ITAL-UA 161.001 Of Villains and Vice: Italian Literature and Cinema through Their Antagonists

(Class # 1412)

Mondays-Thursdays 2:00-5:00
Prof. Riccardo Antonangeli
Casa Italiana Library (Room 203)
Same as ENGL-UA 59.001 & CINE-UT 236.

This course will offer an overview of Italian literature, cinema, graphic novels by way of an unconventional point of view: that of the villain. Often overlooked as either caricature or cliché, the antagonist in many cases constitutes the most entertaining figure of a plot, bringing to the story its twists, mysteries, and unexpected turns of events. This class will investigate the motives behind the undeniable attraction that the enemy has always provided to generations of readers and viewers, including those villains we “love to hate.”

Why are evil and vice so fascinating? Why, despite their supposedly negative roles in history and society, are characters such as the Nazi, the fascist, the mafioso, the serial killer, the outlaw and the terrorist, still powerful in triggering our imagination and most forbidden desires? Beginning with the antagonists from 19th-century novels, we will explore the many variations the villain took throughout the 20th century up to the present day. Sadism, sexual perversion and ambiguity, physical deformation – to name a few – form the common traits of evil characters in war movies, spaghetti westerns, gialli, horrors and mafia epics, tracing a genealogy of evil and darkness that will guide us from Dracula to Tarantino’s inglorious Nazis.

Previous J-Term Courses

J-Term 2017

ITAL-UA 150 Visual Languages of the Renaissance: Emblems, Dreams, Hieroglyphs.

MTWR 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.

Nicola Cipani

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 li 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.

(Please note that this course satisfies one of the elective requirements for the Italian Studies Major & Minor.)