Note: Placement in Italian language courses is explained under “Placement Examinations” in the Academic Policies section of this bulletin.

Fulfillment of the Morse Academic Plan (MAP) language requirement: The language requirement in Italian may be fulfilled either by two 6-point intensive courses (ITAL-UA 10 and ITAL-UA 20) for a total of 12 points, or by the extensive sequence of four 4-point courses (ITAL-UA 1, ITAL-UA 2, ITAL-UA 11, and ITAL-UA 12) for a total of 16 points. A student may follow a plan of study combining two 4-point courses with one 6-point course (ITAL-UA 1, ITAL-UA 2, and ITAL-UA 20; ITAL-UA 10 and ITAL-UA 11, ITAL-UA 12) for a total of 14 points. All students planning to study in Italy or continue their study of Italian beyond the MAP requirements are strongly advised to take ITAL-UA 10 and ITAL-UA 20, since this permits completion of the language requirement in two semesters.

INTRODUCTORY LANGUAGE COURSES

INTENSIVE SEQUENCE

Intensive Elementary Italian
ITAL-UA 10  Open to students with no previous training in Italian and to others on assignment by placement test. Completes the equivalent of Elementary Italian I and II in one semester. Offered every semester. 6 points.

Intensive Intermediate Italian
ITAL-UA 20  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 10, or ITAL-UA 1, 2, or assignment by placement test. Completes the equivalent of Intermediate Italian I and II in one semester. Offered every semester. 6 points.

EXTENSIVE SEQUENCE

Elementary Italian I
ITAL-UA 1  Open to students with no previous training in Italian and to others on assignment by placement test. Not equivalent to ITAL-UA 10. Only by combining ITAL-UA 1 with ITAL-UA 2 can a student complete the equivalent of ITAL-UA 10 and then continue on to the intermediate level. Offered every semester. 4 points.

Elementary Italian II
ITAL-UA 2  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 1 or assignment by placement test. Continuation of ITAL-UA 1. To continue on to the intermediate level, a student must complete both ITAL-UA 1 and ITAL-UA 2. This sequence is equivalent to ITAL-UA 10. Offered every semester. 4 points.

Intermediate Italian I
ITAL-UA 11  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 1, 2, or ITAL-UA 10, or assignment by placement test. Not equivalent to ITAL-UA 20. Only by combining ITAL-UA 11 with ITAL-UA 12 can a student complete the equivalent of ITAL-UA 20 and then continue on to the postintermediate level. Offered every semester. 4 points.

Intermediate Italian II
ITAL-UA 12  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 11 or assignment by placement test. Fulfills MAP language requirement. Continuation of ITAL-UA 11. To fulfill MAP requirements and continue on to the postintermediate level, a student must complete both ITAL-UA 11 and ITAL-UA 12. This sequence is equivalent to ITAL-UA 20. Offered every semester. 4 points.

ADVANCED LANGUAGE COURSES

Advanced Review of Modern Italian
ITAL-UA 30  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 12 or ITAL-UA 20, or permission of the instructor. This course is a prerequisite for other advanced courses in language, literature, and culture and society. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Systematizes and reinforces the language skills presented in earlier-level courses through an intensive review of grammar and composition, lexical enrichment, improvement of speaking ability, and selected readings from contemporary Italian literature.

Conversations in Italian
ITAL-UA 101  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 30 or permission of the instructor. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Students entering this course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. Designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in speaking present-day Italian. Through discussions, oral reports, and readings, students improve pronunciation, become familiar with idiomatic expressions, and develop vocabulary that allows them to communicate with others on topics such as family and student life, politics, the arts, food, and fashion. Useful for students who are planning to study or travel abroad.

Creative Writing in Italian
ITAL-UA 103  Formerly Rewriting Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 30 or permission of the instructor. Offered every semester. 4 points.
A creative approach to writing in Italian that emphasizes transformations of texts. Students are encouraged to rewrite, parody, and shift genres, with the aim of improving their writing and reading techniques.

Advanced Composition
ITAL-UA 105  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 30 or permission of the instructor. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Aims to improve the student’s written Italian and reading comprehension of difficult texts. The approach is threefold: (1) intensive study of the syntactical structures of Italian; (2) reading and analysis of contemporary texts from various sources, such as newspapers, magazines, and literary works; and (3) frequent writing of short compositions stressing grammatical and syntactical accuracy, as well as variety of vocabulary.

Italian Through Cinema
ITAL-UA 107  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 30 or permission of the instructor. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Students entering this course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. Aims to enrich knowledge of Italian language, culture, and society through screening and discussion of contemporary Italian cinema and detailed analysis of selected film scripts. Students are encouraged to use different idiomatic expressions and recognize regional linguistic variety. Special emphasis is placed on developing a more extensive vocabulary and an expressive range suited to discussion of complex issues and their representation.

Translation
ITAL-UA 110  Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 30 and one of the following: ITAL-UA 101, ITAL-UA 103, ITAL-UA 105, and ITAL-UA 107. Offered every spring. 4 points.
This course introduces students to the theory and practice of translation. While engaging in the craft of translation firsthand, students gain a deeper understanding of the Italian language through the study of contemporary texts, such as Italian novels and short stories. The course also stresses the acquisition of vocabulary and complex idiomatic structures necessary for effective reading comprehension, as well as written expression. A special emphasis is on the analysis of dialogue, style, and linguistic choices of each author, in order to explore the development of the written language, slang, regional expressions, and linguistic differences that have accompanied and defined the evolution of Italian over the past 20 years.

INTRODUCTORY COURSES

The prerequisite for the following courses is ITAL-UA 30 when the course is conducted in Italian, or permission of the instructor.

Readings in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
ITAL-UA 115  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 30 or permission of the instructor. Identical to MEDI-UA 115. Offered in the fall. 4 points.
Introductory-level literature course that, through a close reading of authors such as Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, and Ariosto, focuses on how to understand a literary text in Italian. Covers Italian literature from its origins to the 17th century.

Readings in Modern Italian Literature
ITAL-UA 116  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 30 or permission of the instructor. Offered in the spring. 4 points.
Introductory-level literature course that, through a close reading of authors such as Alfieri, Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni, Verga, D’Annunzio, Moravia, and Calvino, focuses on how to understand a literary text in Italian. Covers Italian literature from the 17th century to the contemporary period.

Introduction to the Middle Ages
ITAL-UA 117  Ardizzone. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Literature and culture of the Middle Ages with a focus on the 13th and 14th centuries. Francis of Assisi, Laudi, the Sicilian poets, the “Stil Novo,” and Dante’s minor works are examined, as well as Boccaccio’s Decameron and Petrarch’s Rime. Works are considered in relation to feudal society, the Church, the communes, and other medieval political structures.

ADVANCED LITERATURE COURSES

The prerequisite for the following courses is ITAL-UA 30 when the course is conducted in Italian, or permission of the instructor.

Dante’s Divine Comedy
ITAL-UA 270  Identical to MEDI-UA 270 when taught in English. Ardizzone, Freccero. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Students study the Divine Comedy both as a mirror of high medieval culture and as a unique text that breaks out of its cultural bounds. The entire poem is read, in addition to selections from the Vita Nuova and other complementary minor works.

Boccaccio’s Decameron
ITAL-UA 271  Identical to MEDI-UA 271 when taught in English. Ardizzone. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
A study of Boccaccio’s Decameron with particular emphasis on themes, conceptual innovations, and influences on French and English literatures.

Petrarch and Petrarchism
ITAL-UA 872  Formerly Italian Lyric Poetry. Cox. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Examines love poetry of Petrarch, one of the most influential lyric poets of all time and a key figure in Renaissance thought. Also traces Petrarch’s influence on later Italian Renaissance poetry, focusing on the 16th century. Poets to be studied include women writers such as Vittoria Colonna and Gaspara Stampa and artists such as Michelangelo and Bronzino.

Court Culture in Renaissance Italy
ITAL-UA 311  Cox. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Offers the opportunity to study Italian Renaissance art and literature within its social and political contexts, focusing especially on the princely courts of northern Italy, which were among the most dynamic and innovative centers of cultural production in Europe in this period. Secondary source assignments are supplemented with a study of 16th-century literary texts and artworks.

Women’s Writing in the Italian Renaissance
ITAL-UA 162  Identical to SCA-UA 163. Cox. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
A study of the remarkable tradition of published writings by women that developed in Italy between the 15th and 17th centuries. Offers an opportunity to look in detail at the works of well-known writers such as Vittoria Colonna, Gaspara Stampa, and Veronica Franco and lesser-known figures such as Moderata Fonte and Maddalena Campiglia. We address the reasons for the emergence of this tradition of writing by women and the dynamics of its relationship with contemporary male literary culture.

Love and War in Renaissance Italy: Chivalric Romance and Epic
ITAL-UA 145  Cox. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Offers the opportunity to study two of the greatest works of Italian literature, Lodovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1532) and Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581). Looks at these poems in their historical context and in relation to the rich literary traditions of romance and epic that converge in them. Thematic focuses include the construction of gender and the representation of religious and racial “otherness.”

Topics in Renaissance Literature
ITAL-UA 760  Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Variable content course taught by regular or visiting faculty. For specific course content, see current bulletin listing.

Gender and Performance in the Italian Theatre
ITAL-UA 720  Identical to DRLIT-UA 720. Tylus. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Examines plays that explicitly highlight and question the status and performance of gender, as well as selections from political treatises, books of manners, and historiography of the early modern period (1350 to 1700). Topics such as cross-dressing, the emergence of the actress and commedia dell’arte troupes, the dynamics of spectatorship, the development of perspective in painting and theatre, and court power relations are considered, as well the “revisions” that women playwrights and writers made to a largely male-dominated canon.

Decadent Italy
ITAL-UA 273  Formerly The Romantics. Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Focuses on the thriving cultural life of the years from Italy’s 1870 unification to the rise of fascism in 1919. Explores the ascent of movements such as scapigliatura, naturalism, decadentism, and futurism. Social, political, and artistic ideas of the period are studied through the works of writers such as Verga, Pascoli, D’Annunzio, Marinetti, and Svevo.

20th-Century Italian Poetry
ITAL-UA 272  Ardizzone. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Covers the major Italian poets and poetic movements of the 20th century. Works by Ungaretti, Quasimodo, D’Annunzio, Luzi, Zanzotto, and the Lombard school are examined.

Pirandello and the Contemporary Theatre
ITAL-UA 274  Identical to DRLIT-UA 280 when taught in English. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
An introduction to Luigi Pirandello’s major plays as they relate to the foundation of contemporary theatre. Attention is also paid to grotesque and futurist drama. Works studied include Sei personaggio in cerca d’autore, Cosi è (se vi pare), and Enrico IV.

Modern and Contemporary Century Italian Narrative
ITAL-UA 275  Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Follows the development of Italian narrative from Manzoni and Verga to present-day trends in Italian prose. Emphasizes works of Tabucchi, Maraini, Pasolini, Morante, and Calvino.

Novel and Society
ITAL-UA 277  Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Covers the development of the Italian novel in the context of larger social, political, and cultural developments in Italian society. Particular attention is paid to the relations between narrative and shifts in national identity following the 1870 unification of Italy and at important historical moments of the 20th century. Texts include works by Manzoni, Verga, D’Annunzio, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Vittorini, Moravia, and Volponi.

Women Writers in Contemporary Italy
ITAL-UA 278  Formerly The Italian Woman. Identical to SCA-UA 826. Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Covers novels written by 20th-century Italian women writers. Attention is paid to concepts of gender, history, self, and the differing narrative strategies chosen to portray Italian society and women’s places within it. Texts include works by Banti, Maraini, Corti, Morante, Ginzburg, Bellonci, and Aleramo.

Italian Autobiographies
ITAL-UA 279  Identical to EURO-UA 276. Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Examines strategies of self-representation in autobiographies, diaries, letters, and novels of selected authors. Readings include selections from Petrarch, Cellini, Goldoni, Casanova, Alfieri, Pellico, Sciascia, Aleramo, Viganò, and others.

Postmodern Italian Fiction
ITAL-UA 276  Formerly Calvino and Postmodernism. Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Follows the development of the Italian novel from the 1970s to the present day. Readings include contemporary classics from authors such as Morante, Calvino, Volponi, Tondelli, and Tabucchi, as well as novels published in the last few years.

Italian Cinema and Literature
ITAL-UA 282  Identical to DRLIT-UA 505. Albertini. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Studies the relationship between Italian literature and post-World War II cinema, including the poetics and politics of the process of cinematic adaptation. Among the authors and directors examined are Lampedusa, Bassani, Sciascia, Visconti, Moravia, De Cespedes, DeSica, and Rosi.

Other Worlds: Travel Literature in Italy
ITAL-UA 283  Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Examines a selection of Italian travel narratives within the context of contemporary postcolonial theory. Readings include several early modern accounts of voyages of discovery, as well as 19th- and 20th-century travel narratives, both fictional and nonfictional. Topics to be considered include the relation between power and the production of knowledge as it manifests itself in such narratives; intertextuality and its ideological effects; and modes of representation of racial, cultural, historical, and sexual otherness.

The Sicilian Novel
ITAL-UA 862  Tylus. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Consideration of the Sicilian novel of the 19th and 20th centuries, with particular attention to Sicily’s distinct literature and culture. Writers may include Verga, Pirandello, De Roberto, Lampedusa, Sciascia, Mario Puzo, Andrea Camilleri, Dacia Maraini, Elio Vittorini, and Vincenzo Consolo; films may include Cinema paradiso, La terra trema, Il Gattopardo, The Godfather, and Salvatore Giuliano.

The Italian South: Literature, Theatre, Cinema
ITAL-UA 863  Identical to DRLIT-UA 863. Tylus, Rossellini. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Examines the works of southern thinkers and writers (Bruno, Campanella, and Vico) as well as the Neapolitan Enlightenment and the Southern question. It also engages the works of 20th-century writers from southern Italy or of authors who have written about it, such as Carlo Levi, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giovanni Verga, Leonardo Sciascia, and Vincenzo Consolo.

Italian American Life in Literature
ITAL-UA 286  Identical to ENGL-UA 724. Hendin. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
A study of the fiction and poetry by which Italian American writers have expressed their heritage and their engagement in American life. From narratives of immigration to current work by “assimilated” writers, the course explores the depiction of Italian American identity. Challenging stereotypes, it explores changing family relationships, sexual mores, and political and social concerns.

Topics in Italian Literature
ITAL-UA 285  Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Courses on subjects of special interest taught by either a regular or a visiting faculty member. For specific courses, please consult the class schedule.

CULTURE AND SOCIETY COURSES

Prerequisite for the following courses is ITAL-UA 30 when the course is conducted in Italian, or permission of the instructor.

Dante and His World
ITAL-UA 160  Identical to MEDI-UA 801, ENGL-UA 143. Ardizzone, Freccero. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Interdisciplinary introduction to late medieval culture, using Dante, its foremost literary artist, as a focus. Attention is directed at literature, art, and music, in addition to political, religious, and social developments of the time. Emphasizes the continuity of Western tradition, especially the classical background of medieval culture and its transmission to the modern world.

Women Mystics
ITAL-UA 172  Tylus. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Traces the historical, social, and literary significance of female mystics in late-medieval and early-modern Italy (from roughly 1200 to 1600) through writings by and about them. Primary materials include letters, autobiographies, and hagiographies, while select secondary sources help to situate these women and their texts within their proper historical, literary, and theological contexts.

The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance
ITAL-UA 161  Identical to MEDI-UA 161 when taught in English. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Study of Italian Renaissance civilization from its roots in the Middle Ages. Concentrates on the major problems of the times: the rise of the city-states and the evolution of the signorie, the birth of new language and art forms, and the changing attitudes toward the classical world, science, and philosophy. Students also explore, through readings of chronicles, letters, and contemporary documents, the effects such transformations had on the people of the times, on their daily lives, and on self-perceptions.

Florence: Literature, Art, Culture
ITAL-UA 149  Tylus. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Covers the jewel of Italian cities, from its Roman origins to the early 20th century. While the focus is on literary works, we also spend considerable time looking at the creation and expansion of the city itself as an architectural unit, as well as at its art works and its cultural florescence during the Renaissance. Ideal for students who plan to study at La Pietra in the near future.

Machiavelli
ITAL-UA 147  Albertini. Offered every other year. 4 points.
The inventor of modern political science, Niccolo Machiavelli is one of the most original thinkers in the history of Western civilization. In this course, Machiavelli’s political, historical, and theatrical works are read in the context in which they were conceived—the much tormented and exciting Florence of the 15th and early 16th centuries, struggling between republican rule and the magnificent tyranny of the Medici family.

Italian Culture and the Discourses of Early Modern Colonialism
ITAL-UA 148  Tylus. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
An overview of the earliest documents relevant to Italian exploration of the “new world,” as well as a consideration of the impact that the explorations had at home. Focuses on early colonial literature, such as the letters of Columbus, Pigafetta, and others, and examines the process of colonization of the Italian subject as evident in works by Machiavelli, Tasso, and Campanella.

“Renaissance Man” Revisited
ITAL-UA 811  Cox. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Centers on the study of two key texts of Italian Renaissance social and political thought, Machiavelli’s Il principe, and Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano. The human ideals described in these works—Machiavelli’s ruler and Castiglione’s courtier and court lady—are discussed in relation to those found in other texts of the period and in relation to the historic notion of the Renaissance as the age that saw the birth of the modern individual.

The Courtesan in Italian Renaissance Society and Culture
ITAL-UA 142  Cox. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Examines an intriguing figure within the social panorama of Renaissance Italy, the “honest courtesan” or cortigiana onesta. It contextualizes courtesans’ social position and cultural status, embracing elements of social history, literary history, and music and art history. Texts studied include both representations of courtesans, such as the notorious dialogues of Pietro Aretino, and writings by courtesan poets, such as Tullia d’Aragona and Veronica Franco.

Topics in Renaissance Culture
ITAL-UA 172  Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Variable content course taught by regular or visiting faculty. Consult current bulletin for specific topic.

Italian Fascism
ITAL-UA 165  Formerly Fascism and Culture. Ben-Ghiat, Ferrari. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
An interdisciplinary examination of the cultural production of the fascist period. Students examine the image that the fascist regime produced of itself through the study of popular novels, architecture, film, and political speeches.

Modern Italy
ITAL-UA 168  Identical to EURO-UA 163, HIST-UA 168. Ben-Ghiat. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
A survey of Italian history from unification to the present. Examines the political, social, and cultural history of liberalism, fascism, World War II, Christian Democracy, and communism; the political crisis of the early 1990s; and the rise of new regional and rightist parties.

Contemporary Italy
ITAL-UA 166  Identical to EURO-UA 164. Albertini, Ben-Ghiat. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Covers the political, cultural, economic, and social history of Italy since World War II. Starting with the transition from fascism to democracy, examines the Cold War, the growth of a mass consumer society, the social and political movements of the late 1960s and 1970s, the battle against the Mafia, postwar emigration, the rise and fall of postwar Christian Democracy and Italian communism, and the emergence of new parties in the 1990s such as Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, Bossi’s Northern League, and Fini’s neofascist Alleanza Nazionale.

Italian Colonialism
ITAL-UA 167  Identical to HIST-UA 286, EURO-UA 161. Ben-Ghiat. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Studies Italian colonialism from the late 19th century through decolonization. Through readings of colonial travel literature, films, novels, diaries, memoirs, and histories, we address the meaning of colonialism within Italian history and culture, the specificities of Italian colonialism, and the legacies of colonialism in contemporary Italy.

Italian Films, Italian Histories I
ITAL-UA 174  Identical to DRLIT-UA 503. May be taken independently of Italian Films, Italian Histories II. Albertini. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Studies representation of Italian history through the medium of film from ancient Rome through the Risorgimento. Issues to be covered throughout include the use of filmic history as a means of forging national identity.

Italian Films, Italian Histories II
ITAL-UA 175  Identical to DRLIT-UA 506, HIST-UA 176. May be taken indepen-dently of Italian Films, Italian Histories I. Ben-Ghiat. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Studies representations of Italian history through the medium of film from the unification of Italy to the present. We explore the possibilities and limitations of feature films for the representation of history, and ask: what happens when history becomes cinema and when cinema takes on history?

Topics in Italian Culture
ITAL-UA 173  Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Courses on subjects of special interest taught by a regular or visiting faculty member. For specific courses, please consult the class schedule.

Topics in Italian American Culture
ITAL-UA 861 001  Taught by regular or visiting faculty members. Offered every two years. 4 points.

OTHER COURSES

Senior Honors Seminar
ITAL-UA 999  Prerequisite: permission of the department. Offered in the fall. 4 points.
Seminar with variable content. Prepares students for the senior honors thesis. Primary focus is on research and the application of critical methodologies. Open to students who have been accepted in the honors program in Italian studies. (See “Honors Program in Italian Studies” in the “Program” section.)

Honors Independent Study
ITAL-UA 990  Prerequisite: ITAL-UA 999. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Open to students who have been accepted into the honors program in Italian studies and are writing the honors thesis in close consultation with the thesis adviser. (See  “Honors Program in Italian Studies” in the “Program” section.)

INTERNSHIP

Internship
ITAL-UA 980, 981  Prerequisite: permission of the department. Offered every semester. 2 or 4 points per term.
The internship program offers upper-level students the opportunity to apply their studies to the outside world. Working closely with a sponsor and a faculty adviser, students may pursue internships in such diverse areas as international trade, banking, publishing, community organizations, and television and radio programs. Interested students should apply to the department of their proposed internship early in the semester.

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Independent Study
ITAL-UA 997, 998  Prerequisite: permission of the department. Offered every semester. 2 or 4 points per term.

GRADUATE COURSES OPEN TO UNDERGRADUATES

Qualified undergraduates may register for graduate courses in Italian with the permission of the director of graduate studies. A complete list of appropriate graduate courses is available in the department each semester.