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2008 Graduate Courses
2008 Faculty Archive
2007 Graduate Courses
Daily activities normally include four hours of classroom instruction plus additional work in the language and computer laboratories. Schedules, texts, and staffing are subject to change.
+ designates courses in the seven-week session.
LEVEL 100
3151-3152-3153 Elementary Italian+
Carozza, Piovesana, Alica Vitti
Designed to provide a solid foundation in both spoken and written Italian, this intensive introduction permits comprehensive coverage of basic structures and vocabulary. Exclusive use of the language in dialogues and drills encourages development of linguistic awareness in a meaningful and dynamic context, while classroom activities broaden the student's view of Italian life and culture. Writing and listening skills will also be emphasized. (3 Units)
* Undergraduate students are also required to participate in three special writing workshops and are encouraged to take advantage of the workshop on traditional Italian dances conducted by our artist in residence, Michela Musolino and to enroll in the theatrical workshop conducted by actress Gloria Di Folco.
Required Texts: Lazzarino, Peccianti, Aski, Dini, In giro per l’Italia. McGraw Hill (2005); Workbook and Laboratory Manual by same authors (2005). First Edition
Recommended Text: HarperCollins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese. 3rd Edition. Firenze: Sansoni (2001).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructors.
LEVEL 200
3251-3252-3253 An Introduction to Contemporary Italy+
Barattoni, Ferralis, Spani
Intended for students at the intermediate level, this course will afford the opportunity to expand conversation, writing, and reading skills while consolidating knowledge of the more difficult points of grammar. The contextual focus of the course is modern Italian culture including history, politics, and literature among other things. Italian films, short stories and essays, will enhance and complete the learning experience. (3 Units)
Required Texts: Daniela Bartalesi-Graf, /L’Italia dal fascismo ad oggi: Percorsi paralleli nella storia, nella letteratura e nel cinema. /Perugia: Edizione Guerra, 2005;
Rosella Bozzone Costa. Viaggio nell'italiano: Corso di lingua e cultura italiana per stranieri. Seconda edizione. (Torino: Loescher).
Natalia Ginzburg , "Le voci della sera" Torino: Einaudi Tascabili, 1961
"Tutti i nostri ieri" by Natalia Ginzburg, Torino: Einaudi Tascabili
La casa in collina by Cesare Pavesi. Torino: Einaudi Tascabili
Lia Levi "Una bambina e basta" Edizione Angolo Manzoni
Recommended Texts: N. Zingarelli, Vocabolario della lingua italiana. 12th Edition. Bologna: Zanichelli (2003); Harper Collins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese. 3rd Edition. Firenze: Sansoni (2001).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructors.
LEVEL 300
Students at the 300 level normally take 3301, 3304 and 3359. Those who have already taken literature may substitute 3371 for 3359.
3301 Grammar and Composition+
Borgotallo, Morena
This course aims at strengthening and developing the intricate linguistic competence that students must possess in order to decipher and produce various verbal codes. Special emphasis will be given to oral and written expressions through a systematic review of complex linguistic structures. The mastery of grammar will be acquired through an intensive practice of a variety of exercises. Readings and discussions of special topics will culminate in the writing of short pieces of descriptive narrative and argumentative prose.
Required Texts: Una grammatica italiana per tutti. Edilingua 2. Livello Intermedio New Haven and London.
Additional material for the course will be provided by the Instructor
3304 Italy's New Social Landscape: Interpretation and Discussion of Important Trends
Borgotallo, Morena
Like any modern institution, Italian society is undergoing sweeping changes that will forever alter the traditional way of life and the ideological framework that shaped the Italian way of being. The aim of the course is to analyze and discuss this on-going process and to predict future trends through a series of discussion and debates based on controversial topics such as emigration, racism, interracial-marriages, cloning, abortion, death penalty and other issues. The students will have the opportunity to improve the conversational skills needed to express their personal views on such topics.
Required Texts: Mercurio, Roberto Fedi & Paolo Fasoli, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2005.
Additional material for the course will be provided by the Instructor
3359 Introduction to Italian Literature: Virtù vs. Fortuna from the Middle Ages to Today
Matteo
In this course we will read and discuss texts spanning all periods of Italian literature and exploring all three major literary forms: poetry, prose (narrative and expositional), and theater (in prose and in verse). The thematic thread we will follow through these texts and across the centuries will be the opposition between virtù and fortuna as agents in human affairs and in shaping history: virtù not in its current sense of "virtue" as moral probity, but in its original meaning (derived from Latin vir, man), suggesting manly strength, a form of power derived from personal skills and aptitudes, such as intelligence, courage, boldness, tenacity, and will power; and fortuna standing for any force beyond an individual's control, whether it be fate, destiny, luck, or chance. The struggle between these two forces can be configured and articulated in various ways: free will vs. predestination (whether theological, in the form of divine grace, or scientific, in the form genetic coding), the individual vs. society, nature vs. nurture, or rebellion vs. conformity. We will consider how human agency is perceived by writers and their times. Students will gain an understanding of the sweep of Italian literature, while sharpening their reading and analytical skills, as well as their ability to express themselves in Italian. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Giovanni Boccaccio, Dieci novelle dal Decameron, a cura di Claudio Bura e M. Antonietta Morettini (Guerra, 1997); Niccolò Machiavelli, La mandragola (Garzanti, 2002); Pietro Metastasio, Melodrammi e canzonette, (BUR, 2005); Giacomo Leopardi, Canti e pensieri (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2005); Leonardo Sciascia, Todo modo (Adelphi, 2003).
3371 Reading Italian Film: Cinema and Culture
Matteo
This course will provide a background for understanding and appreciating the best of motion picture art from Italy. We will discuss and analyze major movies and cinematic trends in Italian cinema, with particular attention paid to how films relate to the social, political, and cultural situation of their time. In such a way, students will learn to look at film critically and enhance their knowledge of Italian culture and history, while improving their language skills. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Piero Garofalo & Daniela Selisca, Ciak... si parla italiano (Focus Publishing, 2005); Antonello Borra & Cristina Pausini, Italian through Film: A Text for Italian Courses (Yale UP, 2004).
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Please see the School in Italy for further information about the graduate program of studies in Florence.
Schedules, texts, and staffing are subject to change.
6502 | 6561 | 6571 | 6572 | 6576 | 6580 | 6601 | 6611 | 6623 | 6664 | 6677 | 6681 | 6712 |
Three-Week Graduate Courses
Summer Lecture Series
SIX-WEEK GRADUATE COURSES
6502 Advanced Italian: Studies in Language
Iuele-Colilli, Santeramo
Designed to develop oral and written proficiency at the advanced level, this course meets daily for two hours: one hour dedicated to the study of morphological and syntactic patterns and structures, and one hour to oral expression. Students will be required to write tests, submit essays, give oral presentations, and participate in class discussions.
Note: This course is obligatory for all first-time graduate students except those exempted on the basis of a placement examination. Students scoring low on the placement test may be required to take 3301 without graduate credit before attempting 6502. (1 Unit)
Required Texts: R. Uslenghi Maiguashca, M. Sassu Frescura, L. Polesini Karumanchiri, and J. Vizmuller-Zocco, Schede di lavoro. Vols.1-2. 2nd Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1994); L. Polesini Karumanchiri, L'italiano d'oggi. Note di grammatica per corsi universitari. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1988).
Recommended Texts: N. Zingarelli, Vocabolario della lingua italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli (latest edition); HarperCollins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese. Firenze: Sansoni (latest edition).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.
6563 Italian Political Theater from Dario Fo and Franca Rame to the Present
Bernard
Dario Fo’s political theater is part of an Italian theatrical tradition that utilizes “lightness” as a tool for political and social criticism. From the times of the Commedia dell'Arte laughter has been used as a tool to vent popular resentment and frustration against the government and the ruling classes. In this course the theme of a false lightness that is characteristic of many Italian comedies will be examined as a dramaturgic trait of Italian theatrical representation. The last part of the course analyzes Italian contemporary political theater, and examines Paolini’s Vajont that will be compared to Bernard’s Teatro S-naturalista. This manifesto, which begins with the political concept of theater, addresses the challenge launched by Calvino in the narrative sector regarding the need for lightness as a way of communicating a work’s “message.”
Texts required: Vajont (Paolini) Manifesto del Teatro S-naturalista (Bernard) Dario Fo: MORTE ACCIDENTALE DI UN ANARCHICO e LA SIGNORA E' DA BUTTARE, in Commedie di Dario Fo, Einaudi, Gli Struzzi (vol. 330) Dario Fo: MISTERO BUFFO, Nuova edizione integrale, Einaudi Tascabili. Marco Paolini, IL RACCONTO DEL VAJONT, Garzanti e/o Einaudi (con DvD) SUPPORTI: DvD Eduardo de Filippo: NAPOLI MILIONARIA Paolo Rossi, IL SIGNOR ROSSI CONTRO L'IMPERO DEL MALE Dario Fo, IO NON SONO UN MODERATO, Film intervista di Andrea Nobile Marco Paolini, VAJONT Fabio Massimo Franceschelli, APPUNTI PER UN TEATRO POLITICO Play to be represented by students: Mistero buffo di Dario Fo (Reduced and adapted by Enrico Bernard)
6565 Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture
Dainotto
This course will cover Italian literature from the beginning of the nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. Major authors will be read against the background of Italian political and cultural history. Beginning with an overview of eighteenth-century cosmopolitan writers and a selection from the works of Baretti, Goldoni, Alfieri, Parini, the course will then focus on Italian Romanticism with particular reference to Foscolo and Leopardi. The development of the novel will be considered from Manzoni to Nievo to the authors of the end of the century (Verga, D'Annunzio, De Roberto), and the representative writers of the twentieth century (Svevo, Pirandello, Pavese, Vittorini, Calvino). Changing attitudes in poetry will be illustrated by a selection of readings ranging from the Decadence (Pascoli, Gozzano, the crepuscolari poets) to "Avanguardia" (Marinetti and Futurism), Dino Campana, the "Ermetici" (Ungaretti, Montale), the "Transavanguardia" and some of the poets and novelists of the new generation. (1 Unit)
Required Text: Mario Pazzaglia. Scrittori e critici della letteratura italiana. Ottocento e Novecento. Antologia con pagine critiche e un profilo di storia letteraria. Vol. 3 (vol. unico). Terza Ed. Bologna: Zanichelli (1996). Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.
6573 Introduction to Early Modern Italian Literature
Ferrarese
This course focuses on the historical development of mid- to late- sixteenth-, seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Italian literature. We will read the works of major Italian authors in relation to their impact on both Italian and European culture, from the last days of the Renaissance to the onset of Arcadia. While discussing the representative literary and philosophical works of these two centuries, we will examine the evolution/involution of the intellectual class, the hegemony of religious and political power over science and the arts and how literature emerges from the society which it attempts to change or describe. (1 Unit) Required texts: C Salinari
6577 Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature and World
Colilli
This course examines the emergence of Italian literary culture from its earliest manifestations in the thirteenth century to Renaissance Humanism of the fifteenth century. Selected readings from major works of representative authors will illustrate the dominant intellectual trends and the development of literary forms. We will explore topics such as the interrelationship between literature, the history of ideas and the other arts, as well as the connection between literature and social forces. (1 Unit)
Required Text: M. Pazzaglia, Letteratura italiana. Testi e critica con lineamenti di storia letteraria. Vol. 1. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1992-1993.
6579 Modernity in Italy (1860-1990)
Sala
The aim of this course is to study the artistic evolution of modernism in Italy beginning with the Macchiaioli and the impressionists. The course will then consider three subsequent stages: Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Carr, G. Morandi (metaphysical painting, oneirism and Surrealism); the two phases of Futurism (Balla, Boccioni, Severini, Fillia, Depero, Prampolini); and finally the post-WWII stages, including the birth of Design in Italy, Bauhaus, the crisis of the 1970s, the anti-design of Memphis Milano. (1 Unit)
Materials for this course will be provided by the instructor.
6584 Understanding The Southern Identity
Nicaso, Vitti
This course examines “L’ identita' meridionale” (Southern Identity) and the Southern Question from the Neapolitan Revolution and short lived Republic to the present, investigating the interrelations among cultural representation, geography, and power. The study will focuses on four novels and on ten films that produced major representations and theorizations of the Southern Identity in different cultural forms.
Fictional works: Giovanni Verga, Leonardo Sciascia, Luigi Pirandello, Elio Vittorini- the theoretical writings of Antonio Gramsci; and films of Luchino Visconti, Giuseppe De Santis, R. Rossellini, P. Germi, F. Rosi, P. P. Pasolini, Antonio Capuano, Pappi Corsicato, Florestano Vancini, Marco Risi, Amelio, Calopresti, will be studied
6601 Stylistics: Techniques of Composition and Interpretation
Ferrarese, Tellini
The aim of this course is to help the students to find their own Italian voice while speaking and writing in Italian. This endeavor requires daily practice and a particular attention to problems of stylistics. Through the analysis of different language sectors (i.e. journalism, business, sports, contemporary jargon) in class, the students will gain better understanding of the Italian language in its various uses. Assignments will include translations, linguistic exercises, descriptions, narrations, summaries, essay writing, book reviews and oral presentations.
Required Text: L. Craici, Parlare e Scrivere, Vallardi 2007, M. Sassu Frescura, Interferenze lessicali italiano-inglese. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1984).
Recommended Texts: N. Zingarelli, Vocabolario della lingua italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli (latest edition); HarperCollins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese. Firenze: Sansoni (latest edition).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.
6611 Modes of Critical Theory
Santeramo
This course focuses on a selection of modes and vocabularies of critical theory within the context of the twentieth century, but applied to the field of Italian studies. We will study aspects of structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, hermeneutics, marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism and cultural studies. (1 Unit)
Required text: Francesco Muzzioli, Le teorie della critica letteraria. Nuova edizione. Roma: Carocci editore, 2005.
6662 Introduction to Italian Colonial and Post-colonial Literature
Domenichelli
On the background of the hundred years of the Italian colonial and postcolonial experience in Africa, the course will focus on the period between 1935 (the year of the Italian war in Ethiopia) and the periods of the “Amministrazione fiduciaria” and of the Italian Cooperation in Somalia, through the analysis of the colonial and postcolonial novels of Bacchelli, Flaiano, Tobino, Emanuelli, dell’Oro, Domenichelli.
Required Text: Riccardo Bacchelli, Mal d’Africa (1934), Milano, Mondadori; Milano, Rizzoli (“BUR”). Ennio Flaiano, Tempo di uccidere (1947), Milano, Rizzoli (“BUR”). Mario Tobino, Il deserto della Libia (1952), Torino, Einaudi; Milano, Mondadori. Enrico Emanuelli, Settimana nera (1966), Ancona, Pequod, 2007. Erminia dell’Oro, Asmara Addio, Roma, Baldini e Castodi (“I Nani”), 1988. Mario Domenichelli, Lugemalé, Firenze, Pagliai, 2005.
Students will be required to read Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere and two more novels of their choice from the reading list.
Critical Bibliography:Giovanna Tomasello, L’Africa tra mito e realtà, Sellerio, Palermo, 2004.
6665 The Mediterranean Signature of Dante’s Divina Commedia
Colilli
The course will explore Dante’s Divina Commedia with special reference to the Medieval Mediterranean cultural context from which it emerged. We will be reading selected cantos, as well as some of Dante’s other works, in relation to the network of intellectual traditions (Islamic, Jewish, Christian) that dominated Dante’s age.
Required Text:Dante Alighieri, Tutte le opere (Divina Commedia, Vita Nuova, Rime, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Monarchia, Egloghe, Epistole, Quaestio de aqua et de terra). Introduzione di Italo Borzi. Commenti a cura di Giovanni Fallani, Nicola Maggi e Silvio Zennaro. (Roma: Newton Compton editori, 1993).
6671 Power and Success in the Renaissance
Lettieri
The objective of the course is to examine the concepts of power and the strategies for success in Machiavelli's Principe and Castiglione's Libro del Cortegiano. As well, we will investigate how politics, art and the pen constitute instruments of distinction in Aretino, Lorenzo de' Medici and Michelangelo. (1 Unit)
Required Text: Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe. Con un saggio di Raymond Aron. Milano: BUR, 2005 (ventitreesima edizione).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.
6705 The Shoah in Italy: A Lexicon for Auschwitz: Primo Levi and Natalia Ginzburg
Scarpa
In Italy, Primo Levi’s fictional work is recognized as the most authoritative, profound and multifaceted account of the tragic human experience in the Nazi Lagers. Through four of his main works, this course will study how Levi described that human tragedy often perceived as impossible to recount, even by those who survived it. The course will focus on how Levi, without hate or self pity, in an appeal for historical memory, expressed the demolition of humanity in the brutal and systematic lager system, an experience that he defined as an offense against human dignity. The last part of the course will study Ginzburg’s Lessico familiare in order to focus on how a detailed account of private events in an Italian Jewish family demonstrate the moral and civil degradation of a nation.
Required texts: Se questo è un uomo, 1947, La tregua, 1963, Il sistema periodico, 1975, I sommersi e i salvati, 1986, Lessico familiare, 1963, Natalia Ginzburg
Critical work: Robert S.C. Gordon, Primo Levi: Le virtù dell’uomo morale
6772 Italo Calvino’s fiction: from Neorealism to Postmodernism
Papini
The course is meant to trace the evolution of Calvino’s writing and theoretical and critical thought through the analysis of four among his main novels considered on the background of the literary and cultural Italian landscape in the second half of the Twentieth century.
Required Texts: Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947), Milano, Mondadori, 2007; La nuvola di smog (1958), Milano, Mondadori (“Oscar”), 2004. Il cavaliere inesistente (1959) in I nostri antenati, Milano, Mondadori (“Oscar”), 2004. Il castello dei destini incrociati (1973), Milano, Mondadori, 2002.
Critical Bibliography: Giorgio Bertone, Italo Calvino. Il castello della scrittura, Torino, Einaudi, 1994.
6674 Industrial Literature: Bernari, Volponi, Ottieri, Parise
Papini
Italy’s economic and industrial growth in the nineteen-sixties also originated an important theoretical and critical debate on the mutual links between literature and society, and literature and economy. The debate also involved the role and the independence and freedom of writers. Such debate is clearly in the background of the works of writers such as Bernari, Volponi, Ottieri, Parise who face, each in his own way and language, the problems of industrial society. The most representative novels of these four writers will be read and discussed during the course.
Required Texts: Carlo Bernari, Tre operai (1934), Firenze, la Nuova Italia, 1970. Ottiero Ottieni, Donnaruma all’assalto (1959), Milano, Garzanti, 2004. Paolo Volponi, Memoriale (1962),Torino, Einaudi, 2007.Goffredo Parise, Il padrone (1965), Torino, UTET, 2007.
Critical bibliography: Letteratura e industria, a cura di Roberto Tessari, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1976
6678 The Cinematic World of Roberto Rossellini
Bondì
This course will study the life and works of Roberto Rossellini, considered by many the forerunner of modern cinema. His films will be analyzed according to the various phases of his long cinematic career and within the social, cultural and artistic realities and inventions of the twentieth century, including neo-realism, modernism and television. Special emphasis is on Rossellini’s relation with the Mediterranean, his treatment of the third world, of women and cinema as an art form for experimentation and self fulfillment. Students who enroll in this course will benefit from the first hand experience that the instructor had as Rossellini’s assistant, as a filmmaker and as a scholar and teacher of the great “Maestro.”
6683 The Italian Diaspora
Iuele-Colilli
This course will examine the phenomenon of the Italian diaspora, that is, the fact that approximately twelve million people emigrated from Italy between circa 1850 and 1970. After considering the reasons for this mass emigration, we will focus on the social, cultural and linguistic impact that Italian immigrants and their descendants had on the countries to which they immigrated, in particular, the USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia.
Text: The readings for the classes will be supplied by the professor.
6785 Chivalric and Epic Poetry in XVI century Italy: Ariosto and Tasso
Domenichelli
Through a selection of passages the course will focus on the two great literary monuments of the Italian Cinquecento, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (from Cantos I, VI, VIII, X, XII, XVIII, XIX, XXIII, XXIV, XXXIV, XLVI) and Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (from Cantos I, II, III, VI, VII, XII, XVI, XVIII, XIX, XX). Both poems will be seen in the context of the Cinquecento Italian court culture also differently witnessed by the international success of great prose writers such as Machiavelli (Il Principe) and Castiglione (Il Cortegiano), and satirists such as Aretino. A selection of passages from Il Principe and Il Cortegiano and from l’Orlandino, Aretino’s parody of the chivalric poems, will also be read and discussed during the course.
Required Texts and critical Bibliography: Romano Luperini, Pietro Cataldi, Lidia Marchiani, La scrittura e l’interpretazione. Storia e antologia della letteratura italiana nel quadro della civiltà europea, vol. 2 (La letteratura umanistico-rinascimentale, 1383-1545), Palumbo, Palermo.
800 Independent Study
Vitti
By permission only. (1 Unit)
DML 902 Research Paper
Vitti
THREE-WEEK GRADUATE COURSES
Students enrolled in the six-week graduate program are eligible to take one or more three-week graduate courses as part of their normal course load of three units (nine semester hours) of credit for the summer.
SESSION I: J ULY 2 - JULY 26
6693 Teaching Italian: Methods, Approaches, Practice (for DML candidates)
Danesi
This course describes and discusses the main methods, approaches, and techniques that can be used to teach a second language (SL) today, including a strong practical component with practicum sessions on the Middlebury campus. The course will consist of three components. First, there is a lecture-seminar component, where various concepts in Italian SL teaching will be discussed, exemplified, and practiced. Textbook analysis, communicative practice, conceptual fluency, error analysis, the role of grammar, testing, and so on will be covered within this component. Second, there will be a practicum component, whereby each DML candidate will be hosted by a regular instructor to teach at two levels (a beginner level and an intermediate or advanced level). The performance will be evaluated and discussed both by the regular instructor and the course instructor together with the student-teacher. Finally, there will be three weekend seminars, during which the class and others in the program (including language students) will make presentations of methodology and practice in a public forum.
Recommended Course Materials: M. Danesi, Tecniche per la didattica delle lingue moderne. Roma: Armando, 1988. M. Danesi, Il cervello in aula! Seconda edizione, Perugia: Guerra, 2007. Plus: A selection of currently-used texts, ancillaries, and readers.
6530 Introduction to Romance Philology
Lettieri
This course explores the linguistic features and characteristics of major Romance languages such as French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian. Attention will be given to the phonological, morphological and syntactic components of the languages to be studied, with emphasis on both similarities and differences. (1 Unit)
Materials for this course will be provided by the instructor.
Session II: July 27-August 15
6566 Seminal Events in Italian History and Culture from Unification to the Present
Zucconi
This course will examine seminal events from the Unification of Italy (1861) to the present--events that marked and shaped ‘Italian identity” as it is known today in its uniqueness and ambiguity. The annexation of the South, the conquest of Rome with the still unresolved “Catholic Question” regarding the role of the Vatican in Italian public and political life, will be illustrated and studied along with the debacle of WWI, Fascism, the Armistice, the Resistance, the effect of the Cold War on the new postwar Democracy and the rapid economic growth that in ten years transformed a “patriarchal familistic” society, uprooting rural culture and freeing women from their traditional role.
6506 Creative Writing: the Tools of the Profession, or First Read and then Write
Scarpa
To write well it is necessary to learn how to read well. In this course students will explore how writers teach the art of writing well, by recounting who they are, how writing techniques are used, and by revealing how certain books were written. The two authors that will serve as models and guides are Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, better known as F. & L. who for half a century have experimented with all genres and explored the best writing techniques necessary to anyone who wants to improve their skills and have fun at the same time.
Required texts: Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, I ferri del mestiere. Manuale involontario di scrittura con esercizi svolti. A cura di Domenico Scarpa. Tascabili Einaudi. YEAR
Additional materials will be distributed by the instructor
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Director: ANTONIO VITTI
Professor of Italian, Wake Forest University. Ph.D., University of Michigan
Associate Director: PAUL COLILLI
Professor of Italian, Laurentian University; Dean of Graduate Studies, Laurentian University; Ph.D., University of Toronto
Faculty and Artists in Residence
LUCA BARATTONI, Assistant professor of Italian, Clemson University; Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill
ENRICO BERNARD, Playwright, scriptwriter and filmmaker. Dottore in Filosofia, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
CLAUDIO BONDÌ, Filmmaker, script writer, Professor of Film Studies Università di Roma “La Sapienza” and Ca’ Foscari of Venice
LORENZO BORGOTALLO, Lecturer University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph.D. candidate at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
ANNA CAROZZA, Former lecturer in Italian, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. School Teacher Certificate, Roma: BS, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
PAUL COLILLI, (see above)
ROBERTO M. DAINOTTO, Associate Professor of Romance Studies and Director of Graduate Studies, Duke University. Ph.D., NYU
MARCEL DANESI, Scholar in Residence. Professor of Semiotics and Anthropology, Director of the Program in Semiotics and Communication Theory, University of Toronto. Ph.D., University of Toronto
GLORIA DI FOLCO, Actress and Film Producer
MARIO DOMENICHELLI, Professore ordinario d’inglese, Università di Firenze. President, “Associazione per gli studi di teoria e storia comparata della letteratura.” Coordinator, “Reseau europeo di comparatistica.” President, Centro linguistico, Università di Firenze. Dottore in Lingue Straniere, Università di Urbino
DARIO FO, Playwright, Actor, Nobel Prize for Literature 1997
LUISA FERRALIS, Lecturer Berkeley, MA, Middlebury College
SERGIO FERRARESE, Visiting Scholar, College of William & Mary. Dottore in Lettere Moderne, Università di Torino, Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
DIANA IUELE-COLILLI. Professor of Italian, Laurentian University. Ph.D., University of Toronto
MICHAEL LETTIERI Professor of Italian, Chair, Department of French, German and Italian University of Toronto at Mississauga. Ph.D., University of Toronto
FERRUCCIO MAROTTI,Director, Centro Teatro Ateneo Centro di Ricerca della "Sapienza" - Università di Roma
SANTE MATTEO. Professor, Coordinator of Italian Studies, Department of French and Italian, Miami University Oxford. Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University
ANTONIO MORENA, Instructor of Modern Languages at Bentley College. Dottore in Lettere, University of Florence, Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University
MICHELA MUSOLINO, Artist in Residence
ANTONIO NICASO, Award-winning journalist, bestselling author and an international recognized expert on organized crime. Sits on the Advising Board of the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security at York University (Toronto) and on the Governing Council of The Alliance Against Contraband in Geneva, Switzerland
MARIA CARLA PAPINI, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature, Università di Firenze. Dottore in Lettere, Università di Firenze
ELISA PIOVESANA, Laurea in Lingue e Letterature, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
FRANCA RAME, Playwright, Actress and Senator
CARLO SALA, Maître de conferences, Université de Paris X-Nanterre. Diplôme de l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. Doctorate de 3e Cycle
DONATO SANTERAMO, Professor of Italian, Queen’s University; Ph.D., University of Toronto
DOMENICO SCARPA, Researcher in Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa: Lecturer, Italian Literature, University of Naples, “L’Orientale”: Ph.D., University of Trento and University of Paris III – La Sorbonne Nouvelle
GIOVANNI SPANI, Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian at Middlebury College, Laurea in Political Science from the University of Padua, Ph.D. in Italian Literature from Indiana University.
GIULIA TELLINI, Dottore di Ricerca, Università di Firenze
ALICIA VITTI, Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian, Wake Forest University; DML, Middlebury College
ANTONIO VITTI, (see above)
VITTORIO ZUCCONI, Writer and Washington correspondent for Italy's La Republica, and Artist in Residence of the Italian School
Administrative Staff
KARA GENNARELLI. Italian School Coordinator
JOSEPH TAMAGNI, Assistant to the Director; MA, Middlebury College
SARAH LUEHRMAN, Bilingual Assistant, BA, Middlebury College
Interns
EDWARD MAURICE BOWEN
LUCIANO DI PALERMO
MARCO LETTIERI
HOLLICE KING
MATTEO LETTIERI
COSTANZA MENCHI
ANTONINO RIGGIO
Scholars in Residence
Marcel Danesi
Mario Domenichelli
Maria Carla Papini
Artist in Residence
Enrico Bernard
Claudio Bondì
Dario Fo
Franca Rame
Michele Rame
Julian Gargiulo
Guest Lecturers and Performers
Julian Gargiulo
Ferruccio Marotti
Michela Musolino
Leoluca Orlando
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Please see the School in Italy for further information about the graduate program of studies in Florence.
Schedules, texts, and staffing are subject to change.
6502 | 6561 | 6571 | 6572 | 6576 | 6580 | 6601 | 6611 | 6623 | 6664 | 6677 | 6681 | 6712 |
Three-Week Graduate Courses
Summer Lecture Series
SIX-WEEK GRADUATE COURSES
6502 Advanced Italian: Studies in Language
Iuele-Colilli, Santeramo
Designed to develop oral and written proficiency at the advanced level, this course meets daily for two hours: one hour dedicated to the study of morphological and syntactic patterns and structures, and one hour to oral expression. Students will be required to write tests, submit essays, give oral presentations, and participate in class discussions.
Note: This course is obligatory for all first-time graduate students except those exempted on the basis of a placement examination. Students scoring low on the placement test may be required to take 3301 without graduate credit before attempting 6502. (1 Unit)
Required Texts: R. Uslenghi Maiguashca, M. Sassu Frescura, L. Polesini Karumanchiri, and J. Vizmuller-Zocco, Schede di lavoro. Vols.1-2. 2nd Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1994); L. Polesini Karumanchiri, L'italiano d'oggi. Note di grammatica per corsi universitari. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1988).
Recommended Texts: N. Zingarelli, Vocabolario della lingua italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli (latest edition); HarperCollins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese. Firenze: Sansoni (latest edition).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.
6573 Neorealism in Cinema and Novels
Antonio Vitti
The objective of this course is to gain a better understanding of Neorealism, and the civic and cultural development that have shaped the Italian Republic since the end of Fascism. Through films and novels this course will explore the cultural transformation and moments of crisis in Italian postwar society. Six films and short stories and novels will be studied. Students will also learn how to prepare a film analysis, will write a final essay, and will lead group and class discussions. (1 Unit)
A course pack will be available at the bookstore
6574 Directing and Scriptwriting Practicum
Valerii
Students will learn how to read, direct a film, write a script and how to adapt a short story or short novels into a film. With the help of the instructor, students will also write a short script and shoot it. The final project will be screened at the end of the summer session. The course will also include evening screenings of various film genres that will be discussed and presented by director Tonino Valerii. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Tonino Guerra, Fare l’aiuto regista nel cinema e nella tv. Roma: Gremese Editore, 1998.
6582 The History of Opera in Italy, 1600-1900
Kairoff
A survey of operatic masterpieces in Italian, from Monteverdi through Puccini, with particular attention paid to the relationship of the music to the texts. No previous knowledge of music required. Works to be studied include "Orfeo" by Monteverdi, "Giulio Cesare" by Handel, "La Serva Padrona" by Pergolesi, "Don Giovanni" by Mozart, "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" by Rossini, "La Traviata" by Verdi, "La Boheme" by Puccini. Librettos of the operas will be read in the original Italian, and the musical scores will be analyzed for such elements as form, harmony and rhythm to discover the ways in which it enhances the dramatic action on stage. (1 Unit)
Texts include: Complete librettos of the six operas listed above, plus supplementary biographies of the composers. Students will be required to listen extensively to recordings. Course requirements: three exams, including listening portions, and an oral presentation of 15 minutes duration based on independent research.
6525 Italian Lexicography: Italian dictionaries as educational tools
Piemontese
The aim of the course is to give information on the current situation of Italian lexicography, which after its revival in the eighties, has now reached new and important goals. Thanks to socio-economic and cultural factors the Italian language has become more used among the masses, a change that has brought about many innovative effects on the language with the new changes now registered and codified in dictionaries. As a result, traditional Italian language which in the past was mostly reserved for high level written usage is now spoken with a large variety of usages which require new approaches in the teaching of the language and, in a more general sense, in the field of linguistic education. The course will also lead the students to reflect on the usage of dictionaries as didactic instruments taking into consideration the problems that students face in consulting them. (1 Unit)
Required texts: T. De Mauro, Guida all’uso delle parole, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 2003, XII edizione; A. Corda, C. Marello, Lessico. Insegnarlo e impararlo, Perugia, Guerra Edizioni Guru, 2004.
Other readings will be suggested during the course.
6592 Watching Italy Watching TV
Lombardi
This course will focus on the complex history of Italian TV broadcasting, analyzing the changing patterns in TV spectatorship over the past 50 years. Through a cultural studies approach, we will discuss the many facets of public and private broadcasting, in synchronic and diachronic fashion. During the course, students will also be able to watch some of the most representative programs in the history of Italian television. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Roberto Grandi, I MASS MEDIA FRA TESTO E CONTESTO, Lupetti, 1992.
Enrico Menduni TELEVISIONE E SOCIETA' ITALIANA Bompiani, 2004.
Gian Paolo Caprettini LA SCATOLA PARLANTE Editori Riuniti, 2002.
Francesco Casetti e Federico Di Chio ANALISI DELLA TELEVISIONE Bompiani, 1998
6542 The Fictions of Terrorism
Lombardi
This course will analyze fictional representations of Italian terrorism in cinema, literature, and memoirs. A discourse on terrorism, its roots, its reason of being, its events, its demise, and its aftermath is thus investigated through a critical reading of those cultural products which have tried to make sense out of a most obscure and difficult period in recent Italian history. In particular, we will analyze the construction of the figure of the terrorist in films, novels, and autobiographical narratives produced in the past two decades, questioning the perlocutionary effect that such construction often incorporates. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Sergio Zavoli, LA NOTTE DELLA REPUBBLICA. Milano: Mondadori, 1995
Carlo Castellaneta, CERCHI NELL'ACQUA. Milano: Mondadori, 1995
Anna Laura Braghetti e Paola Tavella, IL PRIGIONIERO. Milano: Mondadori, 2002
Sergio Flamigni, LA TELA DEL RAGNO Kaos, 2003.
6642 Utopia and Science in the Seventeenth century
Ferrarese
In this course we will shed some light on the concepts of Utopia and Science, two of the central themes of the Seventeenth century. These concepts are both oppositional and complimentary: if Utopia represents a place of happiness or a nowhere (either a flight to the future or a nostalgic glance toward the past), the scientific method and the discoveries related to it, even while marking the refusal of any escape from reality, have had a great impact on how the great utopias were conceived and represented. Through readings of several works of that time, we will also examine how the concepts of Utopia and Science were employed in opposition to the oppressive nature of Counter-Reformation politics and the Rights of State (Ragion di Stato, in which any action is legitimate if beneficial to
those in power), the two prevailing ideological systems of seventeenth century Europe. In addition, we will read some poetic works, like those of Marino, which take as their
inspiration some of the new scientific discoveries and utopian ideals of the age. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Campanella, La città del sole. Milano: Feltrinelli, 2003; B. Brecht, Vita di Galileo. Torino: Einaudi Tascabili, 2005.
A course-pack in a CD format will be available.
6601 Stylistics: Techniques of Composition and Interpretation
Iuele-Colilli, Ferrarese
This course is designed to improve students' ability to write Italian correctly and with a certain elegance of style. Examples of writings will be analyzed for their effectiveness and manner of expression. Discussions will focus also on rhetorical strategies, the language of advertising, sports, politics, business Italian, as well as the relationship between the written and the spoken language. Daily written assignments will include translations, linguistic exercises, descriptions, narrations, summaries, essay writing, book reviews and oral presentations. (1 Unit)
Required Text: M. Sassu Frescura, Interferenze lessicali italiano-inglese. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1984).
Recommended Texts: N. Zingarelli, Vocabolario della lingua italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli (latest edition); HarperCollins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese. Firenze: Sansoni (latest edition).
Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.
6610 Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Colilli
This course examines the emergence of Italian literary culture from its earliest manifestations in the thirteenth century to the Renaissance Humanism of the fifteenth century. Selected readings from major works of representative authors will illustrate the dominant intellectual trends and the development of literary forms. We will explore topics such as the interrelationship between literature, the history of ideas and the other arts, as well as the connection between literature and social forces. (1 Unit)
Required Text: M. Pazzaglia, Letteratura italiana. Testi e critica con lineamenti di storia letteraria. Vol.1. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1992-1993.
6611 Modes of Critical Theory
Colilli
This course focuses on a selection of modes and vocabularies of critical theory within the context of the twentieth century, but applied to the field of Italian studies. We will study aspects of structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, hermeneutics, marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism and cultural studies. (1 Unit)
Required text: Francesco Muzzioli, Le teorie della critica letteraria. Nuova edizione. Roma: Carocci editore, 2005.
6605 Introduction to Linguistics.
Marcato
The course aims to describe the properties of language, the objectives and methods of the various theories of linguistics. This course will explore the study of historical and theoretical linguistics, the characteristics of communications, the relationship between language and culture. A special section of the course will cover the different levels of linguistics analysis (phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon and semantics). A series of appropriate exercises will allow the students to comprehend and to apply the theoretical notions. (1 Unit)
Required text: G. Berruto, Corso elementare di linguistica generale, Torino, Utet, 2005.
6661 Mediterranean Boccaccio: Geography, Magic and ‘Poetry’ between Paris, Florence and Naples.
Morosini
A course on Mediterranean Boccaccio originates from the awareness that a culture and its visual and literary texts cannot be considered without taking into account the context that generated them. The context we consider in this class is the culture of the Mediterranean in XIII and XIV Centuries, namely the cultural, commercial and intellectual exchanges through the Mare Nostrum. The course aims to follow the path of what can be considered as mostly ‘Mediterranean’ in the Decameron starting from a study of the representation of the cities and in particular of the city of Naples, one of the Mediterranean cities most loved by Boccaccio. In this course the students will be introduced to a reading of Boccaccio’s texts with a particular focus on the Decameron, a literary, social and cultural observatory of Italy in XIV Century. The approach is both philological, as a ‘direct’ access to the Italian texts, and cultural by means of contextualizing them in the literary and social setting that generated it.
The first part of this course aims to locate Boccaccio within Mediterranean culture by looking at the role of Florence with Naples and France and the relationship Boccaccio had with the Florentine Niccolò Acciaiuoli, Grand Seneschal of the Angevin Kingdom in Naples, not to mention the impact that the Southern city had on Boccaccio’s literary imaginary.
The second part of the course is the actual reading of Boccaccio’s texts and it follows progressively the themes of the Decameron. The students receive a list of selected novelle from selected Days of the Decameron.
The themes are: Decameron as “epopea dei mercatanti” (V. Branca), Boccaccio and the romance tradition in Old French; literary models of the Decameron; geography, otherness (the role of Islam), women, tricksters, merchants and travelers; Mediterranean cities (Sicily, Jerusalem, Babylon) and gardens, magic and necromancy, poetry and the role of the poet/narrator. A mandatory and complementary part of this course is, in the last three weeks, the theatre workshop led by the Florentine director Carlo Romiti that will direct the student’s performance of Alatiel’ story (Decameron II 6) . (1 Unit)
Required texts: G. Boccaccio, Decameron, a cura di V. Branca. 2 Voll. Lessico critico decameroniano, ed. R. Bragantini e P. M. Forni, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1997. Boccaccio geografo, ed. R. Morosini, M. Gennari.
6682 History and Culture of the Italian Experience in Argentina
Grilli
Argentina’s history was deeply influenced by the European presence thanks to the millions of immigrants that settled this South-American nation. The objective of the course is to describe the important social and cultural contributions that the Italians had by exploring five specific areas: History, Music, Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture. Particular attention will be given to the history of Italian immigration, the Italian influence on tango, the linguistic influence on the typical Lunfardo and Cocoliche argot of Buenos Aires.
The relationship between the two cultures on such topics as Art and Architecture, Literature and Cinema will be closely explored and analyzed from an historical and cultural prospective.
Finally the course will cover the literary production of a living Italian writer, Antonio del Masetto, author of the acclaimed novel Oscuramente Fuerte Es La Vida, 1990 and the cinematographic production of Italian-Argentian director Marco Bechis.
(1 Unit)
6725 Pirandello, European Theater and the Mediterranean
Santeramo
The course is an in-depth study of some of Luigi Pirandello's most important dramatic works, together with an analysis of his theoretical essays on theatre. The study of Pirandello s encounter with the stage as “capocomico” and its influence on Pirandello’s playwriting will also be studied. The course will also focus on the influence Sicilian culture(s), (in particular the Ancient Greek, Arab and Jewish) had on the playwright’s vision and style. (1 Unit)
Required Texts: Essays: “L’umorismo”, “Illustratori, attori e traduttori” and “Teatro nuovo e teatro vecchio”.
Plays: Così è se vi pare; Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore; Enrico IV; La sagra del Signore della Nave; Sogno, ma forse no? Questa sera si recita a soggetto and I giganti della montagna.
Short stories: “La patente”, “La giara” and “Un goj”.
Critical works on Luigi Pirandello and his opus: Leonarda Sciascia, Pirandello e la Sicilia. Milano: Adelphi, 1996. Donato Santeramo, Pirandello: la parola, la scena e il mito. Roma: Nuove Edizioni Universitarie, 2006.
6800 Independent Study
Vitti
By permission only. (1 Unit)
DML 902 Research Paper
Antonio Vitti
THREE-WEEK GRADUATE COURSES
Students enrolled in the six-week graduate program are eligible to take one or more three-week graduate courses as part of their normal course load of three units (nine semester hours) of credit for the summer.
SESSION I: July 2 - July 26
6608 Italian Language and Culture: Major Events and Changes from 1947 to the Present.
Piemontese
The aim of this course is to study the major events that have contributed to changing the image and the role of Italy in Europe and in the world. The course will analyze some of these changes, mainly those in the cultural and linguistic spheres of Italian society, in order to challenge the false stereotypes that give Italy an image which does not coincide with reality. Besides studying the reasons and motivations behind the great interest and increase of the study of the Italian in the world, the course will also explore how Italy has coped with all of the problems related to industrialization and the organization of a complex society that developed late due to its political history and delayed democratization. (1 Unit)
Required Texts: Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana (1947), con l’introduzione di T. De Mauro e una nota storica di, L. Villari, Torino, UTET-Fondazione Bellonci, 2006; T. De Mauro, La cultura degli italiani, (a cura di Francesco Erbani), Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2004.
6636 The Influence of Cyberlanguage and Adolescent Slang on Contemporary Italian
Danesi
In a world where technology has made written communication rapid, languages are being shaped more and more by the requirements of the new cyberspace medium. One of the most conspicuous of these is the proclivity towards efficiency and economy, as evident in the constant production of compressed forms (abbreviations of words and phrases, acronyms, etc.) in the written language of chat rooms and of other such virtual linguistic communities. Is this a new linguistic phenomenon responding to new technologies? Or, is it a contemporary manifestation of an inbuilt “principle of least effort” in communication systems? And is it spreading to the language generally? This course will look at this question as it concerns the Italian language today, assessing its implications in the light of the history of the language through the ages. It will also look at the convergence between youth slang and general tendencies within modern Italian. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Alfonzetti, G. La relativa non-standard: Italiano popolare o italiano parlato? Palermo: Centro di Studi Filogici e Linguistici Siciliani, 2002.
Clivio, G. P. and Danesi, M. The Sounds, Forms, and Uses of Italian: An Introduction to Italian Linguistics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.
SESSION II: July 27 - August 17
6651 Mangiare italiano: Historical, Cultural and Linguistic Aspects
Marcato
The course describes the history of food in Italy, throughout the centuries. Also the course will analyze the formation of different regional traditions. The historical, cultural and linguistic culinary traditions will be illustrated by a series of pertinent documents.
Special attention will be dedicated to the relationship that existed between the New World and Italy and in general the Mediterranean area, and the reciprocal exchange of products and recipes. In addition the course will examine the effects in North America that the Italian immigration had, especially on the American culinary experience. (1 Unit)
A course pack will be provided.
6667 The History of Italy through its Scandals
Zucconi
The aim of this course is to present the political history of postwar Italy through the dynamic of the scandals that in many ways anticipated and, like a barometer, provoked the seasonal changes in the country’s cultural climate.
In a conservative and Roman Catholic society such as the Italy’s, sexual scandals are the accepted substitution for revolutions to which Italians are genetically and historically allergic. The course will analyze how Italian morals changed from the atrocious murder and hanging of Mussolini and his lover Carla Petacci to the election of transgender Vladimir Luxuria, born Vladimiro Guadagno, with Rifondazione Comunista, the heir to the Italian Communist Party, which after the war elected Proletariat Puritanism as a symbol of its moral superiority. The course will also study the major scandals of the other decades and will conclude with a close look at the effects of Berlusconi’s free channel programs on the current Italian cultural transformation.
The course will consist of lectures and students’ presentations on one of the books purchased and not discussed in class, a final oral report and a written paper. Four films will also be screened in the evening during the three weeks. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Sergio Turone, Corrotti e corruttori dall’Unità d’Italia alla P2, Bari: Laterza, 1984. Giorgio Galli, Affari di Stato: l’Italia sotterranea, Ed. Kaos, 1991.
David Lane, “L’ombra del potere, Bari: Laterza, 2004. Ettore Bernabei, L’uomo di fiducia, Milano: Mondatori, 1999.
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