Italian
- COM 322/ECS 372/ENG 282/ITA 324: Imagining the Mediterranean In Literature and Film: Itineraries Traditions OrdealsExploring literary texts and films that foreground the benefits, but also the ordeals of transnational migration and the traffic in peoples, goods, and ideas throughout the Mediterranean region, with particular stress on contemporary works and issues. Particular attention will be paid to women's experience of the Mediterranean as a realm of adventure as well as the subjection imposed by patriarchal customs, war, and colonization.
- ITA 102: Beginner's Italian IIFurther study of Italian grammar and syntax with increased emphasis on vocabulary, reading, and practice in conversation. Skills in speaking and writing (as well as understanding) modern Italian will also be further developed. Students will deepen the study of grammatical functions through the analysis of Italian culture and civilization.
- ITA 1027: Intensive Intermediate and Advanced ItalianItalian 102-7 is an intensive double credit course designed to help students develop an active command of the language by improving upon the five skills of speaking, listening, reading, writing and cultural competency in the interpretative, interpersonal, and presentational modes. The course emphasizes communication and grammatical structures through use of various forms of texts (literary, artistic, musical, cinematographic, etc.) in order to refine students' literacy.
- ITA 103: Intensive Beginner's and Intermediate ItalianThis course is an intensive beginning and intermediate language course that provides an introduction to the Italian language and culture. It covers the material presented in ITA 101 and ITA 102 and prepares students to enroll in ITA 107 or ITA 108. Activities and interactions provide the opportunity to develop intermediate speaking, listening, and writing skills using language of a concrete, conversational nature.
- ITA 108: Advanced Italian - Contemporary Society and CultureThe main goal of this course is to improve fluency in Italian and prepare students for upper level courses in the Italian program. Through film clips, film screenings, and readings, students will increase their understanding of grammatical functions and vocabulary applications, and improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The course has been enhanced with a digital platform, which allows students to actively interact with texts, films and each other through exercises and activities.
- ITA 208: Introduction to Italy TodayThis course is designed to familiarize the student with major features of contemporary Italy and its culture. Its purpose is to develop the student's ability to communicate effectively in present-day Italy. The course emphasizes Italian social, political, and economic institutions, doing so through the analysis of cultural and social differences between Italians and Americans in such everyday concerns as money, work and leisure.
- ITA 302: Topics in Medieval Italian Literature and Culture: Dante Pop: The Divine Comedy in Popular CultureA cultural icon no less than a cultural product, Dante's imaginative universe enjoys a pervasive presence in popular culture. Matching a reading of the Inferno with analysis of different media products, the course studies Dante's presence in genres as different as graphic novels and theater productions, advertisements and sci-fi narratives, rock and rap music, video-and board games, satirical vignettes and political speeches in the Italian and Anglo-American world.
- ITA 309/COM 386/ECS 318/HUM 327: Topics in Contemporary Italian Civilization: Weird ItalyItaly, homeland of poets, saints, navigators, and... weirdos. In this class, we turn stereotypes that depict Italy as the land of beauty and classicism inside out, and focus instead on how distinctively weird much of Italy's modern artistic production is. Is the Italian polymath Giacomo Leopardi the unsung grandfather of weird fiction? Did Giorgio De Chirico and Italo Calvino influence Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation? Leveraging theorizations on the topic as well as transmedial and transnational perspectives, we study what it means for something to be weird, why weird art fascinates us, and if we should all try to be weirder.
- ITA 312/VIS 445: Fascism in Italian CinemaThis course, conducted in English, is a study of Fascism through selected films from World War II to the present. Topics include: the concept of Fascist normality; Racial Laws; the role of women and homosexuals; colonialism; and the opposition of the intellectual left. Films include: Bertolucci's "The Conformist", Fellini's "Amarcord", Rossellini's "Rome Open City", Cavani's "Night Porter", and Wertmüller's "Seven Beauties". The approach is interdisciplinary and combines the analysis of historical themes with an in-depth cinematic reading of the films.
- ITA 319: The Literature of GastronomyWhat we do or do not eat and where we eat, are questions linked to anthropological and cultural matters. In a socio-political context, food, or the lack thereof, defines a society and its inadequacies. It becomes an agent of power, a metaphor for sex and gender, as well as a means of community. Whether as desire or transgression, whether corporal or spiritual - the representation of food is the depiction of Italian life. This course will examine translated Italian texts, along with visual art and film, in order to explore the function of eating, both as biological necessity as well as metaphor, within Italian society.