Topics include idiomatic Italian conversation and composition, anthological readings and discussions in Italian of literary texts from the past four centuries of Italian literature (from Tasso to the present), selective review of the fine points of grammar and syntax, the elements of essay writing to Italian.

This course centers on Italy, its nature and identity, real and imaginary. We will identify and discuss the recurrence of certain themes in the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors such as Leopardi, Verga, Foscolo, Pirandello, Calvino and Eco. Class discussions will be in Italian.
Requirements: midterm, final, oral presentations, compositions.

This course looks at the Italian Enlightenment, a key bridge between early modern and modern/postmodern times. Major writers of 18th-century Italy will be studied (Beccaria, the Verri brothers, Goldoni, Alfieri, Parini) along with their lesser-known contemporaries, to investigate the transformation of early modern literary and cultural traditions into many of the forms we know today. Among the most significant issues and cultural phenomena of the time: notions of reason and progress, uses of science, role and function of women in society, purposes of criminal/justice systems, momentous advances in theater, opera, the popular novel, autobiography and consumer journalism. In Italian.

Study of the literature and culture of the late early modern period in Italy, 1600-1800. Major writers and works traditionally considered representative of the Baroque, Enlightenment, and Neo-classical epochs (Marino, Galileo, Campanella, Parini, Goldoni, Beccaria, Alfieri, the Verri brothers, the Gozzi family, etc.) will be examined in terms of their role in cultural developments bridging early modern and contemporary times. The centuries between the 1500s and 1800s are often considered stagnant from a literary point of view. Recently, however, both the Sei- and Settecento are being re-evaluated for the significant ways in which they transformed early modern culture and helped produce today’s literary forms, ideas and currents. Among the key concepts and products of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Italian literary culture to be examined: the Baroque, Arcadian movement, Enlightenment, modern novel, bourgeois drama, journalism, opera.

This course evaluates how a number of classic and recent Italian films
present significant moments of one hundred years of Italian history and
culture from the unification of the country until 1960. We will use a three-pronged approach in our analysis: A) We will discuss the themes presented in the films (for example, the unification of Italy as seen from the epic perspective of Alessandro Blasetti’s 1860 and from the tragic viewpoint of Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard.) B) We will identify the forces at work behind the camera, forces that determine the ways in which certain cultural and historical themes are presented. In the case of 1860 and The Leopard, for example, we will define the socio-historical moment of the films’ productions. We will discuss how the fascist culture of Blasetti’s cinematic debut encouraged him to present Italy’s unification as a collective and epic march toward national greatness, while from a Marxist perspective Visconti opted to view the same historical phenomenon as a ruthless process of annexation started by the northern house of Savoy and fraught with political intrigue and inner fragmentation. C) We will also focus on the films’ formal aspects and identify how certain cinematic techniques bear ideological significance in creating a specific representation of national history and culture.

Requirements: midterm, final, oral presentations, compositions.