order online	Modern Russian Culture A Course of Ideas and Images by Lauren G. Leighton
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Modern Russian Culture is an audio-visual, multi-disciplinary course of thirty-eight lectures on modern Russian culture (from the eighteenth century to our time) presented in a series of Video DVDs and one Reference Disc (DVD-ROM or CD-ROM) with high quality photographic images, CD-quality music and narration, and hypertext-linked notes. The lectures are divided into five thematic units:

MOSCOW
Lecture I. Moscow: Red Square
Lecture II. Moscow: Kremlin. Part 1
Lecture III. Moscow: Kremlin. Part 2
Lecture IV. Neoclassical Moscow
Lecture V. Modern Moscow. Part 1
Lecture VI. Modern Moscow. Part 2

PETERSBURG
Lecture VII. Petersburg: Nevsky Prospect
Lecture VIII. Petersburg: Nevsky Ensembles
Lecture IX. Petersburg: Central Squares. Part 1
Lecture X. Petersburg: Central Squares. Part 2
Lecture XI. Petersburg: Admiralty Side
Lecture XII. Petersburg: Island and Fortress
Lecture XIII. Russian Architectural Ensembles

SOVIET RUSSIA
Lecture XIV. Soviet Cities
Lecture XV. Socialist Construction
Lecture XVI. Science City
Lecture XVII. Rural Russia. Part 1
Lecture XVIII. Rural Russia. Part 2
Lecture XIX. Down along the Mother Volga

RUSSIA IN ART
Lecture XX. Rural Russia in Art: Seasons
Lecture XXI. Rural Russia in Art: Land and Water
Lecture XXII. Peasant Life in Art
Lecture XXIII. Russian History in Art
Lecture XXIV. Social Conscience in Art
Lecture XXV. Religion in Art
Lecture XXVI. Russians in Art
Lecture XXVII. Russian Portraits
Lecture XXVIII. Foreign, Striking, Exotic
Lecture XXIX. The Russian Avant Garde

RUSSIA IN TRANSITION
Lecture XXX. Agitation and Propaganda. Lenin
Lecture XXXI. Agitation and Propaganda. Spirit of the Times
Lecture XXXII. Agitation and Propaganda. Demonstrations
Lecture XXXIII. Glasnost: "Forward to the Past"
Lecture XXXIV. The Soviet Market
Lecture XXXV. The New Russian Market
Lecture XXXVI. Russia in Turmoil: August 1991
Lecture XXXVII. Russia in Turmoil: Black October
Lecture XXXVIII. Russia in Turmoil: "The Party is Over"

Each lecture offers 25 to 30 images with informational captions and a note which is intended to be both specific (what the work of art or architecture is) and elaborative (what the work's significance or historical-cultural context are).

The slide notes are linked to a collection of supporting texts--brief biographies of Russian rulers, artists, and architects; explanations of historical and cultural background; a bibliography of recommended reading; and an alphabetical index of buildings, monuments, and paintings presented in the course.

All texts are in English, with Russian equivalents provided for the names of monuments and buildings, titles of paintings, and names of the artists and architects.

Modern Russian Culture was first conceived and created as a course for undergraduates at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where the author, Lauren G. Leighton, taught during the last two decades of the previous century. (His 17-page article, "A Syllabus for the Audio-Visual Russian Culture Course" is available here as an Acrobat document.) For the present multimedia edition, the slides were reviewed, renewed, and digitized; many were replaced by digital photography and modern scans; and the texts were thoroughly revised. Almost 1000 high resolution images are included in this course.

In this audio-visual course you will be taken on a journey from the high culture of Moscow and Petersburg architecture to the everyday culture of Soviet Russia to Russia as it was seen by great Russian artists and back down again to the everyday reality of Russia in the 1990s when it was transformed by the democratic movement.

Student Edition ISBN 1-58269-025-1 In English includes Reference Disc on CD-ROM order online for $49 Bookstore Edition ISBN 1-58269-041-3 order online for $10 (10 copies minumum)	Library Edition ISBN 1-58269-026-X In English includes Reference Disc on DVD-ROM and five Video DVDs. Order online now for $250 (save $50). Each disc may also be ordered separately for $50.
System Requirements for the Student Edition Microsoft Windows (all versions, including Vista, XP, NT and 2003) or Mac OS X Display with at least 16-bit color (thousands of colors); 24-bit color is recommended Desktop sized at least 1024 x 768 (Desktop size is sometimes called "screen resolution.") 10 MB of free memory (RAM) A 350 MHz processor will provide acceptable performance; a faster processor is recommended. CD-ROM drive The Student Edition includes two versions of the Reference Disc: "large" for displays with the desktop sized 1600 x 1200 and "medium" for smaller desktops. The "large" version has significantly larger images; otherwise the contents of the two discs are identical. The Bookstore Edition includes only the "medium" disc. Sound card is not required as neither sound nor motion video is included in the Student edition. Please read about the Library Edition.	System Requirements for the Library Edition Microsoft Windows (all versions, including Vista, XP, NT and 2003) or Mac OS X Display with at least 16-bit color (thousands of colors); 24-bit color is recommended Desktop sized at least 1024 x 768 (Desktop size is sometimes called "screen resolution.") 10 MB of free memory (RAM) A 350 MHz processor will provide acceptable performance; a faster processor is recommended. DVD drive for using the Reference Disc DVD drive and video-DVD playback software for using the video DVDs; they can also be used with any consumer DVD player. Our DVDs are manufactured (pressed) just like the ones you rent from your local video store. The discs are NTSC (the U.S. consumer standard) and are not restricted to any particular region.
About the Student Edition The Reference Disc (CD-ROM) contains the nearly 1,000 high-resolution images and all textual materials in the course. The annotated images are organized into 38 lectures, further broken into five thematic units as shown in the table of contents, above. The texts are presented as slide-by-slide on-screen comments and also as a separate collection of linked background notes that can be browsed by subject and searched for any name, term, word, or phrase. This disc should be used on a Windows or Macintosh computer that meets the system requirements, above. This edition can be used systematically by students, teachers, library patrons, or enthusiasts as an introduction to modern Russian culture, or simply to satisfy passing curiosity which might hopefully become serious interest. The five sets of lectures alternate between "high" and "low" culture: the history and character of Russian culture as represented by its two most prominent cities; the problems of urban and rural Russian society in the everyday reality of material environment (byt); Russian culture as seen by artists; Soviet and Russian street markets; and the turbulent democratization of Russian society and culture during the two most recent decades. This general organization of lectures in terms of high and low is based on a principle of alternation which is repeated throughout: old and new, native and foreign, urban and rural, authoritarian and libertarian... Although an attempt has been made to be thorough and coherent, such exigencies as lack of available images and prohibitive costs of copyright fees have resulted in a few lapses, not least among these being the omission of Soviet, dissident, and post-Soviet art.	About the Library Edition As in the Student Edition, the Reference Disc (DVD-ROM) contains the nearly 1,000 high-resolution images and all textual materials in the course. The annotated images are organized into 38 lectures, further broken into five thematic units as shown in the table of contents, above. The texts are presented as slide-by-slide comments and also as a separate collection of linked background notes that can be browsed by subject and searched for any name, term, word, or phrase. This disc should be used on a Windows or Macintosh computer that meets the system requirements, above. The same images were used to produce five video DVDs containing thirty-eight narrated lectures. These lectures are self-running slide shows where each image is accompanied by a brief comment recorded by the author. Comments are often based on the slide-by-slide notes available on the Reference Disc, but do not include the factual details presented in the notes. Thus the Reference Disc and the video DVDs are complementary and do not duplicate each other. Each narrated lecture on the DVDs is about twelve to fifteen minutes long. The DVDs also contain musical interludes that present works of several Russian composers. If the images in this course are presented with a projection system for a live audience, the interludes may be used before or after the presentation; a selection of related slides is shown while the music plays. The Reference Disc in this edition can be used systematically by students, teachers, library patrons, or enthusiasts as an introduction to modern Russian culture, or simply to satisfy passing curiosity which might hopefully become serious interest. The high-tech multimedia DVDs can be used by professors to intensify their lectures, by librarians who wish to broaden and add variety to their holdings, and by others who seek a more intense experience of modern Russian culture as a basis for continuing study.

Funding for this project was generously provided by The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning.