Italian Catalog

Italian (ITAL)

ITAL 102. Elementary Italian II. 3 Credits.

Continues study of essential elements of Italian structures, vocabulary, and aspects of Italian culture. Aural comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing are stressed in that order. Students may not receive credit for both ITAL 102 and ITAL 401.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 101.
Gen Ed: FL.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 130. Dante’s Divine Comedy. 3 Credits.

Dante wrote his three-part vision of the afterlife amidst the socio-political upheaval of 1300 Florence. At once an homage to ancient authors, a scathing tabloid of contemporary Italy, a sublime love story, a hallucinatory dream-vision, and an encyclopedia of theological and scientific knowledge, the Comedy invites many kinds of interpretation. Students will engage with Dante’s poem, medieval culture, and the manuscript tradition in analytic and creative ways.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 203. Intermediate Italian I. 3 Credits.

Develops language skills for communication. Reviews and expands grammar of elementary Italian with increasing emphasis on reading and writing in the context of Italian culture. Students may not receive credit for both ITAL 203 and ITAL 402.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 102 or 401.
Gen Ed: FL.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 204. Intermediate Italian II. 3 Credits.

Continued development of language skills for oral and written communication through reading and discussion of literature and expository texts. Further study of grammar. Students may not receive credit for both ITAL 204 and ITAL 402.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 203.
Gen Ed: FL.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 241. The Renaissance Mind and Body. 3 Credits.

An introduction to Renaissance Studies via a selection of texts and images from the period. Emphasis is placed on interdisciplinary connections – between fiction, visual art, natural science, philosophy, technology – and on new directions in the field including its global turn.
Gen Ed: LA, WB.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 242. Italy and Modernity: Culture in a Changing Country. 3 Credits.

A study of modern Italy, with special attention to literature, culture, and socio-environmental transformations. Examined authors include 20th-century writers, artists, thinkers, filmmakers, environmentalists, and critics. In English.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 250. Italian Fascism: Between History, Fiction, and Film. 3 Credits.

An introduction to Italian fascism through history, literature, and film. A look at different forms of culture under fascism and how fascist culture has been remembered after its fall.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 258. Modern Italy since 1848. 3 Credits.

This course focuses on the history of modern Italy and examines changes in political, social, economic structures. Students will engage in the search for an “Italian identity.” Topics will include unification, World War I and II, Italian fascism, the postwar Italian Republic, the Mafia, terrorism, popular culture, and Silvio Berlusconi.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade
Same as: HIST 258.

ITAL 300. Communicating in Italian: Media, Culture, and Society. 3 Credits.

Intensive grammar review and fluency-building activities in the context of reading and discussion of major debates of Italian history, society, and culture. In Italian.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 308. LAC Recitation. 1 Credit.

Coregistration in a specified LAC course required. A recitation section for selected courses that promote the use of foreign language proficiency across the curriculum (LAC). May not count toward the major or minor in Italian.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 203; Permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 4 total credits. 4 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 310. Italian Conversation. 3 Credits.

Designed to expand speaking skills through vocabulary building, discussion of selected texts, and activities that produce conversation. Ongoing development of writing skills.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Gen Ed: CI.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 320. Italian Cities and Cultures: History, Power, and Ecology. 3 Credits.

Italy’s urban landscape has played a role in the shaping of the very idea of the city throughout the centuries. However, a critical approach is imperative, an approach that takes into account how institutionalized power mechanisms have led to vast inequalities in access to the resources (economic, cultural, ecological) of urban centers and peripheries and thus contested versions of who has the right to the city.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 330. Italian History and Culture I. 3 Credits.

A multidisciplinary examination of Italian Civilization from its beginnings in antiquity until the rise of the modern nation-state. Areas examined include history, art history, music and literature. In Italian.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, WB.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 331. Italian History and Culture II. 3 Credits.

A multidisciplinary examination of Italian society and culture from its national unification until the present. The course will cover many cultural and political themes by examining texts from various media: film, literature, music, television, journalism, and architecture. In Italian.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 333. Italian Film and Culture. 3 Credits.

Analysis of films from World War II to the present. Lectures and discussion in English. Films in Italian with English subtitles. Readings in Italian for majors, in translation for nonmajors.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 335. Themes in Italian Film. 3 Credits.

Themes in Italian cinema: literary adaptation, neorealism, a single auteur or period, representations of fascism, the city, the country, industrialization, social space, north/south difference, regionalism, gender, and sexuality.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 337. Cinema for Italian Conversation. 3 Credits.

Expansion of speaking, writing, vocabulary, and grammar in Italian through the study of a variety of films. Topics relating to global issues, transnational connections between different countries, and diversity in Italy will be explored.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 300.
Gen Ed: VP, CI.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 340. Italian America. 3 Credits.

Studies in Italo-American encounters and relationships. Different iterations of the course may focus on different historical periods, from early modern to post-war and contemporary, and different media including fiction, travelogues, film, visual art, and non-fiction.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 343. Italian Culture Today: Modern Italy as a Nation 1860 to Present. 3 Credits.

Provides an overview of modern Italian history from unification through the present, exploring institutions of politics, culture, family, religion, and media, and addressing themes of multiculturalism, racism, gender, and populism among many others. By learning how historical events, symbols, ideologies and narratives overlay contemporary debates over the proper relationship between state and society, students learn to question their assumptions about such relationships in their own country as well.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 345. Italian Women Writers. 3 Credits.

Introduces students to Italian women writers whose works explore how historical realities such as fascism, resistance, migration, immigration, and changing institutions of work and family have affected women.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 346. Gender, Sexuality, and Representation in Early Modern Italy and Europe. 3 Credits.

Examines ideals and practices around gender and sex from the Renaissance to the Counterreformation. Re-evaluates the historiography of early modern culture and asks students to think critically about literary and artistic canon-formation through the lens of gender studies.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: LA, WB.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 357. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in English. 3 Credits.

Introduces students to the world of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, situated within the context of medieval and early modern Europe.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 359. Medieval Frauds: Fake News, Counterfeits, and Forgeries. 3 Credits.

This course examines medieval Italians’ preoccupation with fraud through literary and historical texts: its philosophical definition and taxonomy, its perceived threat to moral and social order, the hermeneutics of fraud detection, and strategies for bearing the burden of proof.
Gen Ed: PH, WB.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 365. Italian Food and Culture. 3 Credits.

Examines the historical relationships between food and culture in Italian society.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 382. The Italian Novel. 3 Credits.

Studies in the Italian romanzo. Different iterations of the course take up different approaches – historical, theoretical, comparative, environmental – and core texts.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: LA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 385. Italian Landscapes: Italy in the UNESCO World Heritage List. 3 Credits.

This course examines Italian landscapes in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list by undertaking an eco-cultural exploration across places, literature, and film. In English and open to students of all programs.
Gen Ed: NA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 388. Environmental Issues in Italian Literature and Film. 3 Credits.

This course examines how Italian literature and film convey relevant insights about ecological crises and planetary communities, contributing to shaping environmental imagination. Repeatable for credit. In Italian.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or permission from instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 395. Research for Advanced Students. 1-3 Credits.

Required preparation, two major-level courses or permission of the instructor. A tutorial for advanced students in Italian on a topic agreed upon by the student and a member of the faculty.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 300.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 9 total credits. 3 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 396. Independent Study in Italian Literature. 3 Credits.

Independent study on a selected topic in Italian literature and culture agreed upon by the student and a member of the faculty.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 398. Undergraduate Seminar in Italian. 3 Credits.

A seminar on a previously announced subject.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 9 total credits. 3 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 401. Beginning Accelerated Italian. 3 Credits.

Covers levels one and two of the basic language sequence in one semester. Designed for highly motivated undergraduate/graduate language learners, especially those who have experienced success with learning another language. Intensive approach to developing all skills but with an emphasis on speaking. Students may not receive credit for both ITAL 401 and ITAL 101 or 102.
Gen Ed: FL.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 402. Intermediate Accelerated Italian. 3 Credits.

A continuation of ITAL 401, covers levels three and four in one semester. Develops all skills, with increasing emphasis on reading, writing, and cultural analysis. Designed for highly motivated undergraduate/graduate language learners, especially those who have experienced success with learning another language. Prepares students for advanced courses. Students may not receive credit for both ITAL 402 and ITAL 203 or ITAL 204.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 102 or 401.
Gen Ed: FL.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 526. History of the Italian Language. 3 Credits.

Studies in the evolution of the Italian language between its Latin origins and present debates around language pedagogy and English hegemony. Topics may include medieval and humanist language theory; grammar books and the codification of literary Tuscan in the sixteenth century; academies and dictionaries; philology in practice and in theory, world philology; nationalism, Italy’s post-WWII linguistic standardization, and globalization.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402; permission of the instructor.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 691H. Honors Thesis. 3 Credits.

Required of students reading for honors. Preparation of an essay under direction of a member of the faculty. Topics to be approved by thesis director in consultation with honors advisor.
Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 692H. Honors Thesis in Italian. 3 Credits.

Restricted to senior honors candidates. Second semester of senior honors thesis. Thesis preparation under the direction of a departmental faculty member.
Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 706. Proseminar. 3 Credits.

An introduction to modern Italian criticism and to current methods of research and scholarship. Bibliographic survey of basic tools and secondary literature. Guidance in preparation of papers, theses, and dissertations. Staff.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 731. Infernal Vernaculars. 3 Credits.

An exploration of the literary, visual, and religious representations of Hell shaping late medieval Italian culture, culminating in a close reading of Dante’s Inferno as a lucid indictment of the political hellscape. Additional consideration of Dante’s evolving poetic response to political fragmentation from the De vulgari eloquentia to the Comedy. Permission of the instructor for undergraduates.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 732. Between Heaven and Earth: Dante’s Poiesis. 3 Credits.

Focusing on Dante’s lyric poetry, Vita nova, and Purgatorio, this course tracks various issues related to the generation of poetry in Dante’s works and in medieval culture. Topics include medieval psychology, dream theory, conversion, inspiration, devotion, and eros, in addition to manuscript culture, authorship, tradition, and canonicity. Permission of the instructor for undergraduates.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 734. Petrarch’s Many Tongues. 3 Credits.

Petrarch’s vernacular lyric has famously been called “monolinguistic” for its unity of style and lexicon, yet his Latin works show surprising aesthetic experimentation in mordant satire and classically-inspired invective. This course examines works in both tongues as essential to his authorial persona. Based on the wealth of manuscript evidence documenting Petrarch’s reading and writing processes, we will observe and analyze his literary self-fashioning.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 735. Boccaccio Between the Lines. 3 Credits.

A reading of Boccaccio’s Decameron and minor works in their cultural contexts. Topics of extended focus may include civic values, representations of gender, positive and natural law, pandemic, hygiene and sanitation; narrative structure, epistemology, authorship, translation and censorship, manuscript culture, genre theory, and the Decameron’s afterlife in the age of Covid-19.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 741. Studies in Humanism and the Fifteenth Century. 3 Credits.

A topics course exploring humanism as an international intellectual and social revolution and offering some of its core readings from among the Italian humanists of the fifteenth century. Different iterations of the course take up different thematic coordinates, approaches and core texts.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 751. Studies in Renaissance Literature and the Sixteenth Century. 3 Credits.

A topics course with core readings from among the genres popular in sixteenth-century Europe: lyric, romance, dialogue, pastoral, treatise. Cultural studies topics may include the rise of print culture; the ‘Italian’ wars; debates around gender, language, and the peninsula’s small states; classicism vs. innovation; proto-nationalism, cosmopolitanism, ethnography; religious conflict; visual and material culture; non-human animals and ecocritical perspectives.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 771. The 17th and 18th Centuries. 3 Credits.

The Age of the Baroque, Campanella, the new genres, Tassoni. The literature of Arcadia, the Enlightenment, Goldoni, Parini, and Alfieri.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 781. Italian Romanticism. 3 Credits.

Preromanticism; Alfieri; the lyrics and novels of Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni; the romantic drama from Pindemonte to Niccolini.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 782. Italian Literature and Literary Landscapes in the Second Half of the 19th Century. 3 Credits.

This course explores the major literary expressions of the second half of the 19th century and their conversations with their landscapes. Authors and movements include Verismo and Verga, Grazia Deledda, Pascoli, Scapigliatura, and Decadentismo.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 784. Italian Avant-Gardes and Neo-Avant-Gardes 20th Century. 3 Credits.

Examines the critical issues raised by the Italian avant-gardes and neo-avant-gardes of the 20th century.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 795. Modern Italian Fiction in Critical Conversations. 3 Credits.

This course explores the works of major modern writers (Luigi Pirandello, Italo Svevo, Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cesare Pavese, Anna Maria Ortese, Elsa Morante, Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg etc.) in conversation with contemporary literary theories and in a comparative perspective.
Requisites: Prerequisite, ITAL 204 or 402.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 796. History, Environment & Society in Modern Italian Drama. 3 Credits.

This course explores the works of major 20th and 21st century playwrights (Pirandello, Eduardo de Filippo, Dario Fo, Franca Rame, Marco Paolini, Ascanio Celestini etc.) in their conversation with social issues, historical changes, political phenomena, and environmental emergencies.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 830. Seminar. 3 Credits.

Special study and research in set topics, with particular emphasis on theory and comparative perspectives. Subjects include specific genres (e.g. autobiography, the social novel, postmodern fiction, etc.), current debates (new Italian epic, Italian Theory, etc.), and the “new humanities” (environmental humanities and ecocriticism, medical and legal humanities, energy humanities, humanism and posthumanism, history of the humanities, etc.)
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 9 total credits. 3 total completions.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 840. Special Readings. 1-15 Credits.

A tutorial on a topic agreed upon by the student and a member of the graduate faculty.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ITAL 992. Master’s (Non-Thesis). 3 Credits.

ITAL 993. Master’s Research and Thesis. 3 Credits.

Research in a special field under the direction of a member of the graduate faculty.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.