| Unit name | Dress and Identity in Russia through the Ages |
|---|---|
| Unit code | RUSS30086 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Green |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of Russian |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
Can we judge a person by their clothes? In fact, we probably can’t help it. Clothes are at the boundary between a person and society. We fashion our identities by what we choose to wear, while society sets its expectations for what is suitable or required in any given context. We’re all adept, to varying degrees, at reading each other’s dress with these factors in mind.
In Russia, clothes have been used by rulers to establish their narratives of rule while others have used their dress choices to carve out their own, opposing identities. This unit will give you the tools to examine dress choices throughout Russian history in the context of these power dynamics as state and society negotiated identities concerning social status, occupation, politics, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity, among others. It requires you to work across traditional disciplinary boundaries to examine dress within its various contexts.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
This unit provides a unique perspective on Russian culture, allowing students in the Russian department to extend their historical understanding and analysis to material culture. It also serves as an introductory course on Russian history and culture for those who have never studied Russia before. Readings are available in English and the unit is open to students across the Faculty of Arts.
An overview of content
Dress has played a significant role in Russian cultural history. Emperors and Empresses carefully shaped not only their own images through their clothes, but also sought to impose dress codes on their subjects. Meanwhile, many people had their own identities they wished to shape and display. Later, the Soviet leadership saw the transformation of everyday life, including dress, to be central to their project to build a new society. In this unit, we will examine dress choices over several centuries of Russian history. Each week will be organised around a different topic. Topics will vary from year to year, but may include ‘Court Dress’, ‘18C Europeanisation and its Consequences’, ‘The Fashion Press’, ‘Slavophiles and Westernisers’, ‘Technology, Capitalism, and Dressmaking’, ‘Revolutionary Dress’, ‘Countercultural Communist Clothing’, and ‘Protest Fashion’. We will examine a range of artefacts such as paintings, laws, coronation albums, traveller’s notes, and literature.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit
This unit gives you an opportunity to examine Russian history and culture from a unique perspective. It also prompts you to examine the dress culture you are a part of and to see material culture as a shaper of and reflection of people’s identities. It equips you to think critically about what constitutes a social context and how identities are expressed.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Each week, you will have two hours of teaching that will include, broadly, three types of learning: lecture, discussion, and presentation.
Lecture: Lectures equip you with foundational subject knowledge. Far from being a passive mode of learning, lectures help you build critical analysis and evidence-gathering skills by modelling textual interpretation and posing key questions related to the discipline. We will often have a lecture followed by plenary or small-group activities. The lectures will provide the basic contextual knowledge that will facilitate the analysis of specific documents.
Discussion: discussions are a student-centred mode of learning. You will discuss key questions about the texts, developing, sharing and defending your own arguments as we discuss the material together as a class, and/or in pairs and small groups.
Presentation: All students will deliver a presentation. Through participation in presentations, both as a presenter and an audience member, you will become familiar with the key critical debates on the topic and learn to engage with and critique existing ideas. You will also sharpen your presentation skills.
Beyond the classroom, you will devote much time to primary and secondary reading, essential in the humanities. You should anticipate reading in a number of different genres and media: play texts, memoirs, manifestos, visual illustrations, video clips, scholarly articles and book chapters. Reading is sometimes misunderstood as a ‘passive’ activity, but engaged reading is an active process, as you will not only be expanding your subject knowledge, but also developing your sense of empathy, imagination and critical judgment judgement.
In total, you will have 22 hours of class teaching and 178 hours of independent learning.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
There will be in-class formative discussions on how to read and present on dress artefacts and sources.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
1 x 10-15 minute presentation (20%) followed by 1000-word write-up in a blog post under which you will be expected to respond to reader comments (30%) [ILOs 1, 2, and 3]
1 x 2500-word research essay on a topic developed independently (50%) [ILOs 1, 2, 3, and 4]
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. RUSS30086).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The assessment methods listed in this unit specification are designed to enable students to demonstrate the named learning outcomes (LOs). Where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, schools will make reasonable adjustments to support a student to demonstrate the LO by an alternative method or with additional resources.
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
