ITAL-UA 116 Readings in Modern Italian Literature
Tuesday/Thursday
9:30am-10:45am, CASA 201
Antonangeli
Conducted in Italian, (Prerequisite of ITAL-UA 30 or by Department's permission)
Introductory-level literature course that, through a close reading of authors such as Alfieri, Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni, Verga, D'Annunzio, Moravia, and Calvino, focuses on how to understand a literary text in Italian. Covers Italian literature from the 18th century to the contemporary period.
ITAL-UA 121 The Renaissance
(same as HIST-UA 121, MEDI-UA 121)
Tuesday/Thursday
3:30pm-4:45pm, TISC LC9
Appuhn
Conducted in English
ITAL-UA 172 Hellscapes and Elysia in the Renaissance and Beyond
(same as COLIT-UA 173, ENGL-UA 56, MEDI-UA 172)
Monday/Wednesday
11am-12:15pm, CASA 201
McHugh
Conducted in English
This course explores various representations of otherworlds, both infernal and paradisal: the realms of the afterlife, regions of marvel or idyllic bliss, political utopias and dystopias. Readings and discussion focus on how these imagined lands reflect, critique, and animate the real world, from antiquity through our own times.
ITAL-UA 173.001 Murder, Italian Style!
(same as DRLIT-UA 505)
Monday/Wednesday
12:30pm-1:45pm, CASA 201
Falkoff
Course conducted in English; reading knowledge of Italian recommended but not required.
A genre whose development is associated with urbanization, crime fiction—like so many other emblems of modernity—is often considered to have arrived belatedly in Italy. Despite this initial reticence, several critically acclaimed writers of contemporary Italy have used the genre as a narrative space from which to launch a broader commentary on aspects of Italian history and culture such as the fascist period, honor killings, police brutality, political corruption, femicide, and xenophobia. This course will consider novels, plays, and films from the 1950s to the present, analyzing the ways in which they use conventions of the crime fiction as a point of departure for literary experimentation, philosophical reflection, and cultural critique.
ITAL-UA 173.002 Italy and the Mediterranean: Empire, Politics and Culture
(same as AHSEM-UA 218.001 and MEIS-UA 659.001)
Tuesday/Thursday
4:55pm-6:10pm, CASA 306
Valerie McGuire
Conducted in English
NOTE: ONLY OPEN TO CAS SOPHOMORES, JUNIORS, AND SENIORS
Shortly after its unification in 1861, the Italian nation began a prolonged attempt to establish an overseas empire on a scale with other European colonial powers. This course examines how Italian imperialism unfolded and how it impacted politics and culture on the global level, as well as how it shaped internal attitudes and beliefs, particularly during Italy’s Fascist period. The course studies the formation of Italy’s national project under two different empires and discovers how processes such as emigration and the Southern Question intertwined with its first attempts to establish foreign colonies. As Ottoman collapse and the First World War initiated a new phase of European colonialism, Italy turned to the Mediterranean as the domain of its empire. We investigate how the Mediterranean region ignited fantasies of the exotic and the familiar and how it both promoted and challenged Italian myths of national identity. The course studies Italy’s imperial history and culture through a range of medium, including film, novels and scholarly articles. Reading knowledge in Italian is a plus but not a requisite.
ITAL-UA 282 Italian Cinema and Literature
Tuesday 12:30-1:45pm and Thursday 12:30-3:15pm
CASA Auditorium
Albertini
Course conducted in Italian (Prerequisite of ITAL-UA 30 or by Department's permission)
Sample Syllabus
The course will focus on the development of Italian cinema in the post war period, emphasizing the relationship between literature and film adaptation. The books and the films will offer a unique opportunity to analyze and discuss crucial issues related to the historical, political, and cultural evolution of Italy concentrating in particular on the political unification process (Risorgimento).
ITAL-UA 285 Topics in Italian Literature: Dante's Purgatorio
(same as ENGL-UA 52 and MEDI-UA 285.001)
Monday/Wednesday
12:30pm-1:45pm, CASA 201
Conducted in English
ITAL-UA 724 Italian-American Life in Literature
(same as ENGL-UA 724)
Tuesday/Thursday
11am-12:15pm, CASA 201
Hendin
Conducted in English
Sample Syllabus
A study of the fiction and poetry through which Italian American writers have expressed their heritage and their engagement in American life. From narratives of immigration to current work by "assimilated" writers, the course explores the depiction of Italian American identity. Challenging stereotypes, it explores changing family relationships, sexual mores, and political and social concerns.
ITAL-UA 760 Topics in the Renaissance: Visual Languages of the Renaissance: Emblems, Dreams, Hieroglyphs
(same as MEDI-UA 760.001)
Thursday
12:30pm-3:00pm, CASA 201
Cipani
Conducted in English
Syllabus
Making knowledge visible was one of the great Renaissance endeavors. Some of the period's most characteristic products were born out of the conviction that concepts could be systematically turned into images — and that such images could be organized into a visual language, more profound and universal than discursive logic. Egyptian hieroglyphs and dream visions, in their mysterious graphic exuberance, were considered typical vehicles of this advanced mode of communication. The desire to emulate their symbolic density is reflected both in literature and in art, often in ways that challenge common distinctions between visual and verbal communication. In this course you will be introduced to an assortment of works representative of such interplay between text and image: emblem books, dream books and dream-centered works, hieroglyphic inventions and studies, collections of proverbs, iconology manuals, etc. Among the books examined are some widely considered as the finest examples of design in the history of printing. Early modern and recent theory of emblems will also be discussed. As a present-day counterpart of Renaissance emblems, the course will conclude with a survey of corporate logos and Russian criminal tattoos.
CORE-UA 554 Cultures & Contexts: Italy
Tuesday/Thursday
12:30-1:45PM