This course looks at the new Russia, which emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that new Russia’s relationship to literature – at the new kinds of writing, new markets, new means of distribution and new roles for writers. The course will examine the way that writers responded to transformation, crisis, and the creation of a new socio-political and economic environment for literature. Belles lettres dealing with old and new issues (among them: the situation of Russian women, the fate of the Russian countryside and the Russian provinces, new and not-so-new ideas about sexuality, Russia’s ethnic diversity, Russia’s relationship to its history and religion(s)) will be read and the position of authors discussed.