ITAL242: Italian Grammar and Composition I (3 hours lecture)

A two-part course designed to improve the student's written Italian in a variety of contexts: short narratives, descriptions, formal and informal letters, argumentative essays, observation, and analysis. Attention is given to style, register, and vocabulary enrichment. This course begins with a thorough review and refinement of the student's knowledge of Italian grammar with systematic exercises and descriptive analyses of reading passages. The course is centered on discussion and written practice through the writing of multiple drafts and presentations and prepares students for the ACTFL Writing Test. Required for majors. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 104 or equivalent.

ITAL243: Italian Grammar and Composition II (3 hours lecture)

This course is designed to strengthen the student's written Italian in a variety of contexts: short narratives, descriptions, argumentative essays, observation and literary analysis. Attention is given to style, register, and vocabulary enrichment. This course continues a review and refinement of the student's knowledge of Italian grammar with systematic exercises and detailed analyses of reading passages. The course emphasizes group discussion and written practice through the writing of multiple drafts, presentations, and creative writing assignments. It prepares students for the ACTFL Writing Test. Required for Majors. Taught in Italian. Meets the University Writing Requirement for majors in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 242.

ITAL275: The Italian American Experience: On the Margins or in the Mainstream? (3 hours lecture)

An introduction to Italian American Studies offering an overview of the Italian experience in the United States from the first great waves of immigration to today. Focus will be on the politics of representation of Italian American identity in works from a wide textual base: literature and journalism, cinema, the figurative arts, music, television, advertising, etc. Themes to be investigated include the trauma of separation, relationships with the dominant culture and other ethnic communities, and the formulation of ethnic identity in a U.S. context. A major component of this course will be oral history research in the local community. Taught in English. Cross listed with Classics, GNHU 176; Educational Foundations, EDFD 176. 3 sh.

ITAL276: Italy on the Silver Screen: Topics in Italian Cinema (3 hours lecture)

A course focusing on the major exponents of and themes in Italian cinema from Neo-Realism to the present. The selected films, illustrating a variety of styles and ideological underpinnings, explore crucial moments in the development of modern Italian society. Topics for a given semester will be selected from the following: film aesthetics and film theory, the development of the Italian cinema industry, history in cinema, national identity, immigration and ethnicity, representations of masculinity and femininity, the class struggle, and cinematic adaptations of literary works. Taught in English. Cross listed with Classics GNHU 277. 3 sh.

ITAL309: Italian Conversation (3 hours lecture)

Practice in spoken Italian with an emphasis on listening and speaking skills, pronunciation, and oral competence through assigned topics and a discussion of modern and contemporary Italian culture. Special attention is given to vocabulary enrichment. This course prepares students for the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview in Italian. Use of Language Lab, web-based and computer assisted resources required. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 242.

ITAL321: Commercial Italian (3 hours lecture)

A combined conversation and writing course emphasizing business and professional contexts such as the job application, the resume, interviewing, office etiquette, and techniques of commercial correspondence. This course is designed to develop students' communicative skills and prepare them to work in the Italian business world. It provides an in-depth study of Italian geography and economics, including the free enterprise system, marketing and banking, and of aspects of Italian politics such as the party system, trade unions, and the Constitution. Use of Internet and computer-assisted resources required. Readings in Italian and English. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 104.

ITAL340: An Introduction to Italian Literature I: Heroes, Humanists and Sages (3 hours lecture)

An overview of some of the more significant literary trends in Italy from the first texts in a nascent Italian language up to and including the 1700s. The focus will be on representative literary texts and the fundamentals of literary analysis, accompanied by the study of the historical events and power structures influencing literary production and language usage, the changing role of the writer/intellectual, questions of identity, trends in music, the figurative arts, architecture, and fashion, autobiography and personal correspondence. Required for majors. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 242.

ITAL341: An Introduction to Italian Literature II: The Modern, Post-modern and Beyond (3 hours lecture)

An overview of some of the more significant literary trends in Italy from the Enlightenment to the Postmodern and contemporary periods. Students discuss the construction of Italy as a nation and its appointment with modernity, questions of identity, and trends in the figurative arts, architecture, and fashion. The course also serves as an introduction to the principles of literary analysis and criticism. Required for majors. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 242.

ITAL345: Special Topics (3 hours lecture)

This course will explore one aspect of Italian language, literature or cultural studies that is either not covered in the curriculum or deserves more in-depth treatment than is possible in an existing course. The specific topic will be announced each time the course is offered. This course may be repeated twice for a total of 6 credits. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 243.

ITAL350: Introduction to Translating (3 hours lecture)

The focus of this course is both practical and theoretical. Students practice translating the types of texts - technical, commercial, advertising, journalistic, medical, legal, etc. - that translators encounter on a regular basis and are introduced to the fundamental textual and linguistic principles underlying translation theory. This course examines the role of cultural context and emphasizes the use of computer-mediated resources in the act of translation. Students discuss and rewrite their translations in a workshop environment. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 242.

ITAL375: Italian Study Abroad

Study at an Italian university to gain firsthand knowledge of the historical, social, economic and cultural life of Italy. Credit by evaluation. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: Departmental approval.

ITAL381: Contemporary Italian Cultural Studies (3 hours lecture)

Introduction to and critical assessment of social, political, historical, economic, and religious aspects of Italian life through a wide range of subtopics such as immigration, racism, identity, ethnicity, popular culture, stardom, icon worship, and others in search of a broader understanding of Italian culture. Interdisciplinary methodologies based on cultural anthropology and sociology and critical and theoretical approaches such as Gramscian Marxism, Feminism, and Postmodernism are employed to question the humanistic distinction between high and low culture. Comparisons drawn between Italian and American cultures. Required for majors. Taught in English. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: Italian majors or minors or departmental approval.

ITAL385: Cooperative Education

This course provides an opportunity to extend academic resources beyond the campus by placing the student in meaningful learning situations with thoroughly screened and approved employers. Each chosen situation is to prepare the student to play a dynamic role in society. 4 - 8 sh.

Prerequisites: Departmental approval.

ITAL410: Advanced Italian Grammar (3 hours lecture)

This course, specifically designed for teachers of Italian but open to all Italian majors as a Major Elective, offers an introduction to the discipline of Italian linguistics. Making use of a historical approach, the course explores standard Italian and Italian dialects against the background of the development of Romance languages. The course will also provide a descriptive approach to phonetics, morphology, meaning, discourse, and variation in the Italian language. Open to all Italian majors. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 243.

ITAL441: Italian Literature of the Renaissance I (3 hours lecture)

An introduction to the development of humanism in Italy through a study of significant works of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Topics include Petrarch's lyrical language and its influence in the 15th century, the origins of Italian chivalric poetry and its evolution in the Quattrocento, the historical and cultural context of Italian courts and the signoria, the debate on the principle of imitation, the sacra rappresentazione, theatrical works, the anticlassicisti, pastoral drama, the debate on the dignity of man, and the political treatise. This course also teaches methods of interpreting literary form and meaning in the works studied. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340.

ITAL442: Italian Literature of the Renaissance II (3 hours lecture)

Through an in-depth study of Ariosto's Orlando frioso, Machiavelli's Principe and La Mandragola, and Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, this course analyzes the epic, political and theatrical masterpieces of Italy's Cinquecento. Other topics include the debate of the "questione della lingua", the short-story genre in the 16th century and its relationship to Boccaccio's Decameron, women writers, the poesia maccheronica, literary production and its relation to the visual arts, and the study of the development and conventions of the Commedia dell'Arte tradition. This course also teaches methods of interpreting literary form and meaning in the works studied. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340.

ITAL446: Italian Literature of the 19th Century I (3 hours lecture)

This course will explore the thought of the three foremost authors and founders of modern Italian culture Ugo Foscolo, Alessandro Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi through analytical readings of their literary works. Narrative, philosophical and poetic texts such as Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, I promessi sposi, Canti and Operette morali, will be examined against the background of European Romanticism and the dramatic changes in aesthetic and literary tastes occasioned by the revolutionary movements and conflicts of this period. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340 or 341.

ITAL447: Italian Literature of the 19th Century II: Experimentalism (3 hours lecture)

Students examine the narrative and poetic works of 19th-century authors such as Carducci, Pascoli, Verga, Fogazzaro, and D'Annunzio and contrast late-Romanticism, Verismo, and Decadentism in Italy with their European counterparts. This course also provides an account of Italian unification, the Risorgimento, as told through its heroes, allegories, and myths. Students are introduced to protomodern but less studied literary currents like the "romanzo nero" (Gothic novel), viewed as an expression of industrialization and sociopolitical instability. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340 or 341.

ITAL451: Italian Literature of the 20th Century I: A Changing Italy (3 hours lecture)

An examination of the major narrative, poetic, and philosophical works of authors of the first half of the 20th Century, such as Ungaretti, Quasimodo, Montale, Aleramo, Svevo, and Pirandello, positioned within the context of European Modernism and the historical avant-gardes. This course introduces students to Fascism and the Resistance with attention given to class struggle and the role of women. Other topics include a discussion of Italian society at the turn of the century, immigration and imperialism. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340 or 341.

ITAL452: Italian Literature of the 20th Century II: A Changing Italy (3 hours lecture)

Advanced literary analysis of representative texts from different genres from the postwar period to the end of the 20th Century. Topics discussed include modern Italian literature's relationship to the vital shifts in postwar Italian society: the "economic miracle", the Cold War, external and internal emigration, student revolts, the class struggle, women's rights and Italian feminism, terrorism in Italy, regionalism, immigration, and multiculturalism, military and cultural imperialism, the role of technology in everyday life and Italy's changing role in the international arena. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340 or 341.

ITAL461: Dante Seminar I: Inferno (3 hours seminar)

This course includes an introduction to Dante's life and works within their intellectual, historical and cultural context and offers close critical readings of the Inferno, particularly of major episodes, aimed at providing students with an understanding of the poet's narrative strategies, use of allegory, appropriation of classical and biblical sources, and handling of literary themes borrowed from tradition. Other readings may include Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Latini's Tesoretto, and Dante's Vita Nuova, De Vulgari Eloquentia and Monarchia. Web-based resources complement class readings. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340.

ITAL462: Dante Seminar II: Purgatorio and Paradiso (3 hours seminar)

A continuation of ITAL 461, this course focuses on selections from Purgatorio and Paradiso. It enables students to explore both the intertextual and intratextual strategies in the Commedia, that is, the narrative techniques Dante employs for incorporating into his text the works of classical and Christian authors as well as his own source material. By contrasting episodes paired by thematic or structural analogy, the student explores the nature of Dante's auto-exegesis in the Commedia and, more precisely, his use of the technique of the "parallel passage." Other readings may include Boethius, Roman de la Rose, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Dante's Convivio. Web-based resources complement class readings. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340.

ITAL469: Italian Literature of the 13th and 14th Centuries (3 hours lecture)

A comprehensive view of the Italian lyric tradition during the 13th and 14th centuries with emphasis on the Sicilian school, the Tuscan school and the Dolce Stil Novo. Other topics explore the birth and development of Italian religious poetry, sacred and profane didactic literature, the precepts of courtly love, the Breton and Carolingian cycles, Medieval chronicles and the relationship between the narrative form of the Christian exemplum, and the origin of the short-story genre. Other readings include Beowulf, Chanson de Rolande, Norse legend, and the troubadour poets. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340.

ITAL470: Senior Seminar in Literary Research (3 hours seminar)

This course offers an introduction to the techniques of literary research based on selected topics from Italian literature and/or cinema. Taught in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340 and 341; and Italian majors only.

ITAL475: Italian Women Writers (3 hours lecture)

This course is designed to introduce students to notable Italian female authors and their works. The texts will be presented within a historical and theoretical context: students will consider the evolution of the women's movement in Italy and feminist theory in their literary analyses. Students will explore relevant themes such as relationships among women, motherhood, the marginalization of women, and female creativity. Reference will be made, where pertinent, to historical and literary precedents. This course will be offered in Italian. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: ITAL 340 or ITAL 341.

ITAL480: Independent Study

Directed independent study and research in Italian. Open to students with a minimum of 3.0 cumulative average in at least 9 hours of Italian electives. May be repeated once for a maximum of 6.0 credits. 3 sh.

Prerequisites: Departmental approval.