2006-2007 Undergraduate Courses in Italian
| AUTUMN | WINTER | SPRING |
|---|---|---|
| 10100 Beginning Elementary Italian 1 | 10200 Beginning Elementary Italian 2 | 10300 Beginning Elementary Italian 3 |
| 10400 Italian Through Dante | 20200 Language, History, Culture 2 | 20300 Language, History, Culture 3 |
| 20100 Language, History, Culture I | 20400 Corso di perfezionamento | 20800 Survey 2: Letteratura italiana dal Cinquecento al Seicento |
| 20400 Corso di perfezionamento | 20700 Survey 1: Letteratura italiana dal Duecento al Quattrocento | 22101 Dante's Divine Comedy 3: Paradiso |
| 20900 Survey 3: Letteratura italiana dal Settecento ad Oggi | 24400 Il poema epico-cavalleresco: Arisoto | 23502 Boccaccio's Decameron |
| 22401 Ugo Foscolo: Neoclassical Tradition and Romantic Imagination | 24701 Venetian Women Writers and the 'Woman Question,' 1575-1675 | 24800 M.A. Exam |
| 24600 Giacomo Leopardi, L'idea della fine del tempo | 25400 Il Seicento | 29700 Readings in Special Topics |
| 28400 Pasolini | 28501 Gianni Celati: Writings and Films from 1970 to Today | |
| 28701 Italian Literary Language: Features and History | 29700 Readings in Special Topics | |
| 29100 Creative Couples and Collaboration in Twentieth-Century Italy | 29900 B.A. Paper Preparation: Italian | |
| 29700 Readings in Special Topics |
Some 30000 and 40000-level courses in Italian (ITAL) are open to advanced undergraduates in Romance Languages with consent of instructor. Please contact the department for further information.
Language
These courses must be taken for a quality grade.
10100-10200-10300. Beginning Elementary Italian I, II, III. Must be taken for a quality grade. This three-quarter sequence is designed for beginning and beginning-intermediate students in Italian. Its aim is to provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written Italian (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, sociocultural norms) to develop their speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills to the level required to demonstrate competency on the Italian examination. Although the three classes constitute a sequence leading to the Italian competency examination, there is enough review and recycling at every level for students to enter the sequence at whatever level is appropriate for them. Cultural awareness is enhanced through close study of the Italian theatrical tradition. Summer (complete sequence offered); Autumn, Winter, Spring. (ITAL 10300 is also offered in Pisa in Spring Quarter.)
- 10100. ITAL 10100 is designed for students who have no previous knowledge of Italian, and for those who need an in-depth review of the basic patterns of the language.
- 10200. PQ: ITAL 10100 or placement. ITAL 10200 offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands on the material presented in ITAL 10100.
- 10300. PQ: ITAL 10200 or placement . ITAL 10300 expands on the material presented in ITAL 10200, reviewing and elaborating the basic patterns of the language as needed to prepare students for the Italian competency examination. (ITAL 10300 is also offered in Pisa in Spring Quarter.)
10400-10500-10600. Italian through Dante, I, II III. Not open to students who have taken ITAL 10100-10200-10300. Must be taken for a quality grade. This course is an intensive introduction to Italian. The principal aims of the course are mastery of basic Italian grammar, acquisition of reading skills necessary to read and discuss selected cantos of Dante's Inferno , and a beginning level competency in oral and written Italian. The course begins primarily as a reading course; however, the elements of basic spoken contemporary Italian are progressively introduced. Three class periods each week are devoted to the study of grammar and vocabulary and to reading and analysis of cantos of the Inferno; two classes are devoted to language exercises, including recitation and conversation. This course is offered in alternate years. E. Weaver. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
- 10400. This course involves a reading and analysis of Inferno, canto 1; grammar study introduces nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs in present, future, and past tenses and considers differences between contemporary standard Italian and the language of the Divine Comedy.
20100-20200-20300. Language, History, and Culture I, II, III. PQ: ITAL 10300 or placement. Must be taken for a quality grade. In this intermediate-level sequence, students review and extend their knowledge of all basic patterns (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, sociocultural norms) of the language. They develop their oral and written skills in describing, narrating, and presenting arguments. They are exposed to texts and audio-visual material that provide them with a deeper understanding of the Italian-speaking world. Summer (complete sequence offered; Autumn, Winter, Spring. (This complete sequence also offered in Pisa in Spring Quarter.)
- 20100. PQ: ITAL 10300 or placement. ITAL 20100 is designed as a general review and extension of all basic patterns of the language for intermediate students. Students explore the diversity of the Italian-speaking world through contemporary Italian short stories.
- 20200. PQ: ITAL 20100 or placement. ITAL 20200 seeks to develop the student's use of persuasive and argumentative language. Our focus is on analyzing and debating current issues pertaining to the Italian-speaking world, and articulating sound personal perspectives on these issues. A variety of written, oral, listening, and reading activities allow the student to explore different genres while reviewing grammatical and lexical items. Cultural awareness is enhanced through close study of contemporary Italian film and literature, as well as through in-class discussion.
- 20300. PQ: ITAL 20200 or placement. ITAL 20300 completes the study of the common grammatical functions and syntactical structures of the oral and written language and introduces the student to description and analysis of a variety of texts through written, oral, listening, and reading activities. Readings concentrate on classics of the Italian lyric tradition from Petrarca to Leopardi, with some examples of contemporary Italian poetry. Brief selections of literary critical and historical texts serve to contextualize the poetry.
20400/30400. Corso di perfezionamento. PQ: ITAL 20300, placement, or consent of instructor. Must be taken for a quality grade. The goal of this course is to help students achieve mastery of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. Using a variety of literary and nonliterary texts as models, students examine the linguistic structure and organization of several types of written Italian discourse and are guided in the acquisition of the rules underlying each discourse type. Autumn, Winter.
Literature and Culture
All literature and culture courses are conducted in Italian unless otherwise indicated. Italian majors do all work in Italian. With prior consent of instructor, nonmajors may write in English.
20700. Letteratura italiana dal Duecento al Quattrocento: Survey I. PQ: ITAL 20300 or consent of the instructor. This course is an introduction to Italian literature of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. We read works by Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and those of a number of major authors. The literary genres examined are primarily lyric and narrative poetry and the short story (the Italian novella). The course provides a general overview of the cultural history of the period. Close readings and discussions required. J. Steinberg. Autumn.
20800. Letteratura italiana dal Cinquecento al Seicento: Survey II. PQ: ITAL 20300 or consent of instructor. This course is an introduction to the literature of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and close reading of works by major authors, including Alberti, Michelangelo, Stampa, Castiglione, Ariosto, and Tasso. We study various literary genres (i.e., drama, dialogues, treatises, lyric and narrative poetry) and important cultural debates of the period, including the querelle des femmes and the nascent women's literary tradition. Staff. Winter.
20900. Letteratura italiana dal Settecento ad oggi: Survey III. PQ: ITAL 20300 or consent of the instructor. This course is an introduction to the major works of Italian literature from the eighteenth century to the present. The genres studied are primarily lyric poetry, narrative prose, and drama. We also consider the birth and development of Italian cinema and creative and critical trends in today's increasingly multicultural Italy. Staff. Spring.
22101. Dante's Divine Comedy 3: Paradiso. An in-depth study of the third cantica of Dante's masterpiece, considered the most difficult but in many ways also the most innovative. Read alongside his scientific treatise the Convivio and his political manifesto the Monarchia. Completion of the previous courses in the sequence not required, but students should familiarize themselves with the Inferno and the Purgatorio before the first day of class. Taught in English. Spring.
22401. Ugo Foscolo: Neoclassical Tradition and Romantic Imagination. The course will consider the main works of the writer, taking into account the individual military career of Foscolo in Napoleonic Italy, and his mixed feelings towards Napoleon and the new idea of Italy as a partially unified and independent country. The novel "Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis" will be discussed, and a close reading of some sonetts, "odi" and "Sepolcri" will be offered in class. Also the English years of Foscolo will be presented, in a comparative analysis of contemporary literary activity of Lord Byron in Italy. F. Bruni. Autumn.
23502. "Boccaccio's Decameron". Bocaccio's Decameron, written in the midst of the social disruption caused by the Black Death (1348), may have held readers attention for centuries because of its bawdiness, but it is also a profound exploration into the basis of faith and the meaning of death, the status of language, the construction of social hierarchy and social order, and the nature of crisis and historical change. Framed by a story telling contest between seven young ladies and three young men who have left the city to avoid the plague, the one hundred stories of the Decameron form a structural masterpiece that anticipates the Renaissance epics, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and the modern short story. Taught in English. J. Steinberg. Spring.
24400. Il poema epico-cavalleresco: Aristo. PQ: Ital 203 or consent of instructor. A study of chilvalric romance and of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso, the unrivaled masterpiece of the genre in Italy. We will discuss the poem's famous precursor, M. M. Boiardo's Orlando innamorato, its continuations and remaniements (riscritture), and theoretical treatments of the genre and interpretations of the poem in sixteenth-century Italy and today. There will be a term paper. Classes will be conducted in Italian; concentrators will do all work in Italian. E. Weaver. Winter.
24600. Giacomo Leopardi, L'idea della fine del tempo. II corso prevede la letture di Operette morali, passi scelti dello zibaldone, e una serie di poesie. Partendo dal Contico del Gallo Silvestre, nelle Operette morali, si cercherà di mettere in duscussione l'idea completamento negative del "pessimisno leopardiano." Si mosterà un percorso di pensieri leopardiani dove la negazione e le "vedute pessimistche" fanno parte d'un lungo discorso antropologico. Quello che emerge è un uso del pensiero che non è da intendere come costruttivo, ma "dissipatorio." E'un'altra e diversa forma di energia che, nel dissipare o dissolvere le aspettative del futuro, permette di vedere uno stato particolare dell'essere. A. Maggi. Winter.
24701. Venetian Women Writers and the 'Woman Question,' 1575-1675. Feminism in Italy began in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century. The earliest texts belong to the literature of the debate known today as the Querelle des femmes and are little more than defenses of women against traditional misogynist accusations. As women writers began to publish more frequently and joined the debate, the issues were no longer simply literary, and writers argued for the education of women, their freedom to choose their vocations, and their participation in public life. We will read the principal contributions to this early feminist movement: Moderata Fonte's Il merito delle donne (The Worth of Women), Lucrezia Marinell's La nobiltà ed eccellenza delle donne ... e i difetti degli uomini (The Nobility and Excellence of Women...and the Defects of Men), and Arcangela Tarabotti's La semplicità (or Tirannia paterna, Paternal Tyranny), as well as minor works by these three Venetian writers. The course will be taught in English with readings in English or Italian. There will be class presentations and a term paper. For credit toward a major or minor in Italian, students must do the readings and paper in Italian, and I will schedule some special sessions for them in which we discuss the texts in Italian. E. Weaver. Winter.
25400. Il Seicento. Questo corso intende esaminare la visione culturale, retorica e religiosa del secolo diciassettesimo attraverso l'esame di una serie di testi chiave, la maggior parte di essi presenti nella "Reading List" dell'esame di Ph. D. Per una comprensione delle fondamenta storiche del seicento, inizieremo con una selezione dall'Istoria del Concilio di Trento di Paolo Sarpi. Proseguiremo con il Cannocchiale aristotelico di Emmanuele Tesauro, trattato essenziale per la comprensione della retorica secentesca. Applicheremo le teorie sulla metafora di Tesauro ad una ampia selezione di poeti barocchi, inclusi Marino e Casoni. Il concetto d'identità barocca ci verrà offerta dallo studio della Dissimulazione onesta di Torquato Accetto e dall'Uomo di lettere di Daniello Bartoli. Concluderemo con una lettura selezionata de Lo cunto de li cunti di Giovan Battista Basile. Il corso sarà condotto in italiano nel dipartimento di Special Collections della Regenstein Library. The course will be conducted in Italian. A. Maggi. Winter.
28400. Pasolini. This course examines each aspect of Pasolini's artistic production according to the most recent literary and cultural theories, including Gender Studies. We shall analyze his poetry (in particular "Le Ceneri di Gramsci" and "Poesie informa di rosa"), some of his novels ("Ragazzi di vita," "Una vita violenta," "Teorema," "Petrolio"), and his numerous essays on the relationship between standard Italian and dialects, semiotics and cinema, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary Western culture. We shall also discuss the following films: "Accattone," "La ricotta," "Edipo Re," "Teorema," and "Salo." A. Maggi. Autumn.
28501. Gianni Celati: Writings and Films from 1970 to Today. Celati has attained the stature of one of the most original and accomplished living contributors to the Italian cultural and literary scene. In studying his work as a fiction writer, an essayist, a translator, and a filmmaker, we shall follow a trajectory through the broader theoretical and literary directions and debates from the neo-avantgarde of the 1960s and early 1970s, to postmodernism, post-colonialism, and other recent developments in literature and critical-theoretical work. Celati has been involved in all of these currents, and his work provides a map through the complex Italian literary terrain of the last three decades and more. We shall also study his mentors, such as Calvino and photographer Luigi Ghirri, and his "compagni di strada" and those younger writers whom he influenced, such as Messori, Cavazzoni, Benati, and other figures identified with the "Po Valley" school of writing. Readings and class discussions in Italian. R. West. Winter.
28701. Italian Literary Language: Features and History. The Course aims to make students familiar with language, style and textual modes of Italian Literature, from the XIVth to the XIXth Century. The relations of vulgar literature and Latin culture, the two way influence of Florentine-Tuscan variety and dialects, the emergence of an Italian literature in the XVIth Century from the Tuscan classics of the XIVth (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio) are the main subjects which will be examined. Why modern Italian is closer to the XIVth Century than to XVIth language? The reasons of this unexpected situation are to be found in this section of literary language development. A second, substantial transformation takes place in the XIXth Cenntury. The Romantic Age, in fact, and the origin of the Italian novel, requires a new language, devoted to represent the daily language: narrative prose can represent linguistic features of the common Italian language that the scientific analysis of experts in linguistics will focus on much later, in the XXth Century. A selection of texts will be examined, in order to connect general approach and particular textual readings. Students should study this book: F. Bruni, L'italiano letterario nella storia, Il Mulino, 2003. F. Bruni. Autumn.
29100. Creative Couples and Collaboration in Twentieth-Century Italy. Taught in Italian and with readings in Italian, the course concentrates on forms of literary and cinematic collaboration in twentieth-century Italy, as seen in the work of couples, both normative and eccentric, and of groups. We shall study the art of married couples such as Moravia and Morante; of "masters and protégés" Marta Abba and Pirandello, Vittorini and Calvino, and Montale and Spaziani; of friends such as Manganelli and Niccolai, and the Alì Babà; of co-writers such as Fruttero and Lucentini, immigrant writers and their Italian editors, and the Wu Ming; and of creative collaborations between artists working in different media such as Guerra ( writer and scriptwriter) and Antonioni (film director), Masina (actress) and Fellini (film director), and Celati (writer) and Ghirri (photographer), The question of "individual genius" vs. "collaborative creativity" will provide a fundamental theoretical focus for the entire course. R. West. Autumn.
29700. Readings in Special Topics. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.