Language & Stylistics

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011

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Creative Writing: the Tools of the Profession or first Read, then Write

A more accurate title for this course could be «Creative Reading». It implies, in fact, a strong interest in literature, in the pleasure of reading stories, poems, and essays – in a word, of reading books. A direct and close contact with some entertaining texts authored by the best contemporary Italian writers will lead the student to grow conscious of her/his voice and achieve a deeper understanding of it. We will read and comment the texts of the writers and also the texts produced by the students during the course. Our attention will be focused on the structure of Italian sentences, on the meanings of Italian words. We will examine many subtle features of the Italian written and spoken language. We will speak about Italian society, history and politics – all phenomena that give birth to new words. Together we will look for a style, in the pages we read and in the pages we write. Active participation in class is warmly required.

Required texts (to be read before the course starts)

Fruttero & Lucentini, I ferri del mestiere. Manuale involontario di scrittura con esercizi svolti, Tascabili Einaudi, n. 1279, Torino 2004.

Additional reading material will be provided by the instructor, possibly including short texts by Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Beppe Fenoglio, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Natalia Ginzburg, Tommaso Landolfi, Primo Levi, Leo Longanesi, Goffredo Parise, and others.

Summer 2008, Summer 2009

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Politics, Culture and Society in Fascist Italy

This course will study how the totalitarian fascist program planned to reshape Italians and Italian Culture and the role played by literature, cinema, documentaries. The national program for youth development as well as the magazines aimed at young adults and children will also be examined. The course will present an overview of the “autarkical campaign,” imperialism, and the anti-Semitic campaign, as elements that contributed to construction of the totalitarian fascist model.

Required texts:Emilio Gentile, Il culto del littorio. La sacralizzazione della politica nell’Italia fascista, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009. ISBN - 88-420-6323-1
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, La cultura fascista, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004.
ISBN - 88-15-09633-7

Mariolina Graziosi, La donna e la storia: identità di genere e identità collettiva
nell'Italia liberale e fascista, Napoli, Liguori, 2000. ISBN - 88-207-3021-9
Vito Zagarrio, Cinema e fascismo. Film, modelli, immaginari, Venezia, Marsilio, 2004.
ISBN - 88-317-8063-8

Summer 2010

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The Comic and Poetic Charm of Totò Bondì

The scope of this course is to study the various roles played by Italy’s greatest comedian: Totò, born Antonio Vincenzo Stefano Clemente on February 19, 1898 in a poor district of Naples, who went on to become a living legend. After many years on the stage Totò, in the late thirties made his debut in cinema and went on to make more than one hundred films. Unfortunately, for the most part, his earlier films were not well received by the critics who maintained that Totò’s real artistic dimension belonged only to the theater. Through a series of films made with Monicelli, Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and others, this course will bring to life Totò’s unsurpassable acting and his poetic cinematic interpretations.

Required texts: Totò, l'uomo e la maschera di Franca Faldini e Goffredo Fofi ed. L'ancora del Mediterraneo, 2000 Napoli ISBN 8884401151

Liliana de Curtis, Totò mio padre. Milano: Ed Rizzoli ISBN 88-04-33680-3.

Summer 2009

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Introduction to Romance Philology

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)

This course also counts for one of core courses for the Master in Mediterranean Studies

Required text: Renzi Lorenzo e Andreose Alvise, Manuale di linguistica e filologia romanza (Bologna: Il Mulino)

Summer 2008, Summer 2010

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Ten Poets: New Verses in Italian Contemporary Literature

Empty spaces are as important as written words when you engage yourself in reading a poem seriously. We will pay the same attention to the voices and to their silences while reading ten Italian poets from the twentieth century: Umberto Saba, Aldo Palazzeschi, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Sandro Penna, Vittorio Sereni, Andrea Zanzotto, Elsa Morante, Patrizia Cavalli, Valerio Magrelli. We will read and comment in class two or three texts for each author for a total of ten poets.

Required texts:

Poeti italiani del Novecento, anthology edited by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, Oscar Mondadori, Milano 1990

A profile of Elsa Morante, Valerio Magrelli, and Patrizia Cavalli, who are not included in Mengaldo’s anthology, will be provided by the instructor, together with the texts to be read and commented.

Summer 2009

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Borders, Exile, Migration and Exile in Contemporary Italian Literature

This class focuses on works written in Italian but that may not be classified as part of Italian literature according to the traditional national canon. The books included in the syllabus deal with multicultural experiences in and outside Italy. The goal of the class is that of reflecting upon literary categories that do not apply anymore (or have never applied) to specific sections of Italian literature that are better understood if de-nationalized and envisioned in a multicultural and multilingual context. Is it topics or languages that assimilate literary works to a specific tradition? Does a Hungarian-born author who writes in Italian belong to one of the two specific linguistic literary traditions? In what measure the acquired cultural tradition mingles or clashes with the original background in an author who lives most of his life abroad, but chooses to write in his/her native language? A Swiss Italian writer is Swiss or Italian? Both? Neither? What are the boundaries that define or expand the concept of border literature? We will study works that question the traditional lines of the Italian canon and suggest that rather than speaking of Italian literature, we should begin speaking of literature written in Italian.

Required texts: Fleur Jaeggy. La paura del cielo. Milano: Adelphi, 1994.
Giorgio Pressburger. La neve e la colpa. Torino: Einaudi, 1998. 88-06-14747-1
---. Di vento e di fuoco. Torino: Einaudi, 2000. 88-06-14748-X
Edith Bruck. Transit. Venezia: Marsilio, 1978. 88-317-6270-2
Claudio Magris. Danubio. Milano: Grazanti, 1985. 9-7888-11-674528
---. Un altro mare. Milano: Garzanti, 1991. 88-11-67752-1
Paolo Mauresing. La variante di Lüneburg. Milano: Adelphi, 1993. 88-459-0984-0

Summer 2010

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Industrial Design Made in Italy

The objective of this course is to furnish the fundamental knowledge and critical
tools for understanding the phenomenon of Italian Industrial design. The development of the industrial system of production, the formation of the industrial model, and of the industrial and technological system in Italy will be examined to illustrate the historical lateness of Italy’s passage from applied art to industrial serial production and how this late transformation produced a specific evolution that has determined the success and the specificity of the Italian
system in the world market. The objective of this course is to identify the unique circumstances that have contributed to the success of “MADE IN ITALY.”

Required Texts:
Andrea Branzi, Introduzione al design italiano. Una modernità incompleta, Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 1999, Milano

Renato De Fusco, Made in Italy. Storia del design italiano, Laterza, 2007

Vittorio Gregotti, Il disegno del prodotto industriale. Italia (1860-1980), Mondadori, Electa, 1986, Milano

Summer 2012

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Italina Identity and Mediterraneean Alterities

This course is divided in two parts, one on theory and the other on readings and textual analysis. The first part will be centered on the work of Edward Said and Franco Cassano, on a variety of work on immigration and on the formation of a multicultural social fabric in Southern Italy. Particular emphasis will be given to the presence of the Arab immigration that is now beginning to have its own literary voice in Italian. The second part will focus on the analysis of selected texts pertaining to these issues. Class discussions will examine the dichotomy of a mythological corrupted South versus an efficient, productive and industrial North which is at the base of Franco Cassano’s theory of the meridian thought. (This course can also count for the Master in Mediterranean Studies)

Required texts: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedura, Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli, 2007. Leonardo Sciascia, Consiglio d’Egitto
Maria Attanasio, Di Concetta e le sue donne, Sellerio, 1999. Roberto Saviano, Gomorra. Viaggio nell'impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra, Mondadori, 2006. Daniela Carmosino, Uccidiamo la luna a marechiaro. il Sud nella nuova narrativa italiana, Donzelli, 2009.
Franco Cassano, Il pensiero meridiano, Laterza, 2005 (1996).

Summer 2010

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Mediterranean History, Arts, and Civilization from the Cyclades to Modernity *

This course will begin with the study of the mysterious civilization on the Cyclades Islands 2,000 years before Christ and will cover the classical period of ancient Greece, Imperial Rome, the fall of the Roman Empire, the birth of Christianity, the Middle ages in Europe, Byzantine art in Venice and in Ravenna, the religious schism between the Western and the Eastern churches, the Venetian Empire, the Renaissance in Tuscany, Luther’s Reformation and the crisis of the arts in Northern Europe. The course will conclude with a study of the Muslim World and the Mediterranean.

*(Besides regular credit this course may also count for one credit in the M.A. in Mediterranean Studies program)

*Mediterranean History, Arts, and Civilization from the Cyclades to Modernity

Summer 2009

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Studies in Language and Stylistics

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. 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. The aim of this course is also
to help the students find their own Italian voice while speaking and
writing. This endeavor requires daily practice and a particular
attention to problems of stylistics.

* 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 are required to take
3407 without graduate credit and cannot apply to the Florence Program
in Italy (1 Unit).

Required Texts: The instructor will supply all course materials.

Summer 2012

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Italian Political Theater from Dario Fo and Franca Rame to the Present

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)

Summer 2008

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Sex, Love and Betrayal in the Italian Opera Tradition

This course will look at Italian Opera from Monteverdi to Puccini. Each opera will be analyzed from a purely musical aspect and within the historical context of its composition. Some of the topics discussed will be: opera seria, opera buffa, castrati, verismo, and the enormous contribution of non-Italian composers (such as Mozart) to the patrimony of Italian Opera. With the aid of a professional opera singer present at all lessons it will be possible to sing through selected arias and get a better feel for the music through live performance. Students will be encouraged to participate in the singing as much as possible. Reading and listening materials will be distributed by the professor.

Summer 2009

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Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture

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 Italian Romanticism --with particular reference to Foscolo and Leopardi, the course will then focus on the development of the novel, from Manzoni, Nievo and the authors of the United Italy (Verga, Collodi, Deledda, D'Annunzio, Pirandello) to the representative writers of the twentieth century (Svevo, Pavese, Ginzburg, C. Levi, 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), and the "Transavanguardia".

Required Texts: 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.

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2012

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Seminal Events in Italian History and Culture from Unification to the Present

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.

Summer 2008

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Italian on Stage: The Myth of Commedia dell'Arte

The course will study the Commedia dell'Arte focusing on figures ranging from the buffoons of the Middle Ages up to Goldoni's characters. As well, representative texts, scenarios, and acting techniques of the most celebrated Italian comic theatre tradition will be analyzed. All students in this workshop are expected to act in and/or to assist in the production of the play that will be performed prior to the end of the session.

Required texts: Siro Ferrone, Attori mercanti corsari, Einaudi Torino 1993 ISBN 8806131834

Roberto Alone, Goldoni dalla Commedia dell'Arte al dramma Borghese. Garzanti 2004, ISBN 8811600375

Carlo Goldoni, Il servitore di due padroni. Einaudi 2002 (Libro e DvD) ISBN 8806162853

Carlo Goldoni, Il teatro Comico - Memorie italiane. Mondadori 1983, ISBN 8804228927

Eduardo de Filippo, L'arte della Commedia. Einaudi Torino 1965 ISBN 8806065939

Summer 2009

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Tradition of the Italian Theatrical Fable from Carlo Gozzi to Pirandello

Through a multitude of sources this course will trace how fables and fantastic literature represent a rich tradition in Italian literature starting with the Renaissance epic. In 1600, with Pentamerone (Lo cunto de li cunti), Giovan Battista Basile created the model from which all fables, from the Grimm brothers to Borges and Calvino, have been drawn. This genre also exists in Italian theater dating from Machiavelli’s La mandragola (1513), which stages a double reality, translating the dream into a critical representation rich with symbols, through metaphor and paradox. This apparently distorted vision of the world transforms the stage into a fantasy space, and therefore into a mental space which has influenced not only literature but the magical neo-realism of Cesare Zavattini in cinematography.

Required texts:/La Mandragola/ by Machiavelli Niccolò, Scaccia Mario
edited by Sala E., Editore: Persiani, 2009 - ISBN: 8896013011
La grande magia by De Filippo Eduardo
Einaudi, 1973 - ISBN: 8806364340
Quando si è qualcuno - La favola del figlio cambiato - I giganti dellamontaga by Pirandello Luigi, Mondadori, 2000 - ISBN: 8804487631

Summer 2010

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Introduction to Early Modern Italian Literature

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 text: M. Pazzaglia, Letteratura italiana. Testi e critica con lineamenti di storia letteraria. Vol. II. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1992-1993.

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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Faces of Italy:Italian Culture and Society through Literature, Theater and Film from 1861 to Present

This course examines the most pressing issue that has confronted Italian society since its Unification: How does one make a nation? If the Italian historical process that led to unification (the Risorgimento) can be read as an unfulfilled revolution (Gramsci), a revolution that failed (Gobetti), or even the fulfillment of noble plans made by enlightened men, animated by a philanthropic spirit (Croce), how can these different ways of reading the nation’s beginnings help us to understand its past, its present, and its future? The course is interdisciplinary: we will place political and historical transformations (from Liberalism, to Fascism, to the Resistance, to the First and Second Republics) in a dialectical relation to the cultural production of an Italy constantly in flux, looking at literature, music and the visual arts as expressions of social change: as reactions for or against the dominant culture. We will also contextualize the Italian reality within that of Europe and the rest of the world.

Required Texts: L’Italia spiegata ai ragazzi, A. Nicaso, Pignotti. Mondadori, 2011.
Il Gattopardo, Tomasi di Lampedusa - Feltrinelli – EAN.
Fontamara di Ignazio Silone - Classici Moderni, Oscar Mondadori.

Summer 2010, Summer 2012

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The Textual Worlds of Medieval and Humanistic Italy

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.

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011

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Modernity in Italy (1860-1990)

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.

Materials for this course will be provided by the instructor.

Summer 2008

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Understanding The Southern Identity

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

Summer 2008

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The History and Evolution of Wine Culture

Wine is one of the last examples of a product that offers variety; for this reason many people have approached it not only as a source of pleasure but as an object of study. In Italy, as elsewhere in the world, a variety of classes, wine tastings, sponsored events, study tours and trips are offered year round to learn more about how wine is made. This course offers more than an understanding of organoleptic properties of wine. Wine is not just something to drink; it is poetry, science, a relationship with the land that produces it, education and civilization. This course starts with the history of wine production, from Greece to the present day. It will study the birth of wine in the Mediterranean culture and its present role. It will analyze its role in Italy's social and economic spheres, ecoogy, rural culture and will end with the history of wine tasting and its development in different coutnries, from manufacturers to consumers.

Summer 2011

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This course is designed to provide an introduction to terminology used in conducting business with Italian firms. Topical readings, analyses of business correspondence, office documents and newspaper articles will be examined along with formats for writing formal letters, faxes, email and curriculum vitae. These will be integrated with practice replicating communicative situations relative to the business world. Cultural factors crucial to initiating and sustaining commercial relations will also be explored.

Required Texts:
Pelliccia, G., Mezzadri, M. L’italiano in azienda, Guerra Edizioni, Perugia.
ISBN: 88-7715-552-3, EAN: 978-88-7715-552-8

Summer 2010

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Stylistics: Techniques of Composition and Interpretation

The aim of this course is to help the students to find their own Italian voice while speaking and writing in Italian. This endeavour 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. (1 Unit)

All assignments submitted by students and corrected by the professor will be included in the mandatory portfolio

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

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011

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Reading and Writing in Italian: Improve your Writing and Reading

A direct and close contact with some entertaining texts authored by the best contemporary Italian writers will lead the student to grow conscious of her/his voice and achieve a deeper understanding of it. We will read and comment the texts of the writers and also the texts produced by the students during the course. Our attention will be focused on the structure of Italian sentences, on the meanings of Italian words. We will examine many subtle features of the Italian written and spoken language. We will speak about Italian society, history and politics – all phenomena that give birth to new words. Together we will look for a style, in the pages we read and in the pages we write. Active participation in class is warmly required.

Required Texts: Fruttero & Lucentini, I ferri del mestiere. Manuale involontario di scrittura con esercizi svolti, Tascabili Einaudi, n. 1279, Torino 2004.
Angelo Marchese, L'officina del racconto. Semiotica della narrativita`
Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1990

Additional reading material will be provided by the instructor, possibly including short texts by Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Beppe Fenoglio, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Natalia Ginzburg, Tommaso Landolfi, Primo Levi, Leo Longanesi, Goffredo Parise, and others.

Summer 2012

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Semiotic Theory and Practice in Italy

This course will present a critical study of the interpretative acts underlying the understanding of signs. It will trace the development of semiotics from a historical/social perspective though the works of various theoreticians. Particular attention will be paid to the function of verbal and non-verbal signs in the literary, linguistic fields as well as communication through theater, cinema art and the media. The course will be both theoretical and practical as together with tests and essays students will be asked to work on applied semiotic projects.

Required Texts:
U. Eco, Trattato di semiotica generale. Milano: Bompiani, 1975.
Bonfantini Massimo, Breve corso di semiotica. Laterza 2005. (Settima edizione)
Eco, Umberto, Interpretazione e sovrainterpretazione. Bompiani, 2002.
Marcel Danesi, Brands. Il mondo delle marche. Carocci, 2009.

Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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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.

Required Text: Gino Tellini, Metodi e protagonisti della critica letteraria, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2010

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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Pirandello: The Word, the Mise-en-scene and the Myth Santeramo

The course will offer an in-depth study of Luigi Pirandello's most important dramatic works, together with analyses of his theoretical essays on theatre. His three-year directorship of the Teatro d'Arte in Rome will also be examined. Pirandello's plays and theory will be studied in a European context. Particular attention will be paid to the following plays: Six Characters in Search of an Author, Each in his Own Way, Henry IV, The Feast of Our Lord of the Ships, The New Colony, Lazarus; I'm Dreaming, But Am I?; Tonight We Improvise and The Mountain Giants.

Required Texts: Donato Santeramo, Luigi Pirandello: la parola, la scena e il mito. Roma: Nuova Editrice Universitaria, 2007. ISBN: 978-88-95155-09-8

Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.

Pirandello's plays and essays can be found at: http://www.classicitaliani.it/index070.htm"

Summer 2011

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Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Complex and Fascinating Creativity *

This course will focus on the entire body of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s creativeproduction: cinema, poetry, fiction, theater, and critical essays. Pasolini’s work stood out in Italian literature from the Fifties to the Seventies as a passionate attempt to conjugate Marxism, Christian spirituality, nostalgia for the lost values of agrarian society and fascination with the vitality of the sub-proletariat Roman world. His was a voice also noted for its explicit and pitiless accusation of the social structures of the industrialized West. Special attention will be given to certain works published during the last decade of his life, which are the most significant and representative of this original and controversial Italian intellectual. The memorable documents written after his 1966 and 1969 visits to USA will also be studied.

*Required Texts: P.P. PASOLINI, "Teatro", Milano: Garzanti, 2006, Euro 18.50. ISBN 88-11-66965-0
P.P. PASOLINI, "Empirismo eretico", Milano: Garzanti, 2007, Euro 13.50. ISBN 978-88-11-67544-0
P.P. PASOLINI, "Trasumanar e Organizzar", Milano: Garzanti, 2002, Euro 9.50. ISBN 978-88-11-67607-0
P.P. PASOLINI, "Pasolini rilegge Pasolini", Milano: Archinto, RCS Libri, 2005, Euro 20.00. ISBN 88-7768-448-8

Summer 2009

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The course offers a survey of the main tenets of Italian Verismo through the readings of the main novels and novellas by Giovanni Verga. Verismo was, on the one hand, the counterpart of French Naturalism; on the other, the logical development of the reflection on realism that Romantic writers had privileged. Through the discussion of the main narrative works by Verga, the course aims at identifying the historical discourse within the nineteenth-century Italian literature and, whenever it will be possible, at comparing Verismo with French Naturalism.

Required texts: Giovanni Verga, I Malavoglia, Milan: Mondadori, 1983 [OCLC: 17319705] Giovanni Verga, Mastro-don Gesualdo, Milan: Mondadori, 1983 [ISBN: 8804228938 (pbk.); 9788804228936 (pbk.)] Giovanni Verga, Tutte le novelle, Milan: Mondadori, 1983 [OCLC: 10395014]

Summer 2010

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Mediterranean Identity through Literature-Cinema-Poetry-Theater

A fundamental approach to the exploration of the Mediterranean self/identity is to examine those figures that are different from the narrative self - among which the female figure is one of the most important and universal representations of otherness. One such multi-faceted character is Medea, arguably the most captivating female figure of all times who, since the dawn of Western literature, has inspired many artists in all fields. Euripides, Seneca, Corneille, Anouilh, Pasolini, Callas, Fo and Rame, NDiaye, Ba, are among the many who have breathed life into Medea’s various incarnations, on the stage and in cinematic productions, from ancient Greek drama to the present day. Unlike most mythic figures, whose defining attributes remain constant across the various versions of the myth, the essence of Medea is continually changing as her story is rethought by the various authors and new versions are created. The Medea myth often supplies the vocabulary for expressing modern political concern, such as the tensions within a mixed marriage in contemporary society. She illuminates the opposing concepts of self and other, and also suggests the disturbing possibility of otherness within the self. We shall investigate the figure of Medea in XX-century theater and film in the Mediterranean area, reconstructing its ancient meaning in literary tradition, as well as the philosophical, psychological, and cultural questions these portrayals give rise to.

(Besides regular credit this course may also count for one credit in the M.A. in Mediterranean Studies program)

Summer 2009

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The 150th Anniversary of Italy Unification seen through the Films of the Tavianis Brothers

The course will study and analyze 150 years of national history through
the Taviani Brothers' films. We will look at the agricultural society
of the South and the reality of migration studying A Man for Burning
and Good Morning Babylon. The Risorgimento as an unsuccessful
revolution will be analyzed from the standpoint of Saint Michael had a
Rooster and Allonsanfan. We will also study the subversion and the
utopias of the Sixties, the Resistance movement and the issue of the
South as portrayed in The Night of San Lorenzo, My Father, my Master
and Kaos , adapted from short stories by Sicilian writer par
excellence, Luigi Pirandello. Through an examination of so-called
"political cinema," we will study the disengagement and economic boom
that followed the Resistance through the comedies of Risi and
Monicelli, concluding with a look at the cinema of the last generation
(Vicari, Munzi, Garrone, Marra and Crialese) who experiment with new
narrative forms.

Summer 2011

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Italian / American Literature & Film: Production and Representation

This course offers a close look at the printed and celluloid works of some of the more prominent names in twentieth-century Italian/American literature and film. Along with those listed above, and time permitting, we may also see a few films, not made by Italian Americans, about Italian Americans. Along with the usual historical and thematic analyses of these authors’ works, the technique, “intention,” and narrative “responsibility” of the modern/contemporary writer will be examined. Namegly, “How, why, and for whom does one write?” And, if applicable, how do they fit into the modernist vis-à-vis postmodernist discourse.

Required texts: Helen Barolini, Umbertina. Avagliano, 2001 (1979);John Fante, Dago Red. Racconti. Einaudi, 2006; Figli di due mondi, a cura di Francesco Durante. Avagliano, 2002.

Poetry: Dal Po al Potomac: esperienze di poesia e poetica italiana in America, a cura di Luigi Fontanella. Il Grappolo, 1998;
Joseph Tusiani. Il ritorno. Schena, 1992.

Films:
Skyscapers of New York (1905);The Black Hand / (1906);/Il padrino (1972);
L’emigrante (1974);My Name is Tanino (2003); Nuovomondo (2007).

Critical works:
AA. VV. Scene italoamericane: rappresentazioni cinematografiche degli italiani d’America, a cura di Anna Camaiti Hostert e Anthony Julian Tamburri. Sossella, 2002;Luigi Fontanella, La parola transfuga. Scrittori italiani in America. Cadmo, 2003;Paolo Giordano. “Emigranti, espatriati e/o esiliati: italiani e letteratura negli Stati Uniti,” in Lo straniero, a cura di Mario Domenichelli e Pino Fasano. Bulzoni, 1996;Anthony Julian Tamburri, Una semiotica dell’etnicità: nuove segnalature per la scrittura italiano/americana. Franco Cesati Editore, 2010.

Summer 2010

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Topics in the History of the Italian Language

This course will trace the origins of the Italian language, and provide an overview of the principal phases of its evolution, from the earliest documents and Medieval vernaculars through the codification of the literary standard during the Renaissance. The focus on the literary language will be complemented by the study of the varying relations between Italian and its dialects across time, space, and society, but particularly in regard to contemporary Italy. A look at the vicissitudes of Italian abroad will shed light on language use and structural changes in unstable contexts of contact situations.

Required Texts: Material in electronic form to be available for students upon arrival at Middlebury

Summer 2011

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The Mafia through Cinematic and Literary Perspectives

The course will analyze the cinematic representation of the complex phenomena called Mafia. We will study how within Italian cinema the characterization of the Mafia and mafiosi began with the archetypal figures of the bosses and the good guy, crusader from the North sent to Sicily to fight crime. Special attention will be dedicated to Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, Placido Rizzotto, Salvatore Giuliano, Il giorno della civetta, Falcone, Borsellino, Fortapasc and Il Divo.

Required Texts:
La mafia spiegata ai ragazzi. Nicaso, Antonio - Mondadori, 2010
Il Giorno della civetta. Sciascia Leonardo, Baglione A. - La nuova italia editrice, 1993
Silvana Gandolfi, Io dentro gli spari, Salani Editore, 2010
Giancarlo De Cataldo, Nelle mani giuste, Einaudi, 2007

Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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The Disunity of Italy: Deeds and Misdeeds of the Risorgimento Nicaso

The history of Italian Risorgimento is conditioned by rhetoric that has constructed a nation founded on a legendary past, based on the heroism and martyrdom of a minority of combatants who believed that they had a special mission to accomplish. Reality is different. In order to understand what really happened, a deep re-reading of historical facts is necessary. The course will focus on how the unification of the south with the north led to a civil war. We will explore how the victor effaced the memories of the vanquished and discover the true nature of the Risorgimento.

Required Texts: O Roma o morte di Arrigo Petacco, Mondadori, 2010- ISBN 978-88-04-60457-0, Il sangue del Sud di Giordano Bruno Guerri, Mondadori, 2010-ISBN 978-88-04-60330-6, Il Gattopardo di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Felitrinelli (Universale economia), 2003, ISBN 880781028X.

Summer 2011

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Sounds and Songs of Italian Cinema

Learning how to "listen" to the movies provides the cinemagoer with new
narratives and added cultural values to an already complex maze of
cultural contexts one finds in Italian Cinema. Therefore, this course
will guide the student through the entire spectrum of Italian cinema
spanning the masterpieces of the silent film era and the ever-popular
soundtracks composed by Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone.

Required Texts: Gian Piero Brunetta. Cent'anni di cinema italiano (Roma-Bari. Editori Laterza, 1995), Sergio Miceli. Musica e cinema nella cultura del Novecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 2010).

Summer 2011

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The Mediterranean Myth of Ulysses in Italian Literature

This course looks to deepen the understanding of the figure of Ulysses, as legend in the foundation of Mediterranean culture. The course will examine the multifarious nature of the character of Ulysses, i.e., its ancient as well as modern aspects. The figure of Ulysses offers itself as a symbol of innumerable potentialities: a varying heroismk constantly reinterpreted with the passage of centuries. It stimulated expression from Homer to authors of the twentieth century, and inspired a plurality of protagonists very different from one another. After an analysis of the Ulysses in Homeric poetry (the Illiad and the Odyssey), the course will focus on the metamorphosis of the character in some classical authors of Italian literature: from Dante Alighieri to Ugo Foscolo, from Gabriele D’Annunzio to Giovanni Pascoli, and to Guido Gozzano; from Primo Levi to Umberto Saba.

Required Text:
G. Tellini, Letteratura italiana. Un metodo di studio. Firenze, le Monnier Università, 2011.

Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.

Summer 2012

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Beyond "Historia": /I promessi sposi/ as a Humorist Novel

Beyond "History": "I promessi sposi" as a Humorist Novel Ciccarelli In this course we will analyze Alessandro Manzoni's famous novel as a model of humoristic literature for the subsequent Italian narrative tradition. From Pirandello to Calvino, from Svevo to Gadda, most Italian writers who have been associated to the humoristic literary current have demonstrated a keen appreciation of Manzoni's novel and work, without judging it, mostly or exclusively, for its religious or moralistic goal.

To the contrary, they have identified the novel's strength in its irony and humor, which have been seen as powerful intellectual weapons of Manzoni's poetics. It is through these rhetorical weapons that Manzoni, in his novel, uncovers and denounces the harshness of reality, without ever losing contact with the paradoxical aspects that affect human life. Manzoni combines his strong belief in the historical truth with his strong religious belief to ridicule hypocrisy and falsity, and to offer an anthropological view of human conditions which embraces empathy as well as condemnation of humanity's inevitable flaws. In this class we will read the novel and its appendix, the 'Storia della colonna infame,' as well as a few passages from some of the works by the 20th-century authors mentioned above.

Required texts:
Texts are available online. Critical texts will be at the Middlebury library

Summer 2012

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Poetry and Play: The Parody in Italian Literature

Parody is transgression and mockery according to codified norms, but it is also a playful and humorous rewriting of major texts, which, as one knows, is a serious matter. It invites broadening the horizon, bringing in fresh air, in other words: looking at the world from another prospective. Even if play is not part of the academic curriculum there are entire chapters of Italian literature dedicated to parody, written as a countermelody to the prevailing models. In this course students will be guided along an amusing journey to the discovery of parody, from Boccaccio to Umberto Eco.

Required text:
G. Tellini, Rifare il verso. La parodia nella letteratura italiana, Milano: Mondadori ("Oscar saggi"), 2008, pp. 390, euro 12. ISBN = 978-88-04-58173-4.

Summer 2009

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Culture, Social Life and Private Life in the Renaissance

The course aims to illustrate not only the historical context but also the civil and social life of Renaissance civilization (XVI century). Specific topics covered in the course, along with the literary, scientific and artistic works, will be the conditions of daily life in the city and countryside, with special focus on gastronomy, clothing, and the practice of medicine across the various social classes. Ultimately the course will offer a broad perspective of Renaissance culture from both a historical and cultural standpoint.

Required Text: R. Bruscagli-G. Tellini, Letteratura e storia, Firenze, Sansoni, 2005, vol. II (Umanesimo e Rinascimento), ISBN 88-383-0567-6.

Summer 2011

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The Influence of Cyberlanguage and Adolescent Slang on Contemporary Italian

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.

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.

Summer 2008

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Free or Controlled Press? - A History of Italian Journalism

This course will study the evolution of the diffusion of public information in Italy. This historical overview will begin with the “Acta Diurna” (Roman official notices comparable to Daily Public Records) and go through the first efforts of the Lombard Enlightenment to create lay publications in competition with the informative methods used by the Catholic Church. We will then move on to discuss the birth of the first major newspapers founded and financed by the major industrial enterprises and the Lombard and Piedmontese cotton industry. We will also analyze the press under the Fascist regime, media controlled by political parties, media connected to the Resistance and electronic media. The course will end with a study of Rai/Mediaset, the slow affirmation of the Rete in Italia, the so-called "citizen's journalism" and the phenomena of the "free press". By the end of the course the recurring question of whether Italian national media is the servant of the dominant powers or independent, will be answered.

Summer 2009

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The Dialects of Italy and other Italian Linguistic Realities

This course will study the origins, distribution and fate of Italian dialects.
Lessons will also focus on studying literary expression, folklore and lyrics.
Linguistic minorities in Italy, the Italian language outside of Italy (Italian emigration abroad) and the language of the new Italians living in Italy will be also discussed and analyzed.

Required Text:
T. De Mauro, Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2011²,
Biblioteca Storica Laterza.

Summer 2012

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From Dante to Gramsci: Italian Political Treatises between ragion di stato and Utopia

This course deals with political and utopian treatises written in Italy during the Middleage, the Cinquecento and up to Antonio Gramsci. After reviewing some aspects of the origins of th epolitical debate that evolved before Machiavelli, we will focus on a number of writers who, from different perspectives, dealt with the complex issues involved in the delicate relations between the rulers and the subjects and the organization of civil life. We will read and analyze, in the light of the historical and political reality of the Italy of the time (a particular troubled reality of the Italian States), selections from the works of Dante, Machiavelli, Guicciadini, Botero, Zoccolo, Campanella and Gramsci.

Required Texts: Dante, Monarchia, a c. di M. Pizzica, Milano, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 1988, Euro 9,50. ISBN-88-17-16682-0, N. Machiavelli, Il Principe, a c. di G. Inglese, Einaudi (E. 8.00) ISBN - 88-06-13851-0, Guicciardini, Ricordi, a c. di G. Masi, Milano, Mursia, 1994, ISBN - 88-425-1595-7, A. Gramsci, Scritti scelti, Milano, BUR, 2007 (E. 14.00) ISBN – 9788817016186

Summer 2011

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Mangiare italiano/ : Historical, Cultural and Linguistic Aspects*

The course describes the history of food in Italy, throughout the centuries. The course will also 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 the reciprocal exchange of products and recipes. In addition, the course will examine the effects that the Italian immigration had in North America, especially on the American culinary experience.

Required texts: Rebora, "La civilta' della forchetta" Ed. Laterza, Collana Economica, anno 2000, pagg. 206 - Euro 9.00
Johd Dickie, Con gusto, Ed. Laterza, anno 2007, pagg. 396 - Euro
Capatti - Montanari, La cucina italiana: storia di una cultura, Ed. Laterza, Collana Economica, 2005, - Euro 10.00

* Only open to M.A. and DML students who have completed a preliminary summer of study on the Vermont Campus

Summer 2009

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This course offers a panoramic history of the first Jewish settlements in what is now Italy from the High Middle Ages to present day Italy. This chronological survey will examine some of the most interesting aspects of the Jewish presence in Italy: the makeup of the community, the traditions, the literature, philosophy, economic activities, the relationship with the Vatican and the Catholic majority, life in the Ghettos, racial persecutions, and the relationship between racism and anti-Semitism. Special attention will be given to some of the major figures that came out of the Jewish communities both in the arts and in the field of science. Among those we will study are Leone de’ Sommi, Leon Modena, Natalia Ginzburg, Primo Levi, Emilio G. Segre’ and Rita Montalcini.

Required text: Storia d’Italia, Annali vol. 11 * 11 * [11/2] – Gli Ebrei in Italia
Einaudi, Torino, 1997 - ISBN-13: 9788806130374

Summer 2010

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Starting with a survey of Classical, Greek and Roman theater, analyzed from a female perspective, the course will explore the reasons behind the indisputable fact, attested by Aristotle himself, that although theatrical practice began with the representation of Demetra’s cult, the practice of the Eleusinian mysteries, and the celebration in honor of Dionysius, half man and half woman-- women were banned from the stage. Why then were they excluded? To answer this question the course will study classical texts such as Medea, Phaedra, Antigone, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Al cesti and other ancient and modern literary and critical works on the subject.

(Besides regular credit this course may also count for one credit in the M.A. in Mediterranean Studies program)

Summer 2009

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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 the 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 '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 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 them. 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. Messina, Palermo and Venezia will also be considered. The second part of the course is the actual reading of Boccaccio's texts and it progressively follows the themes of the Decameron.
°The credit for this course can also be used for the M.A. in Mediterranean Studies

Required Texts: G. Boccaccio, Decameron, a cura di V. Branca, Torino, Einaudi, 2005, ISBN - 9788806177027
2 Voll. (students are required to bring a copy of this edition).

Further reading. will be suggested during the course. Selected literature available in the library:
F. Bruni, Boccaccio e l'invezione della letteratura mezzana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1990, ISBN - 88-15-02479-4
Lessico critico decameroniano, ed. R. Bragantini e P. M. Forni, Torino,
Bollati Boringhieri, 1995, ISBN - 88-339-0915-8

Summer 2011

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Introduction to Italian Colonial and Post-colonial Literature

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.

Summer 2008

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The Mediterranean Signature of Dante’s Divina Commedia

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).

Summer 2008, Summer 2012

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This course looks to understand the historical and cultural mosaic, and the geographical and political realities of the Mediterranean, in order for students to better grasp the complexities associated with this region of the planet. The Mediterranean basin is the cradle of many great civilizations as well as the big three monotheistic religions, and the Mediterranean sea links and divides Europe from the Arabic-Muslim world at the same time.

The course will in part examine the history of the Arabic-Muslim world, which demonstrates the contact as well as the confrontation between the peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean basin. Presently, the Muslim-Arabic world is afflicted by socio-economic inequalities, political and cultural conflict and emigration, which all beg reflection upon fundamental themes of the history of political and cultural coexistence regarding the opposing Mediterranean shores.

The course will also focus on the issues of the integration of immigrants of Islamic origin in the societies of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, on terrorism, as well as on Islam and modernity. However, the reflections in the course will move well beyond ideas of ‘civilization conflict’ between Islam and the West, theorized by Samuel Huntington, and will attempt, instead, to adjust its perspective in order to consider the single destiny of these two Mediterranean worlds.

Required Texts:
Horchani F., Zolo D. (a cura di), Mediterraneo. Un dialogo fra le due sponde, Jouvence, Roma, 2005.
Guolo R., Xenofobi e xenofili. Gli italiani e l’Islam, Laterza,
Roma-Bari, 2003.
Filali-Ansary A., Islam e laicità. Il punto di vista dei musulmani
progressisti, Cooper Castelvecchi, Roma, 2003.

Summer 2012

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Power and Success in the Renaissance

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.

Summer 2008

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Industrial Literature: Bernari, Volponi, Ottieri, Parise

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

Summer 2008

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The Cinematic World of Roberto Rossellini

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.”

Summer 2008

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Politics, Society and Economy in Italy: From the Reconstruction to the Advent of Berlusconi (1960-2009)

This course will study the changes in the Italian political system and the cultural transformations from the birth of the Republic to the advent of Silvio Berlusconi. Special emphasis will be given to Catholicism and to the political parties that rose from the fall of Fascism. The role of the economic boom, internal emigration, terrorism and the end of ideologies will be examined. We will also study the end of the first republish, the rise of the second republic and the new parties that emerged from the political crisis. The course will end with a close study of the rise of Berlusconi and the new parties.

Required texts:
Aurelio Lepre, Storia della prima Repubblica. L’Italia dal 1942 al 1992, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993, pp. 157-342. ISBN-88-15-04062-5

Silvio Lanaro, Storia dell’Italia repubblicana. Dalla fine della guerra agli anni novanta, Marsilio, Venezia, 1993, pp. 221-451. ISBN-88-317-5403-3

Guido Crainz, Storia del miracolo italiano: culture, identità, trasformazioni fra anni Cinquanta e Sessanta, Donzelli, Roma, 2005, pp. 273. ISBN 88-7989-945-7

Luigi Lotti, I partiti della Repubblica. La politica in Italia dal 1946 al 1997, Le Monnier, Firenze, 1998. (Photocopies to be distributed in class)

(Photocopies on “berlusconismo” will be provide).

Summer 2010

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This course will explore the Italian Diaspora, that is, the phenomenon that saw approximately twenty-four million people emigrate from Italy from the 19th century to the present day. After having studied the causes of emigration, students will focus on the impact of Italians and their descendents in their countries of adoption. Special attention will be paid to the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Australia.

Required Text:
Gabaccia, Donna R. Emigranti: Le diaspore degli italiani dal Medioevo a oggi. Torino: Einaudi, 2003

Summer 2008, Summer 2012

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Scrittori "italiani" nelle Americhe

This course will look at the writings of significant "Italian" voices from three areas of the Americas: Canada, The United States, and Argentina. While all prose writings, they different from each other in that some are fictional and others are quasi travelogues (Pariani, Il paese dei sogni perduti) or autobiographies (Blengino, Ommi! L'America). Some of the fictional writings may be based on family histories (Rimanelli, Una posizione sociale; Ricci, Vite dei santi), others are based to a certain degree on a tragic event such as the internment of Italians in the early 1940s (Scottoline, Il prezzo del silenzi), one of the United States' best kept secrets, and others still are fictions infused with the writer's italianità (Melfi, Riti di infertilità).

Along with the usual analysis of the technique, "intention," and narrative "responsibility" of the modern/contemporary writer, we shall also examine the historical and thematic analyses of these authors' works specifically from the lens of biculturalism and immigration. That said, the other questions such as "How, why, and for whom does one write?" or, when applicable, "How do they fit into the modernist vis-à-vis postmodernist discourse?" will take on new meaning. Further still, we shall also examine the different modes in which these writers express their italianità and how such difference maybe rooted in and influenced by the local various local cultures in which these writers work their craft.

Required Texts:
Representing CANADA
Frank Paci, Scarpe italiane (2007 [2002])

USA
Giose Rimanelli, Una posizione sociale (1959; La stanza grande [1996])

ARGENTINA
Vanni Blengino, Ommi! L'America (2007)
Laura Pariani, Il paese dei sogni perduti. Anni e storie argentine (2004)

Summer 2011

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A Poetic Comparison: Pascoli's and D'Annuzio's Poetics

In this class we will study and confront the poetry of two of the most important European poets of the symbolist period, Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele D'Annunzio. We will examine, in particular, their interpretation of nature. We will verify when and how nature is the subject (as a similitude) or the object (as a metaphor) of their poetic investigations. It would not be possible to analyze in depth Pascoli’s and D’Annunzio’s poetics without first assessing the role of nature in the works of some of their models within the Italian literary tradition. In the first classes, we will briefly examine, therefore, some of these models to then focus on Pascoli’s and D’Annunzio’s major poetic works. We will conclude the course with a brief incursion into early twentieth-century Italian poetry to confirm the impact that their poetics has had on the rest of the century.
NB: tutti i testi, tranne che per D’Annunzio e Montale, si trovano sul sito bibliografico dell’università’ di Roma “La Sapienza” http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/index.php. Ci sono altri siti web, ma quello qui prescelto è uno dei pochi che riprenda i testi da edizioni filologicamente corrette. Per D’Annunzio e Montale i testi saranno in PDF. Se disponibili, i presenti testi saranno messi in deposito presso la biblioteca:

Required Texts: Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana, diretto da V. Branca, Torino, UTET, 1987. PASCOLI, Giovanni. Poesie. Ed. Augusto Vicinelli. Milano: Mondadori, 1997.
---. Opere. Ed. Maurizio Perugi. Milano: Ricciardi, 1980
Poesie e prose scelte di Giovanni Pascoli, Ed. Cesare Garboli, 2 voll., Milano: Mondadori, 2002.
Contini, Gianfranco. “Il linguaggio di Pascoli.” Varianti e altra linguistica. Torino: Einaudi,1974 (RR).
Luzi, Mario. Giovanni Pascoli. Storia della letteratura italiana. Milano: Garzanti, Vol. VIII,
Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Passione e ideologia. Milano: Garzanti, 1960.
D’ANNUNZIO, Gabriele. Versi d’amore e di gloria. Eds. Luciano Anceschi et als. Milano:Mondadori, 1992, v. II.
---. Alcyone. Ed. Piero Gibellini. Milano: Mondadori, 1988.
Annamaria Andreoli. D’Annunzio. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1985.
Fulvio Senardi, Il punto su D'Annunzio, Laterza, 1989.
Per conoscere Montale. Antologia corredata da testi critici, a c. di M. Forti, Milano, Mondadori, coll. "Oscar" 1986, ristampa 1999;
P. V. MENGALDO, "L'opera in versi" di E. Montale, in Letteratura Italiana. Le Opere, IV, Torino, Einaudi, 1995, pp.625-668.

Summer 2011

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Theatrical Performance in the Last Three Decades of Italian Theater: The Actor's Body

The intent of this course is to study the last intensive thirty years of contemporary Italian theater, a period marked by research, new tendencies and new schools of thought regarding performance and theater itself. The course will have a creative point of view by presenting the material not only historically but focusing on the centrality of the actor. In this manner many poetic and theatrical languages will be studied from the inside, thus uniting theory and the personal experience of the instructor as interpreter and author. Following this approach the course is divided in five parts with specific themes that provide a range of interpretations of theatrical expression and thought over the last three decades.

Required Texts:
Claudio Meldolesi. La terza vita di Leo. Edizione: TITIVILLUS. 2010
Gerardo Guccini (a cura di) La bottega dei narratori. Edizione: Dino
Audino Edizioni. 2005
Stefano Casi (a cura di) Non io nei giorni felici. Edizione: TITIVILLUS, 2010.

Summer 2012

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Contemporary Italian Novel (1975-2000): Between History and Figurative Arts

The course will focus on a few novels written in the last quarter of the Twentieth century and it will explore the intersection of a historical and political discourse and reflections on the figurative arts. The course will argue that there is a strong correlation between the historical background presented in the novel and the presentation and discussion of the artistic works. Among the novels in question there are works by Paolo Volponi, Vincenzo Consolo, Erri De Luca, Antonio Tabucchi.

Required texts:
Vincenzo Consolo, Il sorriso dell’ignoto marinaio,
Vincenzo Consolo, Retablo,
Erri De Luca, Aceto, arcobaleno,
Antonio Tabucchi, Notturno indiano,
Antonio Tabucchi, Racconti, Milan: Feltrinelli, 2005 (selection) [or: Il gioco del rovescio, seconda edizione accresciuta, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1988]
Paolo Volponi, Il sipario ducale,

Summer 2010

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Teaching Italian: Issues and Practices of Communicative, Inter-related Language teaching (for DML candidates, advanced graduate students and teachers)

This course is meant to be a forum and a workshop where students will be able to develop and evaluate materials and activities for the first year of Italian language instruction, with a focus on the first semester. We will examine and create the following language course components:
* Lesson planning (instructional sequencing, task design and time management in the classroom).
* Vocabulary activities. Activities for grammatical structures. Listening, reading, writing and oral communication skills. Teaching with other media. Assessments.
* We will also briefly examine some fundamental theories in FL (foreign language) pedagogy.

Requirements: Students will be responsible for readings, discussions, and development of some lesson plans. As part of their professional development, students will visit two of the Italian language classes offered at Middlebury (2 hours), and will teach two classes in certain language courses (2 hours).

Required Text:
Brandl, Klaus. Communicative Language Teaching in Action. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.
Articles from selected books and other material will be made available online.

Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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Seminar in Italian Literature: Pietro Aretino

An introduction to the works and thought of one of the most important and controversial figures in Italian Renaissance literature: namely, Pietro Aretino. Aretino (the first vernacular writer to publish an erotic book in the Christian world and a volume of his own letters) wrote in all of the literary genres: short story, epic, familiar letters, the ascetic tale, lyric poetry and satire, comedy and tragedy.

Required Text: Material in electronic form to be available for students upon arrival at Middlebury.

Summer 2011

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New Technologies for Learning and Teaching IFL (for DML candidates, advanced graduate students, and teachers)

This course provides a balanced presentation of central issues in the theory and practice of Italian as Foreign Language teaching methodology and instructional technology. The class also assists students in developing critical skills for a meaningful integration of instructional technologies into their teaching/learning of Italian.

The course will present the overall perspective in the context of current practices involving the integration of latest technologies. After conducting a review of technology in learning and teaching foreign languages (theories of learning and key ideas for understanding e-learning), students will be guided to analyze the opportunities and constraints in using technology in the educational process. They will be also asked to select methodological approaches appropriate to the technologically-enhanced learning situation. An important component of the course will involve the active participation and collaboration of the students in group discussions (in-class and online), as well as practical in-class teaching demonstrations.

Required Text:
Pichiassi M. (2007). Apprendere l'italiano L2 nell'era digitale - Le nuove tecnologie nell'insegnamento e apprendimento dell'italiano per stranieri. Edizioni Guerra - Soleil. Serragiotto, G. (2009). Sillabo di riferimento per la formazione degli insegnanti di italiano a stranieri. Venezia Cafoscarina
- Balboni E., Margiotta U. (2012) Formare online i docenti di lingue e italiano L2. Utet

Summer 2012

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The Shoah in Italy: A Lexicon for Auschwitz: Primo Levi and Natalia Ginzburg

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

Summer 2008

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From Antonio Gramsci to Roberto Saviano: Italian Political Novels and Thought

This course will not only look at the political content of the books to be studied but it will also analyze the social context in which the works were written. Particular attention will be paid to the post-Fascist period. The novels will be studied in a historical context and emphasis will be put on how they reflect a certain understanding of society which is often at odds with the ruling classes. A close reading of the works will also allow for a better understanding of the social function of literature in contemporary society.

Required Text:
Romano Luperini, La scrittura e l’interpretazione, Edizione Rossa, Volume 6 - Modernità e Contemporaneità (Dal 1925 ai nostri giorni). Palumbo Editore.

Novels:
Cesare Pavese, La luna e i falò/. Torino Einaudi, any edition.
Leonardo Sciascia, /Il giorno della civetta. Adelphi, any edition.
P.P. Pasolini Una vita violenta, on line @ http://www.altrestorie.net/libri/Pasolini.Una%20Vita%20Violenta%20Pier.pdf
Roberto Saviano, Gomorra. Milano: Mondadori 2006.
Dacia Maraini, La ragazza di via Maqueda, Rizzoli, 2009.

Summer 2012

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The Italian Narrative of the last 20 years: Height and Decline of Postmodernism

This course provides an overview of the principal tendencies reflected in the Italian novel over the past twenty years, looking only at acclaimed writers from this period. The 90s saw the peak of postmodernism while the following decade was marked by the so-called return to reality and commitment. The course illustrates this shift through examples from the two phases of literary culture, highlighting women writers and the literature of migration in particular.

Required Texts:
Romano Luperini, La fine del postmoderno, Guida 2005.
Roberto Saviano, Gomorra, Mondadori 2006
Igiaba Scego, La mia casa è dove sono, Rizzoli 2010.
Amara Lakhous, Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a piazza Vittorio, E/O 2006.

Summer 2012

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The Major Italian Masterpieces Represented in Television and Film

In this course we will study the cinematic adaptation of some fundamental and very popular literary works written in Italy in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Excerpts from A. Manzoni, I promessi Sposi, Carlo Levi, Cristo s'è fermato ad Eboli, Primo Levi, La tregua, Elsa Morante, La storia, G. T. di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo will be read. The novel Pinocchio, the Story of a Puppet, will be read in its entirety. During the lessons these works will be exemplified from the literary point of view as well as from the audiovisual translation.

Required Texts:
A. Maddalena, Il Gattopardo di Luchino Visconti, Guerra Edizioni, 2004. (Collana del cinema italiano per stranieri).
C. Collodi, Le avventure di Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino. Giunti editore 2008.
La sfida della verità. Il cinema di Francesco Rosi, a cura di A.Tassone, G. Rizza, C. Tognolotti, Firenze, Aida Edizioni, 2005

Summer 2012

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The Cinematic World of Neorealism

This course provides an understanding of the history, philosophy, politics, artistic movements and civic renaissance of postwar Italian life. By discussing the most important films, essays, and controversies of the time, as well as the various styles of the major directors of this wonderful movement: Rossellini, Visconti, De Santis and De Sica, students will discover and learn about the fascinating cinematic changes that revolutionized the world of cinema.

Required Texts:
André Bazin. Che cos'è il cinema? Garzanti, 1986.
Lino Micciché. Il neorealismo cinematografico italiano. Venezia: Marsilio, 1975.
Antonio Vitti. Peppe De Santis secondo se stesso. Conferenze, conversazioni e sogni nel cassetto di uno scomodo regista di campagna. Metauro, 2006.
Rossellini Roberto. Il mio metodo. Scritti e interviste. Venezia: Marsilio, 2006.

Summer 2012

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Tarantismo in the Salento area of Southern Italy

This course reviews the ritual occurrence known as Tarantismo, both as a genuine collective phenomenon and as staged (including cinema) festivals.
The lessons discusses anthropological, medical, and ethno-musicological issues which have, over the centuries, dealt with this enigmatic phenomenon that contains pagan and Christian religions, ancient and modern medicine, forms of music therapies, and sexual and sociological behaviors typical not only of Salento's population, but also common, these studies have proven, to other Mediterranean cultures as well.

Required Texts:
Ernesto De Martino, La terra del rimorso: il Sud, tra religione e magia. Nuove edizioni tascabili - Il Saggiatore (Mondadori, 2004).

Summer 2012

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Italian Baroque in Turin, Rome, and Lecce: Architecture, Society, Art and History

This course will trace Italian baroque in the urbanistic and artistic developments of three unique Italian cities. Turin, Rome and Lecce. The course will offer close analyses of their rich cultural histories and students will examine the diversities of the fascinating Italian cultural patrimony. In addition, the course will study the Catholic Counterreformation, the order of the Jesuits, and the Conflicts between the Vatican and Martin Luther's Reformation; a situation which largely explains the baroque architecture, painting and sculpture, in contrast to the Protestant Iconoclasm.

Required Texts: A course-pack will be available at the bookstore

Summer 2011

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Summer 2011

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Sciascia, Camilleri and Consolo: A Study of Literary Sicilianita

The course is divided into two parts: the first section will introduce the concept of Sicilianità in literature understood as a common denominator of the literary production of Sicilian writers as presented by the critic S. Guglielmino, for whom Sicilian literature can be identified "in the presence of those data and those components that are considered close to the sensitivity and the specific way of being Sicilian". During the lectures we will discuss the common elements of Sicilian literature that have become a recognizable
literary canon for recurring themes such as realism, the Mafia, the disillusionment with the ideals of the Risorgimento, the issues related to the South, the l’Horror vacui and the haunting presence of death.

°The credit for this course can also be used for the M.A. in Mediterranean Studies

Required Texts: V. Consolo Di qua dal faro, Mondadori ,1999
L. Sciascia Il giorno della Civetta Einaiudi, 1961 (1° ed)
L. Sciascia Il Contesto, Einaudi, 19711
Camilleri. Voi non sapete, Mondadori, 2007
Camilleri. L’odore della notte, Sellerio, 2010 e Selllerio,2001
Artticoli: L.Sciascia “I professionisti dell’antimafia” , “Corriere della sera” , gennaio 1987
Francesco Zucconi, "Tra inchiesta e diagnosi del discorso politico. L'Affaire Moro di Leonardo Sciascia", in E/C, 29 marzo 2010.
Gli altri articoli su Consolo e Camilleri saranno forniti da me agli studenti.

Summer 2011

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Written, Spoken, Broadcasted Contemporary Italian

This course will study written, spoken and broadcasted contemporary Italian. Lessons will focus on various linguistic registers: youth jargon, email, chat, literary language and language used in films. The goal of this course is also to investigate whether the changes brought by the high-speed world of electronic communication and television have caused a linguistic degradation or have expanded the use and created more speakers of the contemporary Italian language.

Required Text:
G. Antonelli, L’italiano nella società della comunicazione, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2007

Summer 2012

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Italo Calvino’s fiction: from Neorealism to Postmodernism

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.

Summer 2008

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This course will focus on Ariosto’s Furioso (1532), Tasso’s Liberata (1581-1584) and Tassoni’s Secchia rapita (1630), which we will read in light of the most up-to-date criticism and in the context of the main Renaissance theories on epic. Throughout the course, we will address the question of what constitutes the ‘heroic’ and ‘mock-heroic’ on the stylistic and anthropological level. The seminar style of the course will require the constant and informed participation of all. Students will give one or more presentations and write three short papers. The course will be conducted in Italian.

Texts: L. Ariosto, Orlando furioso; T. Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata. The Secchia rapita and all secondary readings will be available in a reader.
(1 Unit)

Summer 2010

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The Invention of a New Aesthetic: Petrarch and Petrarchism

The aim of the course is to analyze the poet logical, philosophical and theological traits of Petrarch’s poetry making, and to explore why it was codified in the form of an aesthetic ideology during the Renaissance. The focus of the course will be Petrarch’s Canzoniere, but we will also read the Renaissance interlocutors such as Pietro Bembo, Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna, Gaspara Stampa, Giovanni della Casa and others.

Required texts:

-Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere. A cura di Marco Santagata. (Milano :Mondadori, 2004) ISBN 88-04-52376-X

-Lirici del Cinquecento. A cura di Luigi Baldacci. (Milano: Lampi di Stampa, 1999) ISBN 88-304-0282-6

Summer 2009

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Chivalric and Epic Poetry in XVI century Italy: Ariosto and Tasso

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.

Summer 2008

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Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2011, Summer 2012

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