2008-2009 Graduate Courses in Romance Languages
| AUTUMN | WINTER | SPRING |
|---|---|---|
| 38501 Aesthetics and Politics | 30200 Romance Philology | 38800 Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Teaching |
Graduate Course Descriptions
30200. Romance Philology. The Course focuses on the contemporary diffusion of Romance languages (old and modern “Romània”) and on the historical process underlying the linguistic situation today. The main Roman Languages, in fact, are widely spread over the world. The Romance presence in the English language (mainly via Latin and France) will also be taken in account. Secondly, basic problems of historical linguistics will be analysed and the historical development from Latin to French, Provençal, Italian, Spanish will be examined. Special emphasis will be laid on the regularity of phonetic and morphologic tendencies; also Christian and romance lexical and semantic novelties, common to several Romance languages and also to English, will be discussed. The Course is conducted in English with examples taken from Provençal, French, Italian and Spanish. Peter Dembowski. Winter.
38501. Aesthetics and Politics. This seminar will try to provide some principles of interpretation of the metamorphoses of aesthetic forms and of the interplay of aesthetic strategies in relation to political transformation. It will do it through a rereading of some classical texts and the examination of some historical employments of “form.” It will try to find new ways to address such issues as: what kind of democracy happens in literature, painting, or photography? What kind of communism in theatre, dance, or cinema? What kind of public life in the form of the exhibition? What kind of criticism in installation art? How far do new media determine new political potentials of art forms? What is exactly meant by the “aestheticization of life”? Jacques Ranciere. Autumn.
38800. Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Teaching. This course provides students with a foundation in foreign language acquisition and sociolinguistic research pertinent to foreign language teaching and introduces current teaching methodologies and their usefulness in the classroom. Nadine DiVito . Spring.