This graduate course explores classics of Russian literature and Russian literary theory in their own right and as material meant to prompt comparative analysis with each student's area of academic interest. The course considers major Russian literary texts which exemplify key trends in Russian literary culture - the fantastic and the absurd in literary mythmaking (the "St. Petersburg myth"); Realism, revolutionary utopianism, and its discontents; the Soviet experience from revolutionary avant-garde modernism to Stalinist Socialist Realism; Russian Eurasianism and post-Soviet postmodernism. The course will also explore relevant works of Russian literary criticism by noted critics of the 19th century, Russian Formalists, Soviet Semioticians, Russian Eurasianists, and others.