Instructions:
For your midterm project, you will take on the role of a Soviet cultural official, while your colleagues will serve as the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Your task is to report to the Central Committee on a particular aspect of Soviet culture. You may choose:
- An object, such as a traditional craft, like a rug, a teapot, or a musical instrument, or a traditional item of clothing, like a veil, embroidered shirt, or folk costume
- A genre, such as literature, poetry, folk tales, folk music (or a particular song), folk dance, a traditional style of theatrical or musical performance, or celebration of a traditional festival
- An institution, such as a school or university, a union, a theater, a museum, or a monument commemorating an important person or event
- A policy, such as korenizatsiia (indigenization), the creation of an autonomous region, standardization of a language (possibly including creation of a new alphabet), an anti-religious campaign
- Something else! If you choose this option, you will need to get my approval first.
In your report, you will need to discuss the origins of your chosen object, genre, institution, or policy, as well as its evolution under Soviet power. Further, you will need to make an argument for how this particular aspect of Soviet culture works to strengthen Soviet power in the region in which it operates. The members of the Central Committee will ask you some follow-up questions, which you should be prepared to answer.
*I will be happy to meet with you any time between now and the due date to discuss your topic and any questions you may have about this assignment!
Details:
This assignment requires you to do some research on your own. It is not a major research project, but you will need to do enough outside reading to be able to describe your subject well and explain its function as an aspect of Soviet nationalities policy. I recommend that you consult with the Reference Librarians in the Library for help in locating sources.
Your report to the Central Committee will take the form of a 15-minute oral presentation. You are welcome to write out a script or improvise from notes—whatever is most comfortable for you. Keep in mind that your 15 minutes includes the Central Committee’s questions, so you should plan to speak for 10-12 minutes total.
You will also create a page on our class blog to accompany and illustrate your report. Your webpage should include 1000-1200 words of text. I also encourage you to include some for of media, including images, audio files, video clips, or all of the above. In giving your report, please don’t just read the text on your webpage. Rather, use the page as an illustration, and think of the text as a Wikipedia-type source that your colleagues can refer back to later on, if they want to remember something you discussed. *If you have any questions about how to build a webpage, you can contact Reed’s Digital Media Specialist, Tony Moreno (tmoreno@reed.edu).
Last but not least, please have fun! I have designed this assignment to be flexible, and I welcome you to be creative with it!
Presentation Dates
Since there are 13 people in this class, we can’t quite fit everyone into Week 7. That means we will need to colonize part of Week 6, as well. You will give your presentation on either March 1, March 6, or March 8. I will pass around a sign-up sheet in class and post it on the blog.
