ITAL B001  BEGINNING ITALIAN I  (1.0 Credit)

Giulio Genovese

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course provides a solid introduction to the Italian language and culture. It is intended for students with no previous knowledge of Italian and aims at giving them a complete foundation in Italian grammar and pronunciation, with particular attention to listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Students refine communicative and cross-cultural comparison abilities by completing tasks such as role-plays, music projects, and creative compositions, in pairs and/or small groups, to stimulate dialogue and create a dynamic and vibrant learning environment. Classes are student-centered and designed to foster students' language skills, keeping in mind their different ways of learning. The course is based on five weekly 50-minute sessions: four sessions with the instructor and one with a TA, to work on written and oral assignments and hone language communicative skills. This course promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by adopting a free OER textbook.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ITAL B002  BEGINNING ITALIAN II  (1.0 Credit)

Giulio Genovese

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is the continuation of ITAL001 and is intended for students who started studying Italian the semester before. It aims at making students be able to: (1) speak and write in Italian at an elementary level; (2) effectively communicate with other Italian-speaking people by giving advice, expressing desires, and sharing their opinions; (3) produce authentic works in Italian such as audio messages, social media posts, songs, etc.; (4) understand and comment on aspects of Italian culture in the target language; (5) refine intercultural communication skills. Classes are student-centered and designed to foster students' language skills, keeping in mind their different ways of learning. The course is based on five weekly 50-minute sessions: four sessions with the instructor and one with a TA, to work on written and oral assignments and hone language communicative skills. This course promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by adopting a free OER textbook. Prerequisite: ITAL B001 or placement.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B101  INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN THROUGH CULTURE I  (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is the first half of a two-semester sequence and provides students with a broader basis for learning to communicate effectively, accurately, and comfortably in an Italian-speaking environment. This course builds on the students' existing skills in Italian, increases their confidence and their ability to read, write, speak, understand the language, and introduces them to more refined lexical terms, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. While the principal aspect of the course is to further develop language abilities, the course also imparts a foundation for the understanding of modern and contemporary Italy. Students will be exposed to newspaper and magazine articles, literary and cinematic texts, Italian songs and internet materials which will facilitate a transition towards content courses. By the end of the first semester, students will have gained an appreciation for many aspects of Italian culture in its broad spectrum and will be able to communicate orally and in writing about a wide variety of topics.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ITAL B102  INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN THROUGH CULTURE II  (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is the second half of a two-semester sequence designed to help students attain a level of proficiency to communicate effectively and accurately in Italian. This course builds on the students' existing skills in Italian, increases their confidence and their ability to read, write, speak, and understand the language, and introduces them to more refined lexical terms, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. While the principal aspect of the course is to further develop language abilities, the course also imparts a foundation for the understanding of modern and contemporary Italy. Practice is given in all four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), and students will conduct a collaborative reading of an Italian novel in order to analyze aspects of the Italian culture. By the end of the second semester, students will have reached full command of all the most advanced and sophisticated structures of the language, will have gained an appreciation for Italian culture and will be able to communicate orally and in writing about a wide variety of topics. Prerequisite: ITAL B101 or placement.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B200  PATHWAYS TO PROFICIENCY  (1.0 Credit)

Daria Bozzato

Division: Humanities

This is a language and culture course designed to offer advanced students of Italian the opportunity to strengthen their writing skills and conversational fluency. Throughout the semester, students will explore Italy’s literature, cinema, history, and contemporary culture. Problems relating to syntax, morphology, and vocabulary will be addressed as they arise from compositions and selected reading passages. Grammar review will be contextualized to support the principal focus of the course, which is vocabulary building, written and oral skills straightening, and intercultural competency. This course is arranged thematically with units focused on issues such as LGBTQIA+ rights, changing standards of femininity and masculinity, race, migration, and disability. Each week students will explore the theme of the unit through different media: films, newspaper and magazine articles, novels, poems, songs, YouTube videos, blogs, etc. Prerequisite: ITAL102 or placement.

ITAL B201  FOCUS: ITALIAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY I  (0.5 Credit)

Roberta Ricci

Division: Humanities

Language and Cultural Studies course with a strong cultural component. It focuses on the wide variety of problems that a post-industrial and mostly urban society like Italy must face today. Language structure and patterns will be reinforced through the study of music, short films, current issues, and even stereotypes. Prerequisite: ITAL 102, or equivalent.

(Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2024)

ITAL B207  FROM HELL TO HEAVEN: DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY  (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli

Division: Humanities

This course offers the opportunity to read in its entirety Dante's Divine Comedy, one of the greatest masterpieces of world literatures, as well as some other Dantean works like La Vita Nuova and Il Convivio. We will follow Dante on his journey through the three realms of his vision of the afterlife: the descent into Hell, the climb up the mountain of Purgatory, and the final ascent to Paradise. Dante's masterpiece lends itself to study from various perspectives: literary, allegorical, cultural, historical, political, philosophical, and theological. Some of the themes that will frame our discussions are personal journey and civic responsibilities, human passions and gender, governmental accountability and church-state relations. The course is taught in English and is accessible also to students without a background in Medieval literature and with no knowledge of Italian. Students who are interested to take this course towards a minor or a major in Italian will participate in an extra hour in Italian and complete their assignments in the target language, having this class count as an advanced course (ITAL B301).

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B213  THEORY IN PRACTICE:CRITICAL DISCOURSES IN THE HUMANITIES  (1.0 Credit)

Daria Bozzato

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

What is a postcolonial subject, a queer gaze, a feminist manifesto? And how can we use (as readers of texts, art, and films) contemporary studies on animals and cyborgs, object oriented ontology, zombies, storyworlds, neuroaesthetics? In this course we will read some pivotal theoretical texts from different fields, with a focus on race&ethnicity and gender&sexuality. Each theory will be paired with a masterpiece from Italian culture (from Renaissance treatises and paintings to stories written under fascism and postwar movies). We will discuss how to apply theory to the practice of interpretation and of academic writing, and how theoretical ideas shaped what we are reading. Class conducted in English, with an additional hour in Italian for students seeking Italian credit.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ITAL B216  BODY AND MIND  (1.0 Credit)

In this course, we will explore representations of the relationship between body and mind, starting from 19th-century Russian novels that conceptualize love as a physical ailment and ending with the history of Alzheimer’s disease. Talking about the relationship between body and mind will allow us to investigate how gender roles and models of womanhood and masculinity shaped the evolution of modern sciences, from psychiatry to obstetrics. Investigating how bodies have been (and continue to be) read, we will discuss systems created to police societies by cataloguing bodies, from Lombroso’s phrenology to modern fingerprinting and face recognition softwares. Finally, we will consider how our understanding of the relationship between body and mind has changed over time. Many of the theories we will discuss during the semester are now considered outdated pseudo-science - but how can we conceptualize the difference between science and pseudo-science? As new categories and disease designations appear to substitute the old ones, which are the implications of creating a label for a constellation of existing symptoms? The course will be taught entirely in English. There will be an optional hour in Italian for students of Italian.

ITAL B233  TRANSLATING ITALIAN: A WORKSHOP  (1.0 Credit)

Daria Bozzato

This course fosters students’ translating skills on a variety of literary, scientific, journalist, and cinematic texts, which focus on issues of gender and sexuality, race, migration, and disability. In addition, it offers a review and a comparative study of Italian and English grammars, syntaxes, and styles. During the semester students will acquire technical skills and understand the difficulties and complexities of translation. They will question the role culture plays in translation, how authors and their translators negotiate the meaning, and the limits and consequences of inaccurate translations. In addition to refining their vocabulary, students will strengthen their reading and writing skills in Italian. This course is taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 102 or permission from the instructor. Prerequisite: ITAL 102 or permission of instructor.

ITAL B238  ITALIAN SOCIETY IN FILM  (1.0 Credit)

Daria Bozzato

This course will introduce students to contemporary Italian history and culture by viewing and discussing those films produced in Italy that most reflect the diversity of its nation and society, from the Unification to today. Group work, in-class discussions, and academic readings will foster students’ visual analysis, cross-cultural reflection, and critical thinking skills on topics such as organized crime, gender inequality, masculinity, racial and ethnic discrimination, migration, mental disability, and queer identities. Students will familiarize themselves with renowned directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini, and Marco Tullio Giordana, in addition to acquiring an interdisciplinary understanding of Italian cinema. Taught in English, with an additional hour in Italian for students seeking Italian credit. Cross-listed with Film Studies.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B302  ITALO CALVINO TRANSNATIONAL WRITER  (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli

Italo Calvino is one of the best-known Italian writers in the world - but in addition to being the author of numerous novels and short stories, Calvino was a translator, and editor and – perhaps most importantly – a reader. His activity provides us with a window into the Italian editorial landscape and its connection with foreign literary markets and traditions. Analyzing Calvino’s letters to his colleagues at the publishing house Einaudi, his famous risvolti, introductions, and book reviews, we will reflect on the journey of texts from their selection and translation, to their publication, to their promotion and reception. We will discuss books as complex and stratified objects, reflecting on how editorial choices shape the reception and interpretation of a text. In exploring Calvino’s engagement with other people’s books, we will focus on the international dimension of his work, his personal and professional connections with France - where he lived for several years - with South America, Russia, and the United States. Such an emphasis on Calvino as a transnational reader and writer reflects and illuminates the peculiarity of the Italian editorial and literary ecosystem, in which translation has a central role.

ITAL B313  PRIMO LEVI, THE WRITER  (1.0 Credit)

Roberta Ricci

Today Primo Levi is one of the most widely read Italian writers of post-World War II in Italy and abroad. Even though still known primarily for his contributions to Holocaust testimony and theory, paradoxical as it may seem, the experience of Auschwitz and his need to tell proved to be the initial impulse that drove Levi to continue to write until his death as a critical engagement of the Western classical canon and civilization that in the end created Auschwitz. In addition to being a memoirist, he was a columnist, novelist, writer of short stories and fantasy tales, many of which touch on science fiction, a literary critic, poet, essayist, and he also tried his hand as translator (of Kafka’s The Trial) and playwright. He has also been the subject of countless illuminating interviews, many of which have been translated into English. Levi is one of most prolific writers of our time, earning the right to be regarded simply as a well-respected writer, as he himself wished, with no other qualifications added. This course will be taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL B102 or permission of instructor.

ITAL B315  A GENDERED HISTORY OF THE AVANT-GARDE  (1.0 Credit)

Giulio Genovese

The very concept of ‘avant-garde’ is steeped in a masculine warlike imagery, and the founding manifesto of Futurism even glorifies ‘contempt for the woman’. Yet, feminine, queer, androgynous, and non-binary perspectives on sexual identity played a central role — from Rimbaud to current experimentalism — in the development of what has been called ‘the tradition of the new’. In this seminar we will explore such a paradoxical anti-traditional tradition through texts, images, sounds, and videos, adopting a historical prospective from early 20th century movements to the Neo-Avant-Garde. We will unearth the stories and works of great experimentalists who have been neglected because of their gender. We will deal with poems made up entirely of place names, of recorded noises, of typographical symbols. Taking advantage of the college’s collection and library, we will try to read texts with no words, surreal stories, performances, objects, and we will make our own avant-garde experiments. Course taught in English, no previous knowledge of Italian required.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B316  MOUNTAINEERING HEROES: MASCULINITY AND NATION-BUILDING  (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Narration is an intrinsic component of the practice of mountaineering: ascents are conducted in isolation and need to be documented in order to be validated. In the 20th century, with the professionalization of this practice, mountaineering narratives became widespread across a broad range of genres and platforms – from the memoirs of illustrious alpinists to novels and short stories, to propaganda material and articles in popular magazines. In this course, we will focus on Italian mountaineering heroes, exploring how their construction and evolution was shaped by models of masculinity and (less frequently) of womanhood, colonialism and nation-building ideals, and by shifting understandings of the relationship between humans and the environment. We will discus the symbolical and political role of alpine ascents in the Italian unification and in the first world war. We will study Fascist alpinists and the legacy of Fascist, individualist and white supremacist rhetoric in today’s mountaineering narratives. At the same time, however, we will encounter groups of alpinists and climbers who challenged this rhetoric, seeking to reframe ascents as play, rather than conquest, influenced by youth movements and the novel American alpinism.All readings and class discussion will be in English. Students will have to option of attending an additional hour of class taught in Italian or in Russian

ITAL B318  FALLING STATUES: MYTH-MAKING IN LITERATURE, POLITICS AND ART  (1.0 Credit)

Staff

We have become accustomed to the rituals of the dismissal of the heroes of the past: we tear down statues, we rename buildings and places. But how did we get there? How, why and by whom are heroes constructed? When old heroes are questioned, what substitutes them? How are the raise and fall of heroes tied to shifting models of masculinity, womanhood, power and the state? In this course, we will explore these questions focusing on Italy and Russia, two countries that in the 19th and 20th century went through several cycles of construction and deconstruction of their political heroes. In the first part of the course, we will investigate the codification of the “type” of the freedom-fighter in the representations of the protagonists of 19th-century European revolutionary movements, focusing on the links between the Italian Risorgimento and the anti-Tsarist movement in Russia, culminating in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. From the pamphlets that consecrated the Italian Garibaldi as the “hero of the two worlds” to the autobiographies of the Russian terrorists and the transcripts of their trials, we will investigate myth-making as a constitutive part of political movements and reflect on the models of masculinity and womanhood at the foundation of the “typical” revolutionary hero. In the second part of the semester, we will focus on Stalinism and Fascism, systems that exploited their revolutionary roots to mobilize supporters in favor of oppressive institutions. Finally, we will discuss the many ways in which 19th - and 20th-century heroes have been confronted, neutralized, dismantled – and the many ways in which their models still haunt us. We will focus on literary texts and political speeches, but we will also analyze propaganda posters, movies, paintings, photographs, monuments and even street names. For your final project, you will have the option of building on our class discussions to explore myth-making in contemporary movements or forms of deconstruction of existing heroes.

ITAL B320  NOVEL, HISTORY, AND THE MAKING OF ITALY: ALESSANDRO MANZONI AND THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT  (1.0 Credit)

Roberta Ricci

Division: Humanities

This course deals with 19th century Italian poetry and literary movement for Italian unification inspired by the realities of the new economic and political forces at work after 1815. As a manifestation of the nationalism sweeping over Europe during the nineteenth century, the Risorgimento aimed to unite Italy under one flag and one government. For many Italians, however, Risorgimento meant more than political unity. It described a movement for the renewal of Italian society and people beyond purely political aims. Among Italian patriots the common denominator was a desire for freedom from foreign control, liberalism, and constitutionalism. The course will discuss issues such as Enlightenment, Romanticism, Nationalism, and the complex relationship between history and literature in Alessandro's Manzoni classic novel The Betrothed. This course is taught in Italian. Prerequisite: one 200 level Italian course.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B324  DIVERSITY, GENDER, AND QUEERNESS IN MODERN ITALIAN POETRY  (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli

This course offers an overview of one of the great literary traditions of post-unification Italy: that of modern and contemporary poetry. Our readings will center mostly on some major protagonists of this genre, like the Nobel prize-winning Eugenio Montale, Umberto Saba, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, but we will also look at a series of much lesser-known works by female, queer and transgender poets, like Sandro Penna, Amelia Rosselli, and Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto, who negotiated their own voices within this tradition. While thinking, discussing and writing in Italian, we will examine poetic texts in the original and with a specific focus on the representation of religious and racial “otherness”, the language of expression, and gender perspectives. Our authors and texts will be contextualized in their historical and social background, in order to have an in-depth interdisciplinary exploration of Italy’s 20th-21st century cultural life and gain insight on Italian Modernity as a whole. Elements of metrics and rhetoric will be used and explained in order to analyze poetry in its own essence.

ITAL B325  LITERATURE AND FILM, LITERATURE INTO FILMS AND BACK  (1.0 Credit)

Roberta Ricci

This course is a critical analysis of Modern Italian society through cinematic production and literature, from the Risorgimento to the present. According to Alfred Hitchock’s little stories, two goats were eating the reel of a movie taken from a famous novel. “I liked the book better,” says one to the other. While at times we too chew on movies taken from books, our main objective will not be to compare books and films, but rather to explore the more complex relation between literature and cinema: how text is put into film, how cultural references operate with respect to issues of style, technique, and perspective. We will discuss how cinema conditions literary imagination, and how literature leaves its imprint on cinema. We will "read" films as "literary images" and "see" novels as "visual stories". Students will become acquainted with literary sources through careful readings; on viewing the corresponding film, students will consider how narrative and descriptive textual elements are transposed into cinematic audio/visual elements. An important concern of this course will be to analyze the particularity of each film/book in relation to a set of themes -gender, death, class, discrimination, history, migration- through close textual analysis. We shall use contemporary Film theory and critical methodology to access these themes.

ITAL B335  THE ITALIAN MARGINS: PLACES AND IDENTITIES  (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli, Roberta Ricci

Thompson Fullilove’s scholarship will be the theoretical foundation of this survey of 20th century topics—from literary representations of mental health to the displacement of marginalized communities, from historical persecution in Europe to contemporary domestic violence in Italy. The main goal of the seminar will be to challenge the rhetoric of ‘otherness’, ‘encounters’, ‘marginalization’, ‘anti-canon’, and ‘exoticism’ that is typical of broader readings of Italy’s modern traditions, adopting Thompson Fullilove’s inter-sectional and trans-historical paradigms to re-imagine Italian Studies, to center the gender gap, and overcome the stigma of mental illness and madness. Rooted in the perspectives of trans-codification, trans-historical tradition, and cultural translation, this course attempts to address such questions both in theory and practice using Freudian literary criticism (The interpretation of Dreams, 1899; The Uncanny, 1919; Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1920; The Ego and the Id, 1923; Civilization and its Discontents, 1930). We will start with a seminar, devoted to the analysis and discussion of primary sources and then follow with a scholarly (and creative) workshop. Tailored activities related to social activism (Praxis) will also fulfill the course requirements. Prerequisite: 200 level course or permission of instructor.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ITAL B398  SENIOR SEMINAR  (1.0 Credit)

Roberta Ricci

Division: Humanities

This course is open only to seniors in Italian and in Romance Languages. Under the direction of the instructor, each student prepares a senior thesis on an author or a theme that the student has chosen. By the end of the fall semester, students must have completed an abstract and a critical annotated bibliography to be presented to the department. See Thesis description. Prerequisite: This course is open only to seniors in Italian Studies and Romance Languages with a GPA of 3.7.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ITAL B399  SENIOR CONFERENCE  (1.0 Credit)

Roberta Ricci

Division: Humanities

Under the direction of the instructor, each student prepares a senior thesis on an author or a theme that the student has chosen. In April there will be an oral defense with members and majors of the Italian Department. See Thesis description. Prerequisite: This course is open only to seniors in Italian Studies and Romance Languages.

(Offered: Spring 2024)