Placement Exams

If you have previously studied Italian, we recommend you take the CAS Placement Exam prior to beginning your Italian language studies at NYU. Please see here to learn more about our language courses and language sequence. After taking the placement exam, foward your test results to Elisa Fox (elisa.fox@nyu.edu), who will assist you with registration. If you have general questions, contact elisa.fox@nyu.edu for assistance.

Scheduling

Language courses have 3 meeting patterns:

• Mondays/Tuesdays/Wednesdays
• Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays
• Tuesdays/Thursdays - For Tisch studets, contact elisa.fox@nyu.edu for permission code to enroll.

Advanced Language Courses

ITAL-UA 30 Advanced Review of Modern Italian
Section 001: MWF 9:30-10:45
Section 002: MTW 12:30-1:45

ITAL-UA 101 Conversations in Italian
Section 001: MWF 2:00-3:15

Most courses can count toward the "Culture & Society" or "Literature" component of the Italian Studies major/minor, Romance Languages major, and Italian and Linguistic major. Contact elisa.fox@nyu.edu if you are unsure what requirements a course fulfills.

ITAL-UA 115 Readings in Medieval & Renaissance Literature

ITAL-UA 155 Francesco Petrarca Rime

ITAL-UA 172 Drama Queens: Opera, Gender and the Poetics of Excess

ITAL-UA 174 Italian Films, Italian Histories I

ITAL-UA 270 Dante's Divine Comedy

ITAL-UA 310 Sounds of Italy 1910-1970

ITAL-UA 400 From Polenta to Marinara: History of Italian Food (2 credit)

ITAL-UA 999 Senior Honors Seminar

CORE-UA 554 Modern Italy

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

ITAL-UA 115 Readings in Medieval & Renaissance Literature

Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:15; Melissa Swain

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Room 306

Close reading of authors such as Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, and Ariosto. Covers Italian literature from its origins to the 17th century.

Course taught in Italian.

**Fulfills the Literature Survey requirement**

ITAL-UA 155 Francesco Petrarca Rime

Mondays/Wednesdays 2:00-3:15; Maria Luisa Ardizzone

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Library (Room 203)

Same as MEDI-UA 322 and ENGL-UA 252.001

Petrarch is one of the greatest Italian and European poets. His achievements in lyric poetry have made him the most acclaimed and imitated poet of Europe during the Renaissance and a model for lyrical poetry for centuries. He was one of the early humanists. The course proposes a reading of his, Rime, and of other works. We focus on the Canzoniere as the work that re-invents the way to write poetry using classical and medieval sources. The course offers the student the opportunity to gain a perspective on classicality, on medieval tradition, and on the genesis of humanism. This class will be taught in English.

ITAL-UA 172 Drama Queens: Gender, Opera and the Poetics of Excess

Mondays/Wednesdays 2:00-3:15; Eugenio Refini

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Room 306

Same as DRLIT-UA 175.002

What is a drama queen? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a drama queen is “a person who is prone to exaggeratedly dramatic behaviour” and “a person who thrives on being the centre of attention.” While drama queens certainly exist among us in real life, the world of opera is indeed one of their ideal environments. Echoing back to their tragic fates, the powerful voices of Dido, Medea, Violetta, and Tosca never ceased to affect their empathetic public. In fact, excess and overreactions are two main features of the operatic experience both on stage and in the audience. By focusing on the ways in which operatic characters are brought to life, the course explores the social, political, and gender dynamics that inform the melodramatic imagination. Along with a broad introduction to the development of the operatic genre and the opera libretto from 1600 to 1900, the course will provide students with a theoretical background across literature and musical culture, reception, voice/sound and gender studies. Case studies include highlights from operas by Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini as well as readings from works by authors such as Balzac, Tolstoy, D’Annunzio, and theoretical writings by Abel, Butler, Dolar, Koestenbaum, among others. Students will have the opportunity to attend screenings and live performances. No musical skills required. This course will be taught in English.

ITAL-UA 174 Italian Films, Italian Histories I

Tuesdays 12:30-1:45, Thursdays 12:30-3:15; Stefano Albertini

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Auditorium

Same as HIST-UA 176.001, MEDI-UA 173.001, CINE-UT 234, and EURO-UA 174.001

Studies representation of Italian history through the medium of film from ancient Rome through the Risorgimento. Issues to be covered throughout include the use of filmic history as a means of forging national identity. This class will be taught in English.

ITAL-UA 270 Dante’s Divine Comedy

Tuesday/Thursday 11:00-12:15; Alison Cornish

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Auditorium

Same as COLIT-UA 270, ENGL-UA 142, MEDI-UA 271, and EURO-UA 174.002

This course is dedicated to a one-semester guided reading of the Divine Comedy in its entirety. The text will be read in facing-page translation for the benefit of those who know some Italian and those who do not. Lectures and discussion are in English. Students will learn about the historical, philosophical, and literary context of the poem as well as how to make sense of  it in modern terms. Evaluation will be by means of bluebook midterm and final, testing knowledge of key terms, concepts, and passages, two short papers, and active participation in lectures and discussion.

ITAL-UA 310 Sounds of Italy 1910-1970

Tuesdays/Thursdays 11:00-12:15; Nicola Cipani

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Library (Room 203)

Same as COLIT-UA 852.001

This course will acquaint students with a variety of sound artifacts and sound related texts, grouped around topics significant for Italy’s auditory culture between WWI and the 70s. We will examine sound in a range of manifestations and contexts — propaganda, magic-religious rituals, oral poetry, folklore, commercial sound design, soundtracks, etc. Supporting critical readings will give students the opportunity to compare approaches on sound from different fields — sound studies, oral history, (ethno)musicology, cultural and media studies. The course will touch upon issues such as the relationship between music and other arts; the development of Italian media; Fascist sound politics; prison songs; the survival of (largely non-textual) oral-aural art forms.

The course is in English, no Italian required. English transcripts will be provided for sound files in Italian. each lesson will include a listening part with sound samples and a class discussion based on required listenings/readings.

ITAL-UA 400 From Polenta to Marinara: History of Italian Food

Thursdays 11:00-12:15; Roberto Scarcella-Perino

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Room 306

**2 credits**

Same as FOOD-UE 1052

In this course we will cover the Italian varieties of food in their past and present forms. First, we will explore the history of food from past civilizations, leading up to World War I, just after the great immigration to the New World. Time periods examined will be ancient Rome, Medieval, Renaissance, Risorgimento, leading to the modern era. This course includes topics ranging from Pellegrino Artusi’s famous cookbook in the contest of Italian unification, the relationship between Italian Futurism and food.  The second part of the course will introduce students to the regional varieties of Italian food. We will examine the ways in which food shapes contemporary Italian society, from the more intimate family kitchen to the most elegant Italian restaurant in New York City. This class will be taught in English.

ITAL-UA 999 Senior Honors Seminar

Mondays 11:00-1:45; Profesor Leif Weatherby

19 University Place, Room 100D

Same as GERM-UA 999.001, HEL-UA 999.001, MEDI-UA 999.001, MEIS-UA 720.0001, FREN-UA 886.001

This collective, interdepartmental course lends practical, methodological, and strategic support to the writing of the Senior Honors Thesis.  We will read theoretical works on the process of research and the craft of academic writing, as well as short scholarly texts, upon which we will exercise our own critical readings and analyses.

Department permission is required to register. Email Elisa Fox (elisa.fox@nyu.edu) to enroll.

CORE-UA 554 Modern Italy

Mondays/Wednesdays 11:00-12:15; Rebecca Falkoff

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Auditorium

Sometime around 1866, the statesman Massimo d’Azeglio is said to have said, “Now that Italy is made, we have to make Italians.” Whether or not he actually said these words, they seem to have struck a chord: It’s hard to find a history of Italian Unification that does not cite them. But what did it mean to make Italians? When Italy became a constitutional monarchy in 1861, most people living in the peninsula and islands identified more strongly with their local communities than with the abstract idea of "Italy." This course examines the relationship between cultural production and national identity, asking how literary, visual, musical, and culinary forms contributed to the making of “Italy” and “Italians.” Which elements of the diverse culture of the peninsula, diaspora, colonies, and islands were glorified and which were excluded in production of Italy as an imagined community? 

This course counts towards the "culture & society" track of the Italian Studies major/minor, Romance Languages major, and Italian and Linguistics major. Contact elisa.fox@nyu.edu for details.