GH 201: Crime and Punishment

Often called the first work of modern literature and the first psychological thriller, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is both a monument of world literature and a gripping crime story. Raskol’nikov, an impoverished student, commits murder, then descends into torments of conscience. A brilliant police investigator closes in on Raskol’nikov, while friends and family elevate his moral dilemma and his psychological need to confess the crime. Centering our focus on this great novel, with selected additional stories set in the Russian imperial capital of St. Petersburg, we will explore the role in of this city in Russian history and literature, and the role of Russian literature of this period in highlighting universal human experiences of poverty, morality, crime, human suffering, and spiritual redemption.

Instructor: Dr. Barbara Skinner

Professor Barbara Skinner (from ISU’s History Dept.) specializes in the history and culture of Russia and Eastern Europe and has published widely on religious culture in the 18th and 19th-century Russian Empire. Before earning her doctorate in history, her undergraduate and master’s degrees were in Russian and East European Area Studies at Yale and Georgetown, where some of her favorite courses were in Russian literature. She is fluent in Russian and prior to Covid and the current war in Ukraine traveled every year to St. Petersburg, Russia, to conduct her research. Given the horrific war in Ukraine and the regime of Russia’s President Putin that have revealed such a dark side of Russia today, Dr. Skinner is excited about looking back with this course to the period when Russia contributed marvelous creative works to world culture.  

Please contact Dr. Skinner if you have questions about this course.