Courses
Courses are listed by course number and title. University credits are included in parentheses. Literature and culture course offerings vary by semester.
Please see the site of the University Registrar for current Spring 2008 and Fall 2008 course offerings.
011. Intensive Basic Italian (6)
This intensive course meets for a full hour five days a week and provides a first approach to the Italian language for absolute beginners. Attention is devoted to the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing with a progression from greater emphasis on listening and speaking to a balance of all skills as the semester progresses. Aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life are also introduced through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objectives are to provide students with basic tools for oral and written communication in Italian, but also to offer them the opportunity to learn about Italian culture and life and to reflect about intercultural differences and similarities.
032. Intensive Intermediate Italian (6)
This intensive course meets for a full hour five days a week and it is designed to further develop language ability and knowledge of the Italian culture for students who have completed Basic Intensive Italian or have already had some exposure to the language. As in the case of Intensive Basic Italian, the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading and writing are developed in a balanced way. Aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life are also introduced through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objective is to provide students with basic tools for oral and written communication in Italian and to offer them the opportunity to learn about Italian culture and life, but also to reflect about intercultural differences and similarities.
042. Gateway to the Major (3)
Professor Benedetti
This course is designed to guide students through a close study of major Italian works. It aims to provide a critical overview of literary and cultural movements that have shaped the discipline of Italian Studies. Students’ critical thinking will be developed through frequent writing assignments. This course, offered in English, is required for all Italian majors and it satisfies one of the two College Literature and Writing requirements. Italian majors should register for the course during the second semester of their first year. The course is also open to non-majors. Conducted in English.
111. Intensive Advanced Italian (5)
A second-year intensive course meeting for 50 minutes five days a week, Intensive Advanced Italian I continues and builds on the work done in Intensive Basic and Intermediate Italian, providing a thorough grounding in the essentials of Italian grammar. The course develops the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing but increases attention to grammatical correctness and the development of literacy with respect to Basic and Intermediate. Aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life are also introduced through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objective is to provide students with opportunities to further develop their oral and written communicative ability in Italian and to learn about Italian culture and life, but also to reflect about intercultural differences and similarities.
112. Intensive Advanced Italian II (5)
A second-year intensive course meeting for 50 minutes five days a week, Intensive Advanced Italian II continues and builds on the work done in Intensive Basic, Intermediate Italian, and Advanced I providing a review of Italian grammar learned in the previous years and opportunities to develop the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing at an advanced level. The course is centered on thematic units dealing with aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life that are presented to students through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objective is to develop students proficiency in oral and written Italian, to provide them with the tools not only to communicate in formal and informal encounters and exchanges in the target country, but also to function in Italian within academic environments. Finally, intercultural reflection and exchange are given prominence in Advanced II as in the other courses that conform the Italian Language Curriculum.
231. Contemporary Italy: Topics (3)
Professor Hager
This course is designed to integrate language proficiency and area studies by focusing on topics on Contemporary Italy, from geography, demography, history, economics, politics, society, and media to the arts. Three oral language exams will be administered a pre-test upon registration to determine level of proficiency, a mid-term and a final. Conducted in Italian.
NOTE: SFS students may count their final oral examination as their required oral proficiency test.
233. Writing: Culture/Literature (3)
Professor De Fina
This course is designed to help students of Italian who have reached an advanced level of competence in the language, practice and refine their writing skills through intensive work on a variety of texts that deal with culturally salient topics in modern Italy. Such topics range from the representation of value systems and cultural attitudes typical of the Italian people to reflections on the history and development of their language. The focus of the course is on the process of writing and on the strategies that can be used to improve it. Students are exposed not only to different topics, but also to different writing genres: from literary narrative texts, to academic texts, to argumentative or informative texts taken from Italian newspapers and periodicals. The work on the language will be related to the texts in the sense that grammar will not be taught separately, but in the context of the genre analyzed. Students will produce different types of texts: from descriptions, to letters, to film or book reviews, to argumentative texts, in order to build the skills necessary to write academic papers. The actual writing process will be carried out both in individual and group format and students will be encouraged to write different versions of the same composition in order to gain confidence and fluency. Conducted in Italian.
237. Business Italian (3)
Staff
Have you ever dreamed of working for Ferrari, Prada, a Società Italiana Multinazionale, or as an international lawyer? Would you like to wake up in the morning and read the business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore along with your cappuccino? Italy, known for its rich artistic patrimony, is also an industrial power with a thriving economy. This course will introduce students to the Italian business culture, its entrepreneurship, the success of the “made in Italy” brands, and the language of business, finance, and commerce. The course will also focus on how business is conducted in Italy, taking into account language, customs, regional differences, and politics. Furthermore, it will introduce students to Italian communicative strategies used in business transactions and business correspondence in Italian. Guest speakers from Italian businesses and the world of fashion will contribute to the course.
Prerequisite: Intensive Advanced Italian II or Italian Expository Writing or the equivalent. Conducted in Italian.
311. Topics in Italian Art, History, and Literature (3)
Professor Hager
The objective of this course is to explore the interrelationship between the arts, literature, and culture within an historical framework. Through an integrative approach, we will discuss, interpret, and analyze a select number of works of art and literary texts from the 1200s to the 1400s. This was a period of intense development in the world of ideas reflected in the arts, literature, and philosophy. Slides of works of art discussed in the class will be posted on the course website for easy access. Conducted in Italian.
315. Le Altre Italie: Italy and the Culture of Contemporary Ethnic Identity (3)
Professor De Fina
Italy as a country of emigrants has produced a rich and varied culture in the Americas. This course is designed to analyze a variety of aspects and manifestations of this cultural heritage. The language and cultural identity of Italian communities mainly in the Americas but also in other countries, the literature of Italian American writers, the images of Italy and Italians in cinema are among the main themes that will be discussed in the course. The objective of the course is to lead the students to reflections on both modern Italy and the other Italies, le altre italie. Conducted in Italian.
321. Poetics of Lightness: Italo Calvino and Post-War Italian Culture (3)
Professor Benedetti
Nonexistent knights, cloven viscounts, cosmicomics, the geography of the city and the universe: the production of the most experimental Italian writer of the 20th century engages in a dialogue with literary tradition, investigates the links between literature and science, and reflects on the mechanisms of textual creation and consumption. In the first of the Norton lectures that he was going to deliver at Harvard in 1985, Calvino described his working method as one involving "the subtraction of weight". The course explores the author's "poetics of lightness" through a thorough analysis of his work, from the war novel The Path to the Spiders' Nest (1947) to the textual adventures of If on a Winter Night a Traveler (1979). Conducted in Italian.
337. Italian Cinema (3)
Staff
A study of Italian cinema as a reflection of Italian culture. Historical overview of the major periods of Italian film: Neorealism '50s, the 1960s, and the 1970s. Analysis of the historical setting and world vision of the directors. Conducted in Italian.
358. Literature of United Italy (3)
Professor Pireddu
The making of Italy was as much a complex political design as an intense cultural enterprise. In this course we will examine the central role that Italian literature played in the development or problematization of a national consciousness. Through an analysis of major literary and cultural Italian works of the second half of the 19th-century, we will familiarize ourselves with paramount historical, political and social questions that accompanied the Italian unification. Starting from Alessandro Blasetti's celebrated movie 1860 and Giuseppe Mazzini's patriotic writings, passing through children's masterpieces like Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio and Edmondo De Amicis's Cuore, the discussions on the meaning of "man" in anthropologists Paolo Mantegazza and Cesare Lombroso, and the social denunciation in Matilde Serao's novels, we will investigate a variety of topics such as the political and economical divide between Northern and Southern Italy, the search for a unifying language and set of moral values through education, the status of women in Italian society and culture, and various forms of marginalization that characterized the Italian nation-building process.
359. Bella Ciao! Women’s Identity in Twentieth Century Italy (3)
Professor Benedetti
The course explores the historical and cultural factors that shaped the notion of woman in twentieth - century Italy. It traces the development of female identity through an analysis of the turn of the century struggle for electoral rights, the Fascist celebration of motherhood as women’s sole mission, the postwar years, and feminism. Particular attention will be devoted to the ways in which women writers participated in and reacted to cultural discourses. Novels by Aleramo, De Céspedes, Banti, Fallaci and others; movies by Visconti, Scola, and Archibugi will be discussed. Conducted in Italian.
360. Giallo! Italian Detective Fiction (3)
Professor Pireddu
WHODUNIT? Italian literature begins to ask this question only in the1930s, with the publication of the first libri gialli, which drew inspiration from British and American crime fiction. In this seminar, we will trace the extraordinary evolution of Italian detective fiction from its foreign antecedents and its early success in Italy’s mass literary market to the later appeal exerted by the detective format upon mainstream contemporary male novelists, as well as upon their feminist re-writers. A study of the Italian giallo will allow us to explore how literature adopts the motif of crime to raise issues of justice, politics, and morality, how power is deployed in the struggle between mafia and the law, how the space of the city is connected with the space of the narrative, and how writers use the search for meaning to convey different ideas about knowledge and interpretation of reality, from the heroic discovery of truth to the postmodern anti-heroic failure to decipher clues and solve mysteries. Conducted in Italian.
368. Politics, Society & Culture in Renaissance Italy (3)
Professor Benedetti
The course explores some of the major themes in Renaissance culture and society, such as the development of political thought, the role of the intellectual, and the status of women. Texts studied include Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il principe, Baldassar Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano, and Moderata Fonte’s Il merito delle donne. Conducted in Italian.
380. Identity and Resistance in Fascist Italy (3)
Professor Benedetti
The course examines the rise, fall and aftermath of Fascism in its cultural context and manifestations. Topics include the persecution of Italian Jews, colonialism and race, demographic policies and the role of women, individual and collective forms of resistance, and the different interpretations of Fascism. Course materials draw from a variety of primary and secondary sources, such as literary and cinematographic works of the ventennio, historical accounts, and theoretical essays. Conducted in Italian.
381. Italian Contemporary Poetry: From Pascoli to Montale (3)
Professors Benedetti/Hager
Through a close reading of the works of the most representative poets, the course proposes to examine the main literary movements that have defined the twentieth century within the Italian tradition and in connection with other national literatures. We will discuss and analyze the poetry of Leopardi, Ungaretti, Montale, Quasimodo, Saba and others. The course will also introduce the essential elements of metrics and rhetoric to help students understand and analyze contemporary poetry. Conducted in Italian.
382. The Fantastic in 19th & 20th-Century Italian Literature (3)
Professor Pireddu
This course explores various conventions, modes, and subgenres of the fantastic (like gothic, supernatural, folk-tale and magical realism) in Italian modern and contemporary writers as ways of complementing, problematizing or rejecting a mimetic representation of reality. Through a selection of fictional texts and essays by authors like Tarchetti, Capuana, Bontempelli, Ortese, Buzzati and Manfredi, among others, and the screening of several movies, we will pay special attention to the implications of transgressive aesthetic forms for social, political and gender issues. Conducted in Italian.
383. Love, Religion, and War (3)
Professor Benedetti
The course is based on the reading and discussion of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581), one of the masterpieces of Italian literature, an epic poem that can be considered emblematic of the religious and cultural tensions of its time. Good knowledge of oral and written Italian is essential. Students are required to complete in a timely manner all the assigned readings (sections of the poem and secondary sources), to present the readings to the class, to write three short response papers (3-4 pages each) and take three tests. There will be no final exam or final paper.
384. Theater and Opera (3)
Professor Cicali
Since it's beginnings in Florence, the Italian Opera reached a European popularity. Italian singers, similiarly to actors in the Theater, performed in many countries. We will examine Theater and Opera from both theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives. For the Opera we will select arias of different composers and periods, trace the development of this genre, and describe its performing characteristics. The course will also outline a cultural geography of the diffusion and success of this genre. For the Theater component of the course will we focus on the Commedia dell'Arte and its relations with the comic Opera ( the so-called Opera buffa), and we will also overview the architectonic development of Theaters from the 17th to the 20th century.
385. Madness in Italian Literature and Theater (3)
Professor Cicali
The course is conceived as a voyage through different ages of Italian literature, theater and culture focusing on the representation of madness in literary texts and society. From Middle Ages to Renaissance, from the 18^th to the 20^th century we will analyze madness also in theater and opera. We will analyze the different relations towards madness during various ages and in the works of authors such as Ariosto, Boccaccio, Pirandello, Svevo (and others), and composers such as Donizetti or Verdi. Short written assignments, a mid-term exam, an oral presentation on a topic selected by the student, and a final paper will be required. The course will be conducted in Italian.
391. History of the Italian Language (3)
Professor De Fina
Like many other romance languages and Italian dialects, the Italian language has its roots in classical and vulgar Latin. This class provides students with a general view of the development of the Italian language from its origins to the present day. Below are examples of the questions that we ask and answer in class: How and why did Latin give birth to so many languages? In which Italian regions were the first uses of Italian documented? What did the Etruscan have to do with the Florentine pronunciation? Written texts from the periods that are being studied in class and sections of movies that exemplify the way Italian was spoken in the past will be examined in order to enrich the course and give students an opportunity analyze authentic documents. Conducted in Italian. (This course satisfies one semester of the social science general education requirement.)
392. The Theater of Power: Dynasties, Politics, and Theater, 1500-1800 (3)
Professor Cicali
The course will examine relations between early modern Italian theater
and the ruling classes. We will explore this fascinating and
fundamental historical issue from the Renaissance to the beginning of
the 1800s as a journey through Italy, its towns, its architecture, and
its dynasties: Florence (the Medici), Rome (the Catholic church and
the clergy), Naples (the Bourbons), Venice, Ferrara, Vicenza and
Mantova (aristocracy and minor dynasties). The actual staging of a
text (a comedy, or a dramatic reading, etc.) will be among the final
objectives of the course. The course will be conducted in Italian.
393. Contemporary Italian and Its Regional Varieties (3)
Professor De Fina
This course is designed to offer students a panorama of contemporary Italian language and its varieties by leading them into an exploration of the great linguistic richness and diversity that characterizes Italy. Among the topics that will be discussed are the differences between Standard Italian and other language varieties such as popular Italian and dialects, the presence of dialects in literature, film, and everyday life; the characteristics of varieties such as the juvenile slang, the language of the media, the language of advertising; the role of gestures in communication among Italians. Students will discuss and analyze these phenomena through modern texts in contemporary Italian, from novels to songs to film. Conducted in Italian.
This course satisfies one semester of the College Social Science General Education Requirement.
411. From Novel to Film : Cultural Dialog (3)
Professor Benedetti
This course will explore the relationships between literature and cinema. While examining the more subtle influence that cinema has had on literature, our main focus will be the cinematographic adaptation of literary texts. Following critic Millicent Marcus, we will analyze the process of adaptation as the result of a series of encounters: "the institutional encounter between literary and film cultures, the semiotic encounter between two very different signifying systems, and the personal encounter between author and filmmaker." We will discuss the main theoretical issues linked to this process, through the analysis of four major novels and their cinematographic counterparts. Readings from Tarchetti, Verga, Bassani, Moravia; movies by Scola, Visconti, De Sica, and Bertolucci. Conducted in Italian.
425. From Mazzini to the Euro: The European Consciousness in Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature (3-4)
Professor Pireddu
This course examines the birth and development of the idea of Europe in the Italian literary and cultural framework, from key figures of the "Risorgimento" through modernist and postwar writers, up to novelists and intellectuals of the new millennium. A comparative and interdisciplinary dialogue between the Italian "case" and other European visions offers additional insights into the role of the European consciousness in the tug of war between the preservation of a national (or even regional) identity and the drive towards globalization. Readings include texts by Mazzini, Savinio, Piovene, Spinelli, Magris, Parks, and Baricco. This is a variable credit course, which can be taken for 3 or 4 credits. Conducted in Italian.
426. Encounters with the Other: The Ethnographic Imagination in Italian Literature (3)
Professor Pireddu
This course is devoted to the Italian gaze at other cultures, to the different strategies of representations adopted by Italian authors in their writings about other cultures, and to the ideologies that accompany such discourse, in specific contexts and epochs. From the marvels of Marco Polo's voyage to the Far East and the travelogues of later explorers through the birth of anthropology as a discipline, from late 19th-century exoticism, primitivism, and the colonial experience through the geographical dépaysement in novelists of the last decade, like Calvino, Tabucchi and Celati, we will examine how the encounter with cultural otherness, outside or inside the Italian borders, is verbalized and gradually incorporated into literature. We will also try to interrogate the relationship between this multifarious discourse on other cultures and the question of the Italian national identity. Conducted in Italian.
445. Betrayals of Translation (3)
Professor Pireddu
What lies behind the stereotype of the translator as a betrayer (as in the Italian pun "traduttore traditore")? This course aims to answer this question by concentrating on three major aspects on the craft of translation: history, theory, and practice. We will examine the role of translation in modern and contemporary culture and its complex
relationship with the question of power, by studying major Italian writers who also achieved fame as translators of foreign masterpieces. Students will be introduced to a variety of theories of and approaches to translation, with attention to their historical development down to the current connections between translation and poststructuralist, postcolonial and gender studies. The promises and the pitfalls of translation as intercultural communication will then be tested through a series of meetings devoted to practicing translation, when students will work on English and Italian texts from and to the target language. Conducted in Italian.
Open to Georgetown students and students of the Consortium.
Prerequisite: solid knowledge of Italian.
452. Theater of Sacred: Between Faith and Politics (3)
Professor Cicali
The course is designed to provide an overview of the Italian religious theater from the Middle Ages to the late Renaissance and early Baroque. The course will highlight the characteristics of the sacred theater, and we will discuss the connections between faith and politics during one of the most interesting and fascinating period of the Italian and European history. We will also analyze the structure and rules of the network of youth organizations which often staged sacred plays, the so called “confraternities”. Analyses will be conducted from a variety of perspectives: religious, liturgical, and political. Short written assignments, a mid-term exam, an oral presentation on a topic selected by the student, and a final paper will be required. The course will be conducted in Italian
460. Dante (3)
Professor Giuseppe Mazzotta (Visiting Professor, Yale University)
The course will unfold as a reading of selected cantos of the and it will highlight the thematic and conceptual continuity and unity of Dante's poem. It will stress the narrative structure of the poem and how it serves the question of spiritual conversion lying at the heart of the poem; it will discuss Dante's involvement with the moral and political values of the classical world (Virgil's Rome); and it will emphasize both the stages in the pilgrim's moral reformation and the poet's deepening sense of his poetic art. It will end with an exploration of Dante's representation of Paradise. Conducted in Italian.
471. The Writing Factory : Science, Machines, and the Technology of the Word in 20th-Century Italian Literature (3)
Professor Pireddu
This course investigates the role played by science and technology as motifs and formal principles in Italian literature and culture from the end of the 19th century to the present. Adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, we will examine the position of Italian writers and intellectuals vis-a-vis the extended Western debate on the so-called "two cultures," we will meditate on the status of literature and the humanities in a technological society, and we will try to understand how and why writers incorporate the scientific discourse in their works. Pivotal moments will be the Futurist attack on nature and naturalism, the clash between theater and the rise of the cinema industry, the experimental literary techniques of the neo-avant-garde, the postmodern problematization of reason, method and meaning, the question of the ethics of literature in a rapidly evolving technological world, and the slowly-emerging cyberfeminist movement within feminist theory. Readings will include works by Marinetti, Pirandello, Levi, Sciascia, Calvino, and Del Giudice. Conducted some semesters in Italian and other semesters in English.
473. Farewell to Realism: Decadence, Avant-Garde, Modernism (3)
Professor Pireddu
With the turn of the century and the new millennium, this course allows us to live through another fin-de-siecle experience, namely, the fascinating transition from the 19th to the 20th century. We will explore the multiple ways in which different literary and visual forms of representation reflect, react, and even anticipate the dramatic changes in the Italian philosophical, political, and social domains at the dawn of a new epoch, decreeing the death of realism. Pivotal issues: the exotic in decadent and colonial literature, the crisis of the hero and the will to power, the shock of the new, women writers' reactions to Fascist female stereotypes. Conducted in Italian.
489. Senior Seminar: Texts in Contexts: Approaches to Critical Analysis (3)
Professor Pireddu
The senior seminar is a capstone course designed to familiarize students with the most significant theories and practices of critical analysis. It discusses the principles of the major approaches (such as Marxist, semiotic, and gender criticism), while testing their validity through applications to specific texts. Students will learn to recognize the different perspectives, select the most appropriate approach for a given context, and develop their own critical discourse. Conducted in Italian.
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