Courses may be given either in Italian or in English.

GENERAL

Screen Memories: Novel into Film
G59.1881  Ben-Ghiat. 4 points.
Examines the transformation of literary narrative into cinematic discourse. Films by Visconti, Bertolucci, Pasolini, De Sica, and Scola; literary texts by D’Annunzio, Lampedusa, Verga, Moravia, Boccaccio, Bassani, Tarchetti, and others.

Studies in Italian Culture
G59.1981  Variable content course. Staff. 4 points.
Recent topics: literature and the history of science (Freccero and Ardizzone); women’s writing and religious crisis in early modern Europe and the Americas (Tylus); Italian colonialism (Ben-Ghiat).

Topics in Italian American Culture
G59.2165  Variable content course. Taught every other year by the Tiro a Segno Visiting Professor of Italian American Culture. 4 points.
Topics range from sociology of immigration to anthropology of ethnic
identity, and from Italian American fiction to the contribution of Italian Americans to the visual and performing arts.

Introduction to the History and Methods of Textual Criticism and Interpretation: Memory, Autobiography, and the Self
G59.2185  Staff. 4 points.
Delving into the history, theory, and practice of autobiography from Petrarch and Cellini to Casanova and Aleramo, the course addresses such issues as the making of the self and of the national identity.

Topics in Italian Literature
G59.2192  Variable content course. Staff. 4 points.
Recent topics: pastoral and peasants in Italian culture (Tylus); gender and writing in Renaissance Italy (Cox); love and magic, words and images in Orlando Furioso and 16th-century culture (Bolzoni).

Guided Individual Reading
G59.2891  Staff. 4 points.

Literary Theory
G59.3080  Variable content course. Staff. 4 points.

MEDIEVAL/EARLY MODERN

Divina Commedia I, II
G59.2311, 2312  Ardizzone, Freccero. 4 points per term.

Dante and Medieval Thought
G59.2314  Ardizzone. 4 points.
Dante’s minor works and, in particular, Vita Nova, Convivio, and De vulgari eloquentia, read in light of the philosophical-theological debate of the time. Focus is on intellectual history, medieval theory of knowledge, intelligence, and speculation from the Pseudo-Dyonisius to Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure.

Guido Cavalcanti: The Other Middle Ages
G59.2318  Ardizzone. 4 points.
Explores a range of medieval interdisciplinary topics that are not grounded in theology and rereads Cavalcanti’s poetry as emblematic of the “other Middle Ages” and its scientific-philosophical context. Focus is on the intellectual debate in Europe and, in particular, in Bologna; poetry, rhetoric, and medieval natural philosophy; optics; medicine; ethics and logic.

Petrarch and Petrarchism
G59.2322  Cox. 4 points.
An in-depth look at the lyric poetry of Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) and its influence within Italian literary culture in the 15th and 16th centuries. The thematic focuses of the course include gender, the relation between poetry and the visual arts, and the impact of printing on patterns of literary production and consumption.

Monasticism: Asceticism and Writing
G59.2324  Ardizzone. 4 points.
Inquiry into Western monasticism and into the practices of asceticism. From the Fathers of the Desert to the life in the convents. Readings from St. Francis and Italian religious literature of the 13th and 14th centuries. Mysticism and the mystic experience of women such as Umiliana de’ Cerchi, Angela da Foligno, and Margherita da Cortona.

Boccaccio
G59.2331  Ardizzone. 4 points.
Critical reading of the Decameron, with references to Boccaccio’s minor works and his narrative poetry. Boccaccio’s cultural background as well as the new society and the new model of culture he activated are emphasized.

Studies in Medieval Culture
G59.2389  Variable content course. Staff. 4 points.
Recent topics: bodies, passion, and knowledge (Ardizzone); Stilnovisti: poetry and intellectual history (Ardizzone).

Tasso and the Invention of Modernity
G59.2571  Tylus. 4 points.
Reading of Gerusalemme Liberata as a text connecting the Renaissance and modernity, with discussion of the historical, ethical, and cultural background of the Counter-Reformation.

The Arts of Eloquence in Medieval and Early Modern Italy
G59.2588  Cox. 4 points.
Recent scholarship in medieval and early modern culture has increasingly stressed the centrality of the study of rhetoric in these periods and the range of its influence, not simply on literature but on everything from art, music, and architecture to political thought. This course serves as an introduction to medieval and early modern rhetoric in Italy, conceived of broadly as a global art of persuasive discourse, spanning both verbal and nonverbal uses.

Studies in Renaissance Literature
G59.2589  Variable content course. Cox, Tylus. 4 points.

The Courtesan in Early Modern Italian Society and Culture
G59.2590  Cox. 4 points.
Examines the figure of the so-called cortigiana onesta within 16th- to 17th-century Italian culture, with a particular focus on the role courtesans played within the literary culture of the period, both as authors and as the subject of literary works. Also pays some attention to representations of courtesans within the visual arts and to their role within the musical culture of the time and in the early history of Italian theatre.

Studies in Early Modern Literature
G59.2689  Variable content course. Cox, Tylus. 4points.

Vico
G59.2731  Staff. 4 points.
Vico as a landmark in the formation of modern literary and aesthetic theory, between ancient rhetoric, classical poetics, and the romantic orientations.

19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

Neorealism
G59.1980  Ben-Ghiat. 4 points.
Examines the neorealist movement in literature and cinema that swept Italian culture after World War II. Emphasis is on the varieties of neorealist styles, the movement’s role in projects for the revival of Italian national culture, and its relation to other cultural forms and traditions in Italy and abroad.

Italian Fascism
G59.1982  Ben-Ghiat. 4 points.
Interdisciplinary study of the politics, culture, and social policies of the Italian dictatorship from the 1922 March on Rome through World War II. Secondary source readings are supplemented with films and texts from the period (speeches, novels, the fascist press). Topics covered include the relationship of fascism and modernity, resistance and collusion, racism and colonialism, fascist masculinity and femininity, and the project of refashioning Italians.

Leopardi
G59.2821  Staff. 4 points.
Reading of the Canti and their relationship to contemporary romanticism as theory and practice.

Manzoni
G59.2841  Staff. 4 points.
The Promessi Sposi as the major Italian novel and its place in the author’s career, the romantic movement, and the later development of Italian
literature.

Italy During World War II: Resistance, Collaboration, and the Problem of Memory
G59.2882  Ben-Ghiat. 4 points.
Looks at Italy from 1940 to 1945, with a focus on cultural, political, and psychological responses to the dramatic events that marked the country during World War II. Films, novels, and reportage by authors such as Vittorini, Malaparte, Calvino, and Rossellini are featured.

Studies in 19th-Century Literature
G59.2889  Staff. Variable content course. 4 points.

Italian Colonialism
G59.2972  Ben-Ghiat. 4 points.
Explores Italian colonialism from the late 19th century through decolonization. Through readings of colonial travel literature, novels, films, diaries, memoirs, and other texts, students address the meaning of colonialism within Italian history and culture, the specificities of the Italian colonial case within broader trends of European imperialism, and the legacies of colonialism in contemporary Italy.

Pirandello and Contemporary Italian Theatre (Up to World War II)
G59.2981  Staff. 4 points.
Pirandello’s plays and essays as a key to understanding the avant-garde and the crisis of modernity. Futurist and “grotesque” drama. Theories of contemporary theatre.

Decadent Italy 1860-1930
G59.2982  Staff. 4 points.
Readings in turn-of-the-19th-century Italian fiction and nonfictional prose, with emphasis on the theory of fictional genres and recurrent themes in the modern novel; Verga, Svevo, D’Annunzio, Pirandello, and Tozzi.

The Postmodern Canon
G59.2983  Staff. 4 points.
Italian fiction from the seventies to the present. From Calvino, Volponi, and Pasolini to Tondelli and Tabucchi.

20th-Century Italian Poetry
G59.2984  Ardizzone. 4 points.
Reading and analysis of major poetic texts of the century until contemporary poetry. Principal authors: D’Annunzio, Pascoli, Luzi, Montale, Saba, Sereni, Zanzotto. Focus is on movements such as symbolism, decadentism, ermetism, as well as the discourse of the avant-garde.

Studies in 20th-Century Literature
G59.2989  Variable content course. Staff. 4 points.

Futurism
G59.2991  Ben-Ghiat. 4 points.
Examines the poetics and politics of the futurist movement with special attention to the works of F. T. Marinetti and the movement’s female writers.

Up to Speed: New Italian Fiction and Film
G59.2999  Staff. 4 points.
The transformation of Italian society, culture, and identity through the narratives of the best young novelists and directors of today.

 Back to Top