This course will focus on one of the most challenging issues of Russian grammar: verbal aspect. We will discuss not only the use of perfective and imperfective aspect, but also the aspectual system as a whole including such facets as meaning of aspects, aspectual derivation, aspectual pairedness, aspectual triplets, verbs of motion as a subsystem of Russian verbs, manners of verbal action, aspect in dictionaries, etc. Students will work through exercises and read short works of prose (fiction and non-fiction) for analysis; we will use several workbooks and language manuals published in Russia, as well as a coursepack of selected readings. Students’ grades will be based on three written exams, daily reading and writing homework, and class participation