This course offers an historical outline of Russian perceptions of Europe. It examines Russian travel narratives of Europe from the 18th to the 20th century and discusses Westernizing, Slavophile, and Eurasianist strains in Russian thought. Course readings include texts by such major Russian cultural figures as Princess Dashkova, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Joseph Brodsky and many more. This is an intensive course of eight seminars (two per each session) with each session including a lecture and discussion about course readings. 

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.

This course brings key concepts in International Relations into a dialogue with events and dynamics in Russian and European relations. We will familiarize ourselves with concepts such as integration, empire, foreign policy, globalization, hegemony, human rights, levels of analysis, nationalism, peace and war, power, sovereignty, territoriality, and borders.

The course is compulsory for RES Master's Programme students. Other students should sign-up by 3.9. (anni.kangas@uta.fi).

This lecture series looks into the changes and constants in the gender system of the Soviet Union and modern-day Russia. The lectures offer a chronological overview of the symbolic meanings of gender, the ways gender relations are constructed, and the fluidity of gender and sexuality. The course focuses on examining the gender system of contemporary Russia, but students will also familiarise themselves with the key concepts and theories of gender studies and consider their explanatory power in interpreting socialist and post-socialist gender politics.

Preliminary programme:

Introduction: The legacy and significance of Pussy Riot ( Prof.Arja Rosenholm)

Gender System in Late Socialism (Prof. Suvi Salmenniemi)

Perestroika and the representation of femininity (Dr. Saara Ratilainen)

Upwardly mobile women: Celebrity, glamour and gender in post-Soviet Russia (Dr. Saara Ratilainen)

Fashion, Gender and Class in Russia (Dr. Olga Gurova)

Gender, Generation and Political Activism in Russia (Dr. Laura Lyytikäinen)

Women's literature as Cultural Resistance (Dr. Marja Sorvari)

Russian family culture in the midst of post-socialist and transnational changes: anthropological perspective  (DrTatiana Tiaynen)

Orthodox materiality in Russian women’s everyday religion: transnational family-making and self-therapy  (Dr. Tatiana Tiaynen)

Conclusion and discussion (Arja Rosenholm and Saara Ratilainen)

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.

This course focuses on current labour market trends in the post-Soviet geographical space, concentrating mainly on Russian, Baltic and Central Asian labour markets. The course starts from the Soviet organisation of work, labour processes, management and industrial relations system. Then, the transitional period of the 1990s is considered, particularly how the Soviet labour market legacies affected the post-Soviet work models. The main emphasis of the course will be on contemporary macro tendencies of cross-country migration - which takes place especially between the Central Asian countries and Russia - segmentation of labour, gender roles, weakening role of the trade unions, and VET (vocational education and training) in the post-socialist countries.

The modes of study in this course are participation to the lectures and writing a 10-page essay based on the lectures, given sources and additional material.

Essay: written on a particular topic or theme. The objective of an essay is  to survey the literature or other material in a particular field. When preparing an essay, the student is expected to clearly define and limit the topic or theme of the essay, to examine and analyse the relevant material and prepare a presentation on the basis of this analysis.

The student should, moreover, familiarise herself with the relevant debates in her field and, insofar as it is possible, consider her own findings in the light of the arguments presented and questions raised in these debates. This procedure also allows the student to show that she is aware of the canonical publications and the current themes discussed in her field.

A presentation that relies entirely on either reporting the contents of the material under inspection or on the student’s personal opinions does not fulfil the requirements for an essay.

The deadline for writing the essay is the end of period III, 6th March 2016.

The course is part of the Master's degree programme in Russian and European Studies (RES). RES students have priority to the course, but other students are welcome to join.

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.

The course is part of the Master's degree programme in Russian and European Studies (RES). RES students have priority to the course, but other students are welcome to join.