Transnational Italian Studies
Students may complete a major or minor in Transnational Italian Studies. In voting unanimously to embrace this new name in 2021, we are joining other programs in the humanities across the world who are seizing the current moment to make curricular changes for the explicit decolonization of our field(s). By de-centering peninsular Italian culture, questioning concepts of “standard Italian” and “Italian civilization”, and evading ethnocentric, national, and nationalistic rhetoric, we wish to manifest our commitment to an anti-racist, transcultural, and post-colonial approach to Italian Studies.
The aim of our major/minor is to explore the social, linguistic, literary, artistic, ethnic, and political communities that have identified themselves as Italian throughout history. In order to do so across disciplinary boundaries, the Department actively cooperates with numerous institutions, primarily by offering cross-listed and co-taught courses in the Bi-Co.
In particular, we participate in the Romance Languages major with the Departments of French and Francophone Studies and Spanish, as well as with the many departments and programs that inform the Bi-Co major in Comparative Literature. Many of our courses, taught in English and in Italian, count towards History of Art, Growth and Structure of Cities, Russian, Classics, International Studies, Health Studies, Africana Studies, Film Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies.
College Foreign Language Requirement
Before the start of the senior year, each student must complete, with a grade of 2.0 or higher, two units of foreign language. Students may fulfill the requirement by completing two sequential semester-long courses in one language, either at the elementary level or, depending on the result of their language placement test, at the intermediate level. A student who is prepared for advanced work may complete the requirement instead with two advanced free-standing semester-long courses in the foreign language(s) in which she is proficient. Non-native speakers of English may choose to satisfy all or part of this requirement by coursework in English literature.
Academic Opportunities
Pre-approved Study Abroad Programs in Italy
Studying abroad is both an enriching intellectual experience and an opportunity for personal growth: immersion in a foreign culture offers an unmatched means to improve your language skills, and daily life within a foreign community provides cultural breadth essential for the increasingly connected global community. Students, specialists as well as non-specialists, are strongly encouraged to spend at least one semester or a summer studying outside the United States.
Students who are studying abroad for the major for one year can earn two credits in Italian and one credit in allied fields (total of three credits) , but to receive more than one credit the student must take one course in our department at Bryn Mawr College immediately upon return. Those who are studying abroad for one semester can earn no more than a total of two credits in Italian, but to receive more than one credit the student must take one course in our department at Bryn Mawr College immediately upon return.
Pre-approved Semester Programs Abroad NOT in Italy
We will grant a maximum of one credit for a course taken abroad, upon completion of a one credit course in the Italian section (ITAL) at Bryn Mawr College, taken immediately upon return. This credit will not count towards major or minor requirements.
Pre-approved 6-Week Summer Programs in Italy
We will grant all students a maximum of one credit for a course taken abroad, upon completion of a one credit course in Italian (ITAL), taken at Bryn Mawr College immediately upon return. Only course minors may count this credit toward completion of the course requirements.
University of Pennsylvania
Students majoring at BMC cannot earn more than one credit at the University of Pennsylvania in Italian. Students who receive two credits from abroad cannot receive further credits from the University of Pennsylvania.
Major Requirements
The Department of Transnational Italian Studies offers a Major in Letters in Italian (track A) and a Major in Intercultural Italian Studies (track B).
Both majors consist of ten courses starting at the ITAL B101/ITAL B102 level.
For both majors we recommend a senior thesis offered with ITAL B398 and ITAL B399 (required for honors). See below.
Both majors are required to complete one Writing Intensive (WI) course in the major. The goal of the WI course will be re-thinking the argument, logical connection, focus, transition, evidence, quotes, organization, and sources. In responding to the feedback, students will experience writing as a process of discovery (re-visioning) and meaning.
Letters in Italian/ Track A
Major requirements in Letters in Italian are 10 courses. Track A may be appropriate for students with an interest in literary and language studies. Required: ITAL B101/ITAL B102, plus five courses (or more) conducted in Italian based in our department (ITAL) and three courses in English within the department (ITAL) or two in English within the department (ITAL) and one among the list of electives (courses must be approved in advance by the chair of our department) . Of the courses taken in Italian, students are expected to enroll in at least three 300-level capstone seminars covering both Early-Modernity (ITAL B301, ITAL B304, ITAL B303) and Modern Studies (ITAL B380, ITAL B320, ITAL B313, ITAL B325).
Intercultural Italian Studies/Track B
Major requirements in Intercultural Italian Studies are 10 courses. Track B may be appropriate for students with an interest in arts, culture, and translation. The concentration consists of both interdisciplinary and single-discipline courses. Required:ITAL B101/ITAL B102, plus three 300 level courses conducted in Italian (based in our department,ITAL B320, ITAL B303, ITAL B304, ITAL B303, ITAL B380, ITAL B325) and four related courses in English within our department at the 200 or 300 level.
Major with Honors
The honors component requires the completion of a year-long thesis advised by a faculty member in the department (ITAL B398 and ITAL B399). Application to it requires a GPA in the major of 3.7 or higher, as well as a written statement, to be submitted by the fall of senior year, outlining the proposed project (see further below) and indicating the faculty member who has agreed to serve as advisor. The full departmental faculty vets the proposals and at the end of senior year will decide if honors will be given.
Thesis
Students will write a 30 page thesis that aims to engage with primary texts and relevant secondary literature. By the end of the fall semester, students must have completed a formal proposal and a Table of Content in draft. Proposals for the thesis should describe the questions being asked in the research, and how answers to them will contribute to scholarship. Students must include a discussion of the primary sources on which the research will rest, as well as a preliminary bibliography of relevant secondary studies. It is expected that before submitting their proposals students will have conferred with a faculty member who has agreed to serve as advisor. In December students will formally present the proposal to the department. In April students will give an oral presentation of their work of approximately one hour to faculty members and interested students. The final draft is due on April 28th of the senior year, and will be graded by faculty members. Faculty will retain the option to assign final honors to the research project.
Minor Requirements
Requirements for the minor are ITAL B101/ITAL B102 and four additional units including one 200 level courses (preferably in Italian) and three 300 level courses (one of which in Italian). With departmental approval, students who begin their work in Italian at the 200 level will be exempted from ITAL B101 and ITAL B102 and will fulfill the requirement with courses at the 200 and 300 level. For courses in translation, the same conditions for majors apply.
ITAL B001 Beginning Italian I (1 Unit)
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, online, and open textbook specifically designed for Tri-Co students.
ITAL B002 Beginning Italian II (1 Unit)
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, online, and open textbook specifically designed for Tri-Co students. Prerequisite: ITAL B001 or placement.
ITAL B101 Intermediate Italian through Culture I (1 Unit)
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 materials. While the principal aim 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. Prerequisite: ITAL B002 or placement.
ITAL B102 Intermediate Italian through Culture II (1 Unit)
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 materials. While the principal aim 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 this 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.
ITAL B200 Pathways to Proficiency (1 Unit)
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 Problematiche di oggi: conversare insieme/Italy Today (0.5 Unit)
Do patriarchal societies still exist today? Who are the neo-fascists? What does it mean to be a woman, an immigrant, or a queer person in the land of ultra-traditionalism, of the Pope, and the Camorra? Which Italian are we speaking in Italy? This course will explore these questions through a variety of materials in Italian: stories, TV shows, poems, newspaper articles, public art, essays, videos, and songs. We will deal with issues of identity, gender violence, historical memory, politics, and patriarchy. We will immerse ourselves in the culture of patriarchal contemporary Italy through key-themes: conversando insieme. Prerequisite: ITAL 102, or equivalent.
ITAL B202 Racconti transnazionali a confronto: patriarcato, migrazione e transculturalità (0.5 Unit)
This course focusses on the development of the short story, and particularly on its changing form through the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Students will analyze Italian novellas through in-class discussions and take-home assignment. They will start by reading some short stories by Boccaccio’s Decameron and will then focus closely on 19th century Rosso malpelo and L'amante di Gramigna by Giovanni Verga and on Terno secco by Matilde Serao. Moving towards 20th and 21st centuries, we will examine racism, immigration, and patriarchy in context with the reading of women writers such as Sibilla Aleramo, Elsa Morante, Natalia Ginzburg, Elena Ferranate, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anna Maria Ortese, Dacia Maraini, Donatella Di Pietrantonio. Our 21st-century examples will also include Roberto Saviano's Il contrario della morte and Valeria Parrella's Il premio. To stimulate classroom discussion and provide useful insight into the wide variety of Italy’s socio-cultural specificities, the texts will be supplemented with selected background information including scholarly criticism, visual media, and media reception. The course is highly interactive and, at times, adopts the mode of a creative writing workshop. Students will thus be asked to comment their and other colleagues’ work by discussing points of strength and weakness. This process will facilitate the preparation for and successful drafting of the papers. It will also encourage students to learn how to analyze and self-assess their own essays. The stories will be read in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 102 or permission of instructor.
ITAL B207 From Hell to Heaven: Dante's Divine Comedy (1 Unit)
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 complete their assignments in the target language, having this class count as a 200-level course in Italian.
ITAL B209 Love, Magic, and Women Warriors: Renaissance Italian Epic (1 Unit)
This course offers an overview of one of the great literary traditions of Renaissance Italy: that of chivalric poems narrating tales of war, love, and magic. Our readings will center on the two established masterpieces of the tradition, Ludovico Ariosto’s romance Orlando furioso (The Madness of Orlando; 1532) and Torquato Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered; 1581), but we will also look at a series of much lesser-known works by a queer and “irregular” author (Luigi Pulci), who inaugurated this genre in Florence, and by female poets of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Moderata Fonte and Margherita Sarrocchi), who draw on Ariosto’s and Tasso’s texts for inspiration. Thematically, the course will focus on questions of diversity in political and religious ideologies, differing treatments of love and conceptions of the heroic, and the representation of sexuality and gender, which is exceptionally fluid and interesting in these works. The course is taught in English and is accessible also to students without a background in Renaissance literature and with no knowledge of Italian. Students who are interested to take this course towards a major in Italian will complete their assignments in Italian and will participate in an extra hour in Italian
ITAL B216 Body and Mind (1 Unit)
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 B217 Gendered Violence and Femicide (1 Unit)
How many women are killed in Italy? How many women suffer abuse at the hands of their partner? Data shows one in seven in Italy have suffered gendered abuse. In many regions, victims have nowhere to turn for shelter. This course will examine domestic and sexual assault in intimate relationships from a feminist analysis. Historical, theoretical, and sociological perspectives on gender violence will be critically analyzed through criminology research, literature, and theory. Course context will focus on dominance and control as a co-factor of gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, age, sexuality, nationality, and other variables. Therefore, the course will highlight the differential impact of gender violence on women of color, lesbians, older women, adolescent girls, immigrants and marginalized and disenfranchised women. Domestic and sexual violence in contemporary Italy will also be reviewed and analyzed in the context of international contexts. This course will be taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 102 or permission from instructor
ITAL B218 Early-Modern Intersections: A New Italian Renaissance (1 Unit)
The period or movement commonly referred to as the Renaissance remains one of the great iconic moments of global history: a time of remarkable innovation within artistic and intellectual culture, and a period still widely regarded as the crucible of modernity. Although lacking a political unity and being constantly colonized by European Empires, Italy was the original heartland of the Renaissance, and home to some of its most powerful and enduring figures, such as Leonardo and Michelangelo in art, Petrarch and Ariosto in literature, Machiavelli in political thought. This course provides an overview of Italian culture from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century by adopting a cross-cultural, intersectional, and inter-disciplinary approach. The course places otherness at the center of the picture rather than at its margins, with the main aim to look at pivotal events and phenomena (the rise of Humanism, courtly culture, the canonization of the language), not only from the point of view of its protagonists but also through the eyes of its non-male, non-white, non-Christian, and non-heterosexual witnesses. The course ultimately challenges traditional accounts of the Italian Renaissance by crossing also disciplinary boundaries, since it examines not only literary, artistic, and intellectual history, but also material culture, cartography, science, technology, and history of food and fashion. All readings and class discussion will be in English. Students seeking Italian credits will complete their assignments in the target language.
ITAL B220 Narrating Italianness: Contemporary Italian Women Writers (1 Unit)
This course will introduce students to contemporary Italian women writers by reading and discussing Italian novels, short stories, and autobiographies that most reflect a gendered transnational approach to contemporary Italian literature. Group work, in-class discussions, and academic readings will foster students' cross-cultural reflection and critical thinking skills on topics such as italianness, gender inequality, racial and ethnic discrimination, migration, and queer identities. Students will familiarize themselves with renowned women writers such as Elena Ferrante, Igiaba Scego and Jhumpa Lahiri (among others) and their transnational approach to Italian literature. Taught in English.
ITAL B221 What is Aesthetics? Theories on Art, Imagination, and Poetry (1 Unit)
This course investigates how global thinkers, poets, and artists reflected in their works on the roles and powers of art, poetry, and human creativity. The course approaches this theme through a cross-cultural and trans-historical approach, which encompasses the Italian Humanism, which argued for the first time for the importance of aesthetic knowledge, as well as the Age of Enlightenment, which founded ‘aesthetics’ as a specific scientific discipline. Readings from these writers will show how artistic products, human imagination, and poetry are not just light-hearted activities but powerful cognitive tools which can reveal aspects of human history. If the human being is deemed to be a combination of reason and feeling – soul and body – art and poetry, which border both the rational and irrational realms, appear the most appropriate scientific tool to reveal the human essence and its destiny. The discussion will focus on pivotal global writers and philosophers such as Giambattista Vico and Giacomo Leopardi, who pioneered aesthetic, historical, literary, and anthropological ideas which are still crucial in the current theoretical debate on arts and poetry. All readings and class discussion will be in English. Students will have an additional hour of class for Italian credit.
ITAL B226 Music Italian Style: The canzone italiana and its politics (1 Unit)
This course will introduce students to Italian music from a social, historical, and cultural perspective. The course will explore the developments of the genre of the canzone italiana from Medieval poetry to our current time, and then will offer an historical survey on how Italian music highlighted the social and political changes occurred in Italy over the last 150 years. Critical cultural studies will intersect with popular music studies. The aim of the course is to present an alternative, transnational and multifaceted perspective on how Italian music has shaped and continues to shape Italy’s national character, politics and personal identities. Taught in Italian.
ITAL B228 Creating Classics: A Visual Workshop on Pasolini & Greek Drama (1 Unit)
Is the reception of what we call “Classical Antiquity” a passive exercise of memory, inheritance, and recurrence? Or can it be a truly creative action, a kind of reclaiming, even a subversion of inherently exclusionary ideas and media? And what happens when we try to actively take part in this dialogue with a past that was transmitted to us as important, foundational, original, and authoritative? Rooted in the perspectives of trans-codification, trans-historical tradition, and cultural trans-lation, this course attempts to address such questions both in theory and practice. It starts with a seminar, devoted to the analysis and discussion of primary sources from the ancient Mediterranean and their afterlives in modern media. It then turns into a workshop that is both scholarly and creative.
ITAL B233 Translating Italian: A Workshop (1 Unit)
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 Italy on Screen: A Journey through Italian Cinema (1 Unit)
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.
ITAL B240 Philadelphia the Global City: The Italian Legacy across Time (1 Unit)
This course investigates the history and evolution of Philadelphia as a globalized and multi-ethnic city, using as a case study for this analysis the impact and legacy of transnational Italian culture across the centuries. By adopting a cross-cultural, trans-historical, and interdisciplinary approach, the course explores the influence that — along with and in intersection with many other cultural inputs — also Italian arts and cultures have exerted on the city, making it become the cosmopolitan and transnational urban environment that it is today. Throughout the centuries and way before Italy even started existing as a state, Philadelphians traveled to the peninsula and brought back objects to display in emerging cultural institutions or studied the country’s art and architecture styles to shape the evolving aspect of the city. Simultaneously, incoming immigration formed new neighborhoods — such as South Philly, home to the Italian Market — and Italian figures came to prominence and became part of the social fabric of the city. Nowadays, many non-profit organizations work to preserve the traces that Italian migrants left within Philadelphia’s multi-ethnic urban environment as well as to extend the city's global profile and celebrate its heritage and diversity. Through specific field trips, on-site experiential activities, and forms of civic engagement this course highlights both the enduring fascination of Philadelphians with Italy (or with the idea thereof) across the centuries and the role that the Italian Diaspora played in the development of the city. The course ultimately challenges geographical, chronological, and cultural boundaries by showing how places, arts, identities that today are perceived as ‘American’ have in most cases an intersectional, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural history to tell. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. All readings and class discussion will be in English, and no knowledge of Italian is required. Students seeking Italian credits will complete their assignments in the target language.
ITAL B255 Mafia and Organized Crimes (1 Unit)
This course will be a study of the mafia in its historical, social, economic, cultural, and political dimensions. A wide range of novels, films, testimonies and TV series will offer different representations of the Mafia: its ethics, its relationship with politics, religion and business, its ideas of friendship, family, masculinity and femininity. The Associazione Libera was established in 1995 with the purpose of involving and supporting those who are interested in the fight against mafias and organized crime. Thanks to Italian Law n. 109/96, the Italian government is able now to seize property from Mafiosi and give it to co-operations such as Libera. Specialized sectors of mafia activities explored include prostitution, drugs, finance, and human trafficking. Ecomafia receives special attention, examining the implications of mafia for the environment, agriculture and food markets.
ITAL B302 Italo Calvino Transnational Writer (1 Unit)
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 B303 Boccaccio, the Plague, and Epidemic illness: Literature and Medicine (1 Unit)
What are the responses to human suffering during outbreaks of epidemic illness? How can literature be a valuable tool for plague prevention in time of pestilence? This class explores crucial questions on how narrative works in medical contexts, with a focus on the Decameron and the black plague of 1348. Giovanni Boccaccio is the first writer to unite the literary topos of narration during a life-threatening situation with an historical epidemic context in Medieval Italy. How does he tell his stories in time of illness and death? How do writers and other storytellers respond to dominant versions of health and medicine? Taught in Italian.
ITAL B313 Primo Levi, the Writer (1 Unit)
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 B314 Cruel and unusual: who has the right to punish? (1 Unit)
The criminal legal system is a key site of racism and inequity in the US, the country with the highest rate of incarceration, and an outlier among Western democracies in its continued utilization of the death penalty. In line with the goals of the new college-wide distribution requirement, this course will invite students to reflect on issues of power, inequity and justice that arise when the right to punish is exercised and debated. Capital punishment and life sentences stand out in as extreme forms of punishment and, as such, they have been the subject of philosophical debates, popular discussion, and literary representations since antiquity. While the US context will remain in the background of our discussions, the course syllabus will focus on the Italian literary and philosophical tradition. Italian thinkers were central in the conceptualization of the modern criminal legal system in the 19th century, and many Italian writers – from Antonio Gramsci to Primo Levi – wrote on and during their experience of detention. Readings from the Italian tradition will be paired with texts focused on capital punishment and life sentences in the US – not to draw linear comparisons, but rather to apply the theoretical and critical tools acquired through the analysis of the Italian context to the exploration of questions of power and justice in the United States.
ITAL B315 A Gendered History of the Avant-Garde (1 Unit)
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.
ITAL B316 Fascism and Masculinity (1 Unit)
In this course, we will explore the construction and evolution of models of masculinity and (less frequently) of womanhood, colonialism and nation-building ideals, by reflecting on nationalism, hierarchy, elitism, anti-egalitarianism, totalitarianism, antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and eugenics. We will discus the symbolical and political role of physical activities and sport from the Italian unification to WWII. We will study the legacy of Fascism in constructing national identity, military readiness, and health through sports to control and monitor sports organizations and individualist and white supremacist rhetoric.
ITAL B318 Falling Statues: myth-making in literature, politics and art (1 Unit)
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 Unit)
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.
ITAL B324 Diversity, Gender, and Queerness in Modern Italian Poetry (1 Unit)
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 (1-10 Unit)
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 B326 Love, Magic, and Medicine: Poetical-Philosophical Bonds (1 Unit)
The course investigates how the concepts of love, magic, and medicine emerged and developed throughout early modernity and beyond. In exploring the fields of Philosophy, Medicine, and Magic, global thinkers, poets, and artists drew not only from classical sources, but were also deeply influenced by a wide range of models, such as fictional ancient sources, Islamic philosophy, and the Jewish Kabbalah. In this interesting syncretism, love was considered as an inspiration experienced by the entire universe, and magical practice was understood as a philosophy in action, which had the power to establish a bond of a loving nature between the different realms of reality. Magicians were therefore conceived as wise philosophers capable of joining this network of correspondences and controlling them (art)ificially. As a result, the figures of poets and artists interestingly merged into those of magicians of physicians, and poetry was conceived both as a magic able to arouse mental images stronger than real visions, and as a medicine able to exert a mental and physiological agency on the body. The course will approach these themes through a multi-disciplinary and trans-historical approach, which will include in the discussion a wide variety of figures, such as global early modern and modern philosophers, physicians, poets, artists, and composers.All readings and class discussion will be in English. Students will have an additional hour of class for Italian credit.
ITAL B335 The Italian Margins: Places and Identities (1 Unit)
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.
ITAL B380 Modernity and Psychoanalysis: Crossing Boundaries in 20th-century Italy and Europe (1 Unit)
Designed as an in-depth interdisciplinary exploration of Italy’s 20th-century cultural life, the course is organized around major artistic and intellectual trends, viewed in their historical and global perspective, and in connection with Avant-garde literary movements and philosophical ideas: i.e. surrealism, metaphysics, Dadaism, psychoanalysis, futurism, decadence, and modernism. While thinking and writing in Italian, we will examine films, novels, and poetry to gain insight on Modernity with attention also to gender and ethnic perspectives. Elements of metrics and rhetoric will be used to analyze poetry in its own essence. Prerequisite: One 200-Level course in Italian.
ITAL B398 Senior Seminar (1 Unit)
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.
ITAL B399 Senior Conference (1 Unit)
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.
ITAL I001 Intensive Elementary Italian (1 Unit)
ITAL I002 Intensive Elementary Italian (1 Unit)
COML B213 Theory in Practice: Critical Discourses in the Humanities (1 Unit)
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? By bringing together the study of major theoretical currents of the 20th century and the practice of analyzing literary works in the light of theory, this course aims at providing students with skills to use literary theory in their own scholarship. The selection of theoretical readings reflects the history of theory (psychoanalysis, structuralism, narratology), as well as the currents most relevant to the contemporary academic field: Post-structuralism, Post-colonialism, Gender Studies, and Ecocriticism. They are paired with a diverse range of short stories across multiple language traditions (Poe, Kafka, Camus, Borges, Calvino, Morrison, Djebar, Murakami, Ngozi Adichie) that we discuss along with our study of theoretical texts. We will discuss how to apply theory to the practice of interpretation and of academic writing, and how theoretical ideas shape what we are reading. The class will be conducted in English, with an additional hour taught by the instructor of record in the target language for students wishing to take the course for language credit.
HIST B238 From Bordellos to Cybersex History of Sexuality in Modern Europe (1 Unit)
This course is a detailed examination of the changing nature and definition of sexuality in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present. Throughout the semester we critically examine how understandings of sexuality changed—from how it was discussed and how authorities tried to control it to how the practice of sexuality evolved. Focusing on both discourses and lived experiences, the class will explore sexuality in the context of the following themes; prostitution and sex trafficking, the rise of medicine with a particular attention to sexology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis; the birth of the homo/hetero/bisexual divide; the rise of the “New Woman”; abortion and contraception; the “sexual revolution” of the 60s; pornography and consumerism; LGBTQ activism; concluding with considering sexuality in the age of cyber as well as genetic technology. In examining these issues we will question the role and influence of different political systems and war on sexuality. By paying special attention to the rise of modern nation-states, forces of nationalism, and the impacts of imperialism we will interrogate the nature of regulation and experiences of sexuality in different locations in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present.