This course focuses on the representation of (and by) women in Russian fiction and film, with special attention devoted to the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Beginning with Anna Akhmatova’s classic narrative poem Requiem, set during the darkest years of the Stalinist terror, the readings will span over five decades and take place against the backdrop of profound social, cultural and political shifts, including perestroika/glasnost of the 1980s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The texts and films covered in the course will explore such issues as family dynamics/motherhood, sexuality, work, and women’s relationship to the state. Fictional texts will be supplemented by sociological readings that illuminate the conditions of women's lives during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Students will become familiar with the works of several prominent contemporary female authors, including Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Svetlana Vasilenko, Liudmila Ulitskaia, Tatyana Tolstaya, and recent Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Svetlana Alexeivich. At the end of the quarter, we will analyze the contributions of the feminist, activist collective Pussy Riot--whose daring acts of social protest against the Putin regime have attracted international attention.