Italian Course Descriptions: 2009/2010

To view course descriptions simply click on a course number or scroll down.
For classes with a language focus (101-311), see the UO class schedule.

Only courses with active links will be offered during the 2009/2010 academic year

* There may be more than one course with this course number offered during the same term*
(ex: there are 3 different sections of ITAL 199 offered during the Spring 2010 term)

FALL 2009

ITAL 150: Cultural Legacies of Italy - Psaki
Italy's contributions to world cultures includes topics such as modern Italian life, Italians in America, Italian cinema and its influence, the Italian Renaissance, Roman art, opera. Course taught in English.     return to course list

ITAL 151: Italian Cinema - Bonacucina
Explores a variety of topics of cultural interest through discussions based on weekly viewings of films in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 319: Italian Survey: 19th and 20th Centuries – DeRenzo-Huter
Representative literary works from the 19th and 20th centuries with attention to literary analysis and literary history. Conducted in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 320: Intensive Grammar Review - Khalsa
Bridges second and third year cultureand literature courses.  Provides review, synthesis, consolidation, and elaboration of linguistic knowledge gained from lower-division courses.     return to course list

ITAL 341: Dante in Translation - Psaki
The entire Divine Comedy read in English. Focuses on specific medieval components, relevance for modern readers, effects and process of translation. Conducted in English. No major or minor credit.     return to course list

ITAL 319: Italian Survey: 19th and 20th Centuries – DeRenzo-Huter
Representative literary works from the 19th and 20th centuries with attention to literary analysis and literary history. Conducted in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 407: A Survey of Migration Literature in Italy- Gazzoni
This course will make a survey of the texts written by migrants in Italy from the early 90s to the present day. First we will outline the birth and the growth of this multicultural literature in contemporary Italy. Particular attention will be devoted to relations between the processes of migrant writing and their sociological, economical, political, anthropological, linguistic, and cultural contexts. Then we will examine a wide range of texts (poetry, narrative, memoirs, etc.), in order to draw a map of the most relevant voices, themes, genres, gender issues, and styles we can find in this literature, paying attention to the particular and different attitudes of these texts towards the Italian and Western literary canon. Among the authors: C. Abate, M. M. Butcovan, C. de Caldas Brito, G. Ghermandi, J. M. Gangbo, G. Hajdari, P. Khouma, A. Lakhous, T. Lamri, G. Makaping, I. Scego, L. Waida. Conducted in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 607: Reading texts from the literature of migration in Italy- Gazzoni
This course will be focused on texts by three main voices of migrant authors. We will discuss and analyze them through a close reading which will allow us to enjoy and evaluate their distinctive features: genres, themes, styles, languages, rewritings, and imaginations. In every author’s literary corpus we will look for internal recurrences and for external references to works, worlds, and traditions unfamiliar to Italian culture. Among the issues common to all the authors: the double conscience of the migrant; literature as exile and communion; women’s writing; the use of oral and traditional forms. The author are the Albanian poet Gëzim Hajdari, the Algerian narrator Tahar Lamri, the Brazilian narrator Christiana de Caldas Brito. After a brief introduction to the literature of migration in Italy the course will be divided in three parts, one for each author’s works, plus a conclusion about the importance of the innovative practices of reading demanded by migrant writings in Italian. Conducted in Italian.       return to course list

WINTER 2010

WINTER 2010

ITAL 151: Italian Cinema - Antonelli
Explores a variety of topics of cultural interest through discussions based on weekly viewings of films in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 318: Italian Survey: Baroque and Enlightenment - Lollini
Introduction to major themes and ideas in Italian literature from the baroque and Enlightenment periods through the reading of representative texts. Conducted in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 407: Twentieth Century Italian Poetry: An Introduction- Gazzoni
We will read a wide selection of poems in an approximatively chronological order, from Pascoli e D’Annunzio to the present day. From every single text or author we will gradually make out a mosaic of voices, enriching the comprehension of Italian language and, at the same time, drawing an introductory map to the different periods, poetics, movements of 20th century poetry. A particular attention will be devoted to various relationships with foreign literatures and with extra-literary phenomena (war, society, politics, etc.). Among the authors to read: D. Campana, G. Gozzano, F. T. Marinetti, U. Saba, G. Ungaretti, E. Montale, S. Quasimodo, C. Pavese, S. Penna, P. P. Pasolini, F. Fortini. G. Caproni.     return to course list

ITAL 491/591: Poetic Frontiers: Geography and History in Modern Italian Literature - Lollini
This course will investigate the role of literature in shaping questions of cultural, regional and national belonging. We will study the problematic process of the construction of Italian identities along with the emergence of poetic frontiers in the historical experience and geographical configuration of Italian literature. After the first sections devoted to analyze theoretical and methodological problems, we will study the role of the Mediterranean in promoting contradictory phenomena such as cultural pluralism and colonialism. We will consider how Mediterranean landscape has influenced Italian culture and sense of identity and belonging in particular historical contexts. We will examine literary landscapes from different regions of the Italian Peninsula (Liguria, Sardinia and Sicily) and Mediterranean basin, particularly those related to Italian colonial experience (Libya). Readings from Italo Calvino, Francesco Biamonti, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Vincenzo Consolo, Salvatore Satta, Ennio Flaiano and Mario Tobino. Movies by Dino Risi and Mario Monicelli.     return to course list

RL 407/507: The Storyteller in a Multicultural Perspective- Gazzoni
This course will explore the art and the representation of storytelling as enacted in some fundamental narrative texts from multicultural contexts in Romance literatures over the second half of the 20th century. We will start with an attentive reading of W. Benjamin’s landmark essay “The Storyteller”, and then we will try to confront its assertions with the active presence of storytelling in novels by the Cuban Alejo Carpentier, the Peruvian José Maria Arguedas, the Martinican Édouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau, the Italo-Albanian (arbëreshe) Carmine Abate. We will discuss the way in which multicultural written narratives exalt the role of the storyteller in relation with his/her oral origins, as a weaver of collective memories of the past which are continually splitted, crossbred, and reinvented, in opposition to the linear and homogeneous models of memory and narration provided by the ruling discourses of Western culture.     return to course list

RL 407/507: The Black Revolutionary Imagination in 20th Century Caribbean Literature-- Triana
In this course we will explore writings from revolutionary political and aesthetic movements in the 20th century Caribbean. We will read from a variety of genres, from poetry to political manifestos to history. Possible authors include: Nicolás Guillén, Aimé Césaire, Luisa Capetillo, C.L.R. James, Nancy Morejón, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Maryse Condé.  ***Students may take this class to fulfill major/minor requirements in Spanish and French if reading and writing requirements in the target language are met. Consult with the professor.***     return to course list

SPRING 2010

ITAL 151: Italian Cinema - Pazzaglia
Explores a variety of topics of cultural interest through discussions based on weekly viewings of films in Italian.     return to course list

ITAL 199: Italian for Travelers - DeRenzo-Huter
The goal of this course is to help you find your way around Italy through accelerated language instruction. You will learn essential Italian words and phrases needed to help you communicate clearly and avoid cultural mishaps as you travel throughout the country. This course offers a practical, hands-on approach to learning Italian. You will learn to use the language in a variety of everyday situations through focused and intensive practice in class.     return to course list

ITAL 199: Special Studies: Rome - DeRenzo-Huter
The goal of this course is to help you find your way around Italy through accelerated language instruction. You will learn essential Italian words and phrases needed to help you communicate clearly and avoid cultural mishaps as you travel throughout the country. This course offers a practical, hands-on approach to learning Italian. You will learn to use the language in a variety of everyday situations through focused and intensive practice in class.     return to course list

ITAL 317: Italian Survey: Medieval and Renaissance – McCormick
Introduction to major themes and ideas in Italian literature and art from the medieval and Renaissance periods.     return to course list

ITAL 407: Il Giallo/Detective Novel- Hester
This introduction to the Italian detective novel will focus on the origins and development of the genre in the Italian context and on two regional “schools” of detective novels, namely those of Sicily and of Emilia-Romagna. Our discussions will consider the giallo in relation to other literary forms, to contemporary political and social debates, and to Italian regional identities. Assignments include an oral presentation, textual analyses, and, as a final project, a giallo short story written in the style of one of the authors studied.     return to course list

ITAL 407/507: Images of the Self in Modern Autobiography-- Lollini
In this course we will examine different perspectives on Western view of individuality focusing our attention on the notion of "autobiography" as it emerges in Modern Europe. We will begin with a theoretical and historical overview of the questions involved in writing the self. Then we will read the autobiographies of Benvenuto Cellini (1558-56); Giambattista Vico (1725); Vittorio Alfieri (1790), and Carlo Goldoni (1787). The last part of the course will be devoted to study issues of autobiography and gender. We will read the autobiography of a woman poet, Angela Veronese's Notizie della sua vita scritte da lei medesima and, finally, we will study the emergence of a tradition of spiritual autobiographies by Italian women including selected texts by Veronica Giuliani.     return to course list

ITAL 491/591: Scrittrici/Women Writers- Hester
This course investigates the rich and varied contributions of women writers in two principal periods: the early modern (16th and 17th centuries) and modern/postmodern (20th and 21st centuries). Primary texts will include the prose fiction of Giulia Bigolina, and excerpts of “defenses of women” by Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti. For the modern period, we will read works that address feminist topics by Sibilla Aleramo, Dacia Maraini, Elena Ferrante, and Rossana Campo. In addition to reading critical works on these authors, we will also discuss contemporary Italian feminist thought, in particular the contributions of Luisa Muraro and Adriana Caverero. Assignments for undergraduates include an oral presentation and 3 short papers. Graduate students will present a critical or theoretical work and complete a 15-20 page paper.     return to course list

RL 607: Masterworks of Spanish Cinema—Gina Herrmann
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