Ivan S. Eubanks, Ph. D.

Writing & Research Seminars

• CAS WR 150:  Russian Literary Masterpieces:  Alexander Pushkin (Boston University) Spring 2010.
• CAS WR 150: Boston's Museums & Art Collections (Boston University) Fall 2009.
• CAS WR 150: Painting, Poetry & Myth (Boston University) Summer 2009, Spring 2009.
• CAS WR 150: Masterpieces of Russian Prose: 19th - 20th Centuries (Boston University) Spring 2009.

Writing Seminars

• CAS WR 100: Russian Literary Masterpieces: 19th Century (Boston University) Fall 2009, Fall 2008.
• CAS WR 100: Painting, Poetry & Myth (Boston University) Fall 2008.

Art History & Literature Surveys

• Myth in Art: Blind Seers Wandering (New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts) Summer 2007, Spring 2008.

Art History

• Movements in Russian Art (1860 - 1950): Realism, the Avant-Garde, Socialist Realism (New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts) Fall 2007.

Russian Literature

• COM 415: Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, and the Tasks of Literature (Princeton University) Spring 2004.
• SLA 319: The History of Russian Literature before 1860 (Princeton University) Fall 2003.

Russian Language

• RUS 102: Beginner's Russian II (Princeton University) Spring 2003.
• RUS 101: Beginner's Russian I (Princeton University) Fall 2002.

• Boston’s Museums & Art Collections (CAS Writing Program at Boston University, 2009).  A writing and research seminar that explores the collections, histories and current exhibits of the following institutions:  The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; The Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum; and Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Arts.  The institutions covered vary by section, but in all cases readings include relevant art historical and museum studies readings.
• Painting, Poetry & Myth (CAS Writing Program at Boston University, 2008).  A seminar designed to teach students the basic skills and historical knowledge necessary for researching and writing about monuments of Western culture.  The content is presented synchronically, and the dialogues among drama, poetry, sculpture and painting are always central.  We may read Ovid’s Metamoprhoses, for example, in conjunction Renaissance painting and modern poetry as well as ancient Greek texts and sculptures.  The myths covered vary by section, but in all cases readings involve relevant secondary literature and theory.
• Movements in Russian Art (1860 – 1953):  Realism, the Avant-Garde, Socialist Realism (New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, 2007).  This course examines the political, ethical and aesthetic dimensions of three periods in Russian painting.  We start with Realism, studying the “Itinerant” painters (the Peredvizhniki) within their cultural and historical context as well as the liberal thinkers who influenced them. We then juxtapose Russian Realism with subsequent movements, both those that rejected it (the Russian Avant-Garde—Primitivism, Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Rayonism, etc.) as well as those that adopted it and modified it for political purposes (Socialist Realism).  Readings include work by art historians and literary scholars, artists’ manifestos, and contemporary essays, reviews, pamphlets and journals.
• Myth in Art:  Blind Seers Wandering (New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, 2007).  The first portion of this course focuses on each episode in the saga of Thebes, beginning with Europa’s abduction and ending with Antigone’s suicide, as represented in both modern and ancient art and literature.  Primary materials are presented as elements of the overall narrative in the sequence of the events they depict.  The latter portion of the course focuses on modern adaptations of the myth’s thematic structure and plot, such as Shakespeare’s King Lear and Hamlet, Voltaire’s Oedipe, and others.  Secondary literature includes art historical texts, literary criticism, theory on the nature of language and myth, and other relevant essays (e.g., excerpts from Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams).