Imperfect Murder: Reading Crime and Punishment
Module title | Imperfect Murder: Reading Crime and Punishment |
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Module code | MLR2025 |
Academic year | 2024/5 |
Credits | 15 |
Module staff | Professor Muireann Maguire (Convenor) |
Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
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Duration: Weeks | 11 |
Number students taking module (anticipated) | 20 |
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Module description
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is a classic novel. It’s also a murder mystery with a detective, a psychological thriller with a haunted hero, a critique of the sexual exploitation of women, a dreamlike portrait of St Petersburg – and a story of student debt. The hero, Raskolnikov, kills an old pawnbroker because he has no money to pay his university fees. What happens next is gripping…
Through close readings and seminar discussions of this fascinating novel, you will analyse literary style, identify subtexts, subplots, and character archetypes, and gain confidence accessing and evaluating critical literature. This module is open to students from outside Russian and so no prior knowledge of Russian required, but students of Russian should consult the texts in Russian.
Module aims - intentions of the module
- To introduce you to essential skills in literary study, including close reading, critical analysis, and recognition of key subtexts.
- To analyse the functions of plot, narrative, and style within a literary text.
- To analyse literary texts in their intellectual, social, and political context.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate familiarity with and understanding of selected texts and key aspects of their historical, literary and cultural context
- 2. Describe and evaluate under guidance from course tutor(s) key critical responses to the topic and apply standard critical approaches to the material
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Prepare an argument in an appropriate register applying basic textual evidence
- 4. Access and evaluate secondary critical texts
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Demonstrate understanding of primary text and engagement with secondary material by preparing written and/or oral critical analysis to a specified deadline and length
- 6. Through module work and group presentations, demonstrate communication skills, and an ability to work both individually and in groups
Syllabus plan
The initial lectures will introduce the historical background to the novel Crime and Punishment, including Dostoevsky’s biography and Russian culture and society in the mid-nineteenth century, then will consolidate this material, explain the structure of the course, and allocate students to seminar presentations. Subsequent lectures will explore the novel’s major themes, followed by a concluding lecture.
In biweekly 2-hour seminars, students will analyse and discuss key themes and characters from the novel in the context of narrative analysis and/or sociohistorical issues, typically covering the following topics:
- Who Was Dostoevsky? Approaches to his critical and ethical legacy
- Napoleon or louse: what motivates Raskolnikov’s crime?
- Sonia and the portrayal of female characters in the novel
- The role of urban spaces in the construction of narrative
- The problem of character archetypes in Dostoevsky’s novel
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
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16 | 134 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
Category | Hours of study time | Description |
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Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 6 | 6 x 1-hour lectures |
Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 10 | 5 x 2-hour seminars |
Guided Independent Study | 134 | Independent study in preparation for seminar discussion and coursework |
Formative assessment
Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
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Commentary on a selected chapter from Crime and Punishment | 500 words | 1-6 | Written feedback |
Class presentation on one of the five seminar themes | 10 minutes | 1-6 | Oral feedback from course tutor and peers; written feedback from tutor |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
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100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
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Essay | 100 | 2500 words | 1-6 | Written feedback |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
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Essay (2500 words) | Essay (2500 words) | 1-6 | Referral/Deferral period |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (preferably the 2014 Penguin translation by Oliver Ready). The Russian text is available here: https://ilibrary.ru/text/69/index.html
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
- ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
- http://www.mappingpetersburg.org/site/?page_id=36 (from Dr Sarah Young’s Mapping St Petersburg website)
- https://digitaldostoevsky.com/2021/07/16/introducing-digital-dostoevsky/ A Digital Humanities project analysing Dostoevsky’s major novels online and on “X”
Indicative learning resources - Other resources
- Bowers, Katherine and Kate Holland (eds). Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2021.
- Bird, Robert. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Critical Lives Series. London: Reaktion Books, 2012.
- Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
- Kelly, Catriona. Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 2001.
- Leatherbarrow, W. J. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Martinsen, Deborah and Olga Maiorova (eds). Dostoevsky in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Martinsen, Deborah. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment”: A Reader's Guide. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022.
- Scanlan, James P. Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010.
Credit value | 15 |
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Module ECTS | 7.5 |
Module pre-requisites | None |
Module co-requisites | None |
NQF level (module) | 5 |
Available as distance learning? | No |
Origin date | 21/02/2024 |
Last revision date | 21/02/2024 |