Department of Russian and World literature

About department

The department initially functioned as a department of Russian and world literature. Founded in 2002, it functioned as a separate educational and scientific unit. With the opening of the Faculty of Philology in 2007, the department became part of the faculty. It has been a member of the Institute for the Humanities since 2012. Due to changes in the structure of the university, the department was subsequently reorganized into the Department of World Literature and Culture.
Being relatively small, the Department of Russian and World Literature provides scientific development and research on a fairly wide range of topical issues of modern literary criticism.

The main directions of the scientific activity of the department are due to the philological versatility, reflected in the very wording of its name.
The areas and the main developers of each of them are listed below:

  • Russian Literature of the 20th Century – Ph.D., Associate Professor M. Andreeva, Ph.D. A. Tatevosyan, Ph.D. S. Margaryan.
  • Russian literature of the 19th century - Ph.D., prof. M. Ayvazyan, Ph.D., Associate Professor R. Hayrapetyan.
  • Folklore and mythopoetics - Ph.D., prof. M. Ayvazyan, Ph.D. A. Tatevosyan.
  • Foreign Literature – Ph.D., Associate Professor L. Meliksetyan, Ph.D., Associate Professor S. Arutyunyan, Ph.D., Associate Professor N. Gonchar-Khanjyan.
  • Literary ties - Ph.D., Associate Professor Arutyunyan S.A., Ph.D., Associate Professor L. Meliksetyan.
  • Theory of Literature - Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor A. Grigoryan, Ph.D., Associate Professor L. Meliksetyan, Ph.D. A. Tatevosyan, Ph.D. S. Margaryan.
  • Culturology - Ph.D., Associate Professor Vartazaryan
  • Art History - Ph.D., Associate Professor L. Meliksetyan, Ph.D., prof. G. Margaryan.
The staff of the department come up with scientific articles and developments in all of the areas listed: there were about 100 scientific articles, monographs and manuals prepared and published in 2008-2014. There were also many foreign ones (RF, CIS, Japan) among these publications. Despite the fact that scientific research and the demand for our teachers as participants and speakers at international conferences, seminars, etc. quite eloquent in themselves, we strive to constantly improve our professional level, including through retraining courses. It should be noted that some members of the teaching staff of the department (Academician A. Grigoryan, Associate Professor L. Meliksetyan) are invited as lecturers of the FPC.
In all declared scientific areas, the department invites foreign colleagues to conduct lectures or seminars in RAU, and also regularly organizes scientific conferences, including:
  •  Literature in a Changing World is an annual conference that has been held since 2005, and covers participants from Russia, CIS countries and abroad.
  • Imagining the Landscape - an international conference organized jointly with the Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Science, September 2012.
  • Mandelstam Readings - an international conference organized with the involvement of leading Russian Mandelstam scholars , October 2011.
  • Issues of teaching the Russian language and literature in educational institutions of Armenia - international scientific and methodological conference (together with the Institute of Russian Literature of the RAU), November 2008.
  • Likhachev Readings is an international conference dedicated to the 100th anniversary of D. Likhachev, October 2006.
  • Tsvetaeva Readings - an international conference dedicated to the anniversary of M.A. Tsvetaeva, November 2002.
  • The International Forum of Translators and Publishers of the CIS and Baltic States - an annual forum for literary figures, which has been held in Yerevan,  Armenia since 2007. The forum is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture of the RA and the Interstate Fund for Humanitarian Cooperation of the CIS Member States (IFHC).
  • Organization of master classes on modern literature on a periodic basis with the participation of writers from different countries.
There are annual student scientific conferences held with the involvement of students from the Faculty of Philology and the Faculty of Journalism:
  • 2002 – a conference dedicated to the work of A. Bitov
  • 2003 - a conference dedicated to the work of F. Dostoevsky.
  • 2004-2013 – conferences on materials of the best scientific works of students.

The department regularly holds scientific and methodological seminars and round tables, including:
  • Genre originality of fantasy literature (2005)
  • Peculiarities of the Biography Genre at the Present Stage of the Literary Process (based on D. Bykov's book about B. Pasternak, T. Gevorkyan's book about M. Tsvetaeva) (2007)
  • The latest Armenian poetry in Russian (2008)
  • The main trends in the development of the latest literature (2010)

The department has repeatedly acted as a leading organization in the defense of candidate dissertations. Employees of the department regularly act as opponents of dissertations for the degree of candidate or doctor of philological sciences. The department provides reviews and feedback on textbooks and teaching aids published in the RAU and other universities of the RA.
 

Programs

Managers