researching different opinions on the literature, providing different interpretations, and really getting students to see the parallels between Dostoevsky and the other authors we read. If you are interested in philosophy, human psychology, or literature in general, this class will be enjoyable. The books/stories are easy to get really invested in if you give yourself the time to read them, and the discussions are really insightful if you have a good group of students.

Class consists of lecture, with some group work in breakout rooms. The weekly discussion is mostly answering questions about the reading and discussing questions provided by the TA. Full participation points are given if you speak at least once. Throughout the semester, you have a couple assignments, and you’re given free-reign to choose which piece of literature you want to do each assignment on. There were three quizzes over the course of the semester, which are the closest thing you get to an exam, and the quizzes are generally just term identification. Dr. Stuart gives everyone a list ahead of time with everything that you might expect to find on the quiz, and if you’ve taken good notes during the lectures, you have nothing to worry about.

Whether you’re a Russian major or not, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND taking this class. You get to explore a lot of dark themes and characters, which is fun, and Dostoevsky has interesting takes on morality, human suffering, and free will which you will carry beyond this class.