Italian (ITAL)

ITAL 0010 Italian Survival Kit: The Language and Culture of getting around in Italy

This course provides content that is taught efficiently in order to be used practically. If you are going to Italy and questioning how you will survive your total immersion experience, this course will provide you with the linguistic and cultural skills you will need to effectively function in Italy and fully enjoy its wonders. In this course, you will learn and practice the language you need to talk about: yourself; others; travel; public transportation; housing; food; shopping; technology; health; money, etc. Students participate in conversations that replicate day-to-day life in Italy thereby developing the skills needed for face-to-face and online situations. This course does not count toward fulfillment of the language requirement. Students wishing to continue in Italian 0200 should register for Italian 0100 rather than Italian 0010. This course is open to students who have never taken Italian and who don't intend to satisfy the language requirement by taking courses in Italian.

Spring

0.5 Course Units

ITAL 0050 Sicilian Language and Culture

Occupied over the centuries by the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, French, and Spaniards, Sicily is a region of many histories and many traditions. Birthplace and crossroad of cultures and artistic movements, the Sicilian land has shaped the imagination of its inhabitants and has never ceased to fascinate its visitors. Its language and culture have also been exported abroad, through the many Sicilians who left the island and settled all over the world. This course is an introduction to Sicilian Language and Culture. We will study spoken Sicilian and cultural artifacts ranging from film to literature, to music and food, in order to learn to recognize and understand the unique sounds and features of "siciliano" and to converse in Sicilian with native speakers and with one another. Class sessions include lectures and interactive discussions. Between classes, the learning experience is extended through assignments, lectures and discussions.

Fall

0.5 Course Units

ITAL 0085 Representations of Rome in Film and Literature (1848-present) - First Year Seminar

The myth of Rome as “The Eternal City” stands as one of the longest enduring narratives in Western cultural history, spanning from the 1st century BC to contemporary times. In this course, students will delve into the historical trajectory of this term, with a specific focus on its literary and cinematic representations over the last two and a half centuries. Throughout the semester, fundamental questions will be explored: When and why did this myth originate? How was it politically and rhetorically wielded by historical figures such as Napoleon and Mussolini? Through engagement with an extensive array of sources, ranging from historical documents to literary and cinematic representations, along with 20th-century poetry, students will develop the critical and theoretical tools for the analysis of historical, literary, and cinematic texts. Simultaneously, they will immerse themselves in the history of one of the world’s most enduring urban centers. Commencing with an exploration of the historical roots defining Rome’s designation as “The Eternal City,” the course will progress to an examination of the political exploitation of this myth throughout modern history, starting from the mid 18th-century. Key topics addressed will include representations of Rome during the Grand Tour, the city's transformation from the seat of the Catholic Church to the capital of a modern secular democracy, its pivotal role in the development of fascist culture, its significance during the Second World War and the 1968 student protests, culminating in its contemporary multicultural identity.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 0085

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0087 Desire and Deception in Medieval Erotic Literature

In this course, we will investigate the ideology, content, and material forms of love literature from Dante Alighieri to Francesco Petrarca. Through close readings of such texts as Dante’s Vita nova (ca. 1295), Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (ca. 1353), and Petrarca's Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (often referred to as the poetry book par excellence: il canzoniere, ca. 1374), we will unveil the literary and fictitious nature of medieval erotic literature. We will explore the origins of love poetry in medieval France and its subsequent interpretation and rewriting in Italian courts and comuni. We will inquire into the cultural constructions of the medieval notion of lyrical self and how it still has an impact on our own notion of consciousness. We will study the forms, themes, and characters that populate 'love stories' in the Middle Ages. We will analyze the dynamics of composition, circulation, and reception in manuscript culture. Our close analysis of the texts as they have been preserved in manuscript form will help us gauge the differences between medieval and contemporary ways of writing, reading, and loving.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 0087, GSWS 0087

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0088 First-Year Seminar: Italian Histories

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0088

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0089 First-Year Seminar: Italian Music

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0089, MUSC 0810

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0090 First-Year Seminar: Italian American Studies

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0090, ENGL 1299, GSWS 0090

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0091 First-Year Seminar: Contemporary Italy

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0091

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0092 First-Year Seminar: Italian Film and Media Studies

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0092, GSWS 0092

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0093 First-Year Seminar: Race and Ethnicity in Italy

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0093, GSWS 0093

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0094 First-Year Seminar: Italian Gender Studies

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0094, GSWS 0094

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0095 First-Year Seminar: Italian Fashion

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0095, GSWS 0095

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0096 First-Year Seminar: Italian Visual Studies

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0096, GSWS 0096

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0097 First-Year Seminar: Italian Foods and Cultures

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0097, GSWS 0097

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0098 First-Year Seminar: Italian Literature

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0098, GSWS 0098

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0099 First-Year Seminar: Italian Innovations

Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 0099, GSWS 0099

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0100 Elementary Italian I

A first-semester elementary language course for students who have never studied Italian or who have had very little exposure to the language. Students who have previously studied Italian are required to take the placement test. Class work emphasizes the development of spontaneous discourse skills and interactional competence. Out-of-class homework required.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0120 Accelerated Elementary Italian

An intensive two-credit course covering the first and second semester of the elementary year for students who have never studied Italian before but have already fulfilled the language requirement in another modern language, preferably a romance language. Students who have fulfilled the language requirement in a language other than a romance language will be considered on an individual basis. All students must have departmental permission to register. Class work emphasizes the development of spontaneous discourse skills and interactional competence. Out-of-class homework required.

Fall or Spring

2 Course Units

ITAL 0200 Elementary Italian II

This course is the continuation of the elementary-level sequence designed to develop functional competence in the four skills. Class work emphasizes the further development of spontaneous discourse skills and interactional competence. Out-of-class homework required.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: ITAL 0100

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0300 Intermediate Italian I

Italian 0300 is the first half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that will allow you to function comfortably in an Italian-speaking environment. The course will build on your existing skills in Italian, increase your confidence and your ability to read, write, speak and understand the language, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. You are expected to have already learned the most basic grammatical structures in elementary Italian and to review these. The course materials will allow you to explore culturally relevant topics and to develop cross-cultural skills through the exploration of similarities and differences between your native culture and the Italian world.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: ITAL 0200

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0340 Accelerated Intermediate Italian

This course is the intensive and accelerated course that combines in one semester the intermediate sequence (0300 and 0400). It will build on your existing skills in Italian, increase your confidence and your ability to read, write, speak and understand the language, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. The course will allow you to explore culturally relevant topics and to develop cross-cultural skills through the exploration of similarities and differences between your native culture and the Italian world.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: ITAL 0120

2 Course Units

ITAL 0400 Intermediate Italian II

This course is the second half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that will allow you to function comfortably in an Italian-speaking environment. The course will build on your existing skills in Italian, increase your confidence and your ability to read, write, speak and understand the language, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. The course will allow you to explore culturally relevant topics and to develop cross-cultural skills through the exploration of analogies and differences between your native culture and the Italian world. The course will move beyond stereotypical presentations of Italy and its people to concentrate on specific social issues together with cultural topics.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: ITAL 0300

1 Course Unit

ITAL 0800 Italian Conversation

The course materials and nature of assignments and projects complement the Italian Studies curriculum by supporting the cultural content, linguistic functions, and types of assignments students may have already been exposed to in other Italian courses. This course will serve not only as a gateway to inspire students to take Italian Studies courses in the future, but will also accompany classes they may be taking simultaneously. The learning objectives of the works studied in this course will mirror and support the goals of the Italian Studies Curriculum while paying particular attention to oral expression, communication, and fostering a community of students of Italian both inside and outside the classroom.

Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given for either

0.5 Course Units

ITAL 1000 Advanced Italian I

This course will focus on contemporary Italian culture following its development since the 1960s. Pertinent films, literary texts, articles, as well as material in other media will complement the analysis of films and allow in-depth discussion. The cultural material explored in the course will be also used as a basis for a review of linguistic structures and vocabulary. Audiovisual materials develop students' comprehension and production in Italian and enable them to function in an academic setting. Class work will center primarily on conversation to improve students' fluency, vocabulary, and accuracy in speaking. Homework will consist of research and writing assignments in written Italian. Additionally, students will be required to prepare presentations. Students will write a final essay.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1200 Advanced Italian II

In this course, students will strengthen their communication skills, while continuing to explore significant aspects of contemporary Italian culture and history. Students will take further steps towards being able to understand in depth and to contextualize authentic Italian documents. Films, songs, and a variety of readings, will be used as windows on particular historical periods, cultural movements, political issues, and social customs. They will serve as a tool to investigate the many facets of Italian identity and, at the same time, as a way to prepare those students who will continue their study of Italian literature and culture in higher-level courses. Students are expected to participate in conversations and all other class activities in order to improve their oral and written ability to narrate, express opinion, hypothesize, and discuss a variety of topics, using rich, appropriate vocabulary and grammar, and organizing well-structured discourses, be they oral presentations, weekly compositions or the final essay. To reach these goals, speaking, listening, reading and writing activities -- role plays, discussions, oral presentations, journals, grammar reviews -- will be based on audio-visual material and written texts and/or proposed by the students themselves, based on their independent explorations and research.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1201 Foundations of European Thought: from Rome to the Renaissance

This course offers an introduction to the world of thought and learning at the heart of European culture, from the Romans through the Renaissance. We begin with the ancient Mediterranean and the formation of Christianity and trace its transformation into European society. Along the way we will examine the rise of universities and institutions for learning, and follow the humanist movement in rediscovering and redefining the ancients in the modern world.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 1201, HIST 1200

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1211 Business Italian

The course is conducted entirely in Italian and should be taken after completion of Italian 1000 or equivalent. It is designed to enable students to acquire language proficiency in the current Italian business and labor world. Business terminology will be used in specific business situations such as banking, trade, communications, etc. The course will examine Italian business practices, cultural differences such as the attitude towards money, work, leisure and consumerism through websites, newspaper and magazine articles and video clips. Students will learn to read business publications, write and compose business texts, and participate in business-related conversations. Additionally, guest lecturers from the local business world with ties to Italy will provide students with information about internship and job opportunities and the knowledge necessary to navigate international and Italian commercial routes. All reading and lectures in Italian.

Not Offered Every Year

Prerequisite: ITAL 1000

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1212 Business Italian: Italian for Special Purposes

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1213 Business Italian: Italian for Professions

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1214 Business Italian: Translation and Interpreting

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1320 Composers: Opera Composers 1600-1900

This course will center on the biography, works, and cultural context of a specific composer or group of composers. As well as introducing students to the musical works of the composer(s), the course will examine issues such as reception history, the canon, mechanisms of cult formation, authorship and attribution, identity, historical and social contexts, and nationalism and patriotism. Fulfills Arts and Letters Requirement. The course centers on a group of composers who created or developed opera as a successful genre by setting texts in Italian: Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. We will explore how these musicians were involved in opera as a business model, how their careers took shape, how their music interacted on stage with words, bodies, and sets (enhancing narratives based on literature, mythology and history), how their works were products of larger social contexts, and finally, how and why these operas are presented today by American theatres (also adapted as Broadway musicals) or in film versions. The course is intended for non-majors, but music majors are welcome. Knowledge of Italian is not necessary.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: MUSC 1320

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1322 Composers: Mozart/DaPonte

This course will center on the biography, works, and cultural context of a specific composer or group of composers. As well as introducing students to the musical works of the composer(s), the course will examine issues such as reception history, the canon, mechanisms of cult formation, authorship and attribution, identity, historical and social contexts, and nationalism and patriotism. Fulfills Arts and Letters Requirement. Mozart’s meeting with Lorenzo Da Ponte in Vienna in 1783 sparked one of the most successful collaborations in opera history between a poet and a composer, generating three works that are frequently staged in today’s theatres worldwide, The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790). We will study the literary sources of these operas, the poetic and operatic conventions of the time, and the issues (such as love, power, and gender) that these works raise, by also comparing different versions on video. The course is intended for non-majors, but music majors are welcome.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: MUSC 1322

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1430 History of Opera

An investigation, through a series of representative works, of the central problem of opera: how does the combination of music, text, and visual spectacle create an art form in which the whole is more powerful than its parts. Today this issue can be examined not only in live performances but also through media such as film, DVD, streaming video-- media to which this four-centuries-old multimedia form has adapted, evolving in still compelling ways. The works chosen for the course provide a chronological survey but also represent the variety of sources on which opera has drawn for it subject matter: myth and legend, the epic, the novel, and the play.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: MUSC 1430

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1440 Film Music in Post 1950 Italy

An exploration of cinematic sound through the lens of specific composer/director collaborations in post-1950 Italy, examining scores, soundtracks, and the interaction of diegetic and non-diegetic music with larger soundscapes. Composers Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone serve as case studies, in partnership with directors Fellini, Visconti, Leone, Pontecorve, Pasolini, and Coppola. Highlights include several excerpts form the Fellini/Rota collaboration, including The White Sheik, I vitelloni, The Road, Nights of Cabiria, La dolce vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, The Clowns, Roma, Amarcord, Casanova, and Orchestra Rehearsal. Rota's music for Visconti will be examined in Senso, the Leopard, and Rocco and his Brothers, along with his Transatlantic collaboration for The Godfather. Morricone's work with various directors will be discussed in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Battle of Algiers, and Teorema, as well as for American films such as Malick's Days of Heaven and Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. Weekly screenings required. Open to all: music majors, minors, and non-majors; will count toward requirements for music minor. Knowledge of music and Italian helpful but not required. All readings and lectures in English.

Also Offered As: CIMS 1440, MUSC 1440

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1871 Florence Myth and History

The course explores the historical, social, and cultural history of Florence across the centuries. Florence, which has been one of the largest and most powerful city-states since the Middle Ages, has undergone different changes that have significantly shaped both the character and the urban texture of the city. Cradle of the Renaissance, culinary and fashion hub, a political laboratory, Florence has lived many lives that will be discussed in the course, also offering comparisons with other Italian and Mediterranean realities. Readings by authors, philosophers, architects, and artists will be complemented by field trips, excursions, and tours of Florence’s most iconic sites and monuments. Trips to other Tuscan cities (Siena, S. Gimignano, Arezzo, Cortona) will be part of the course.

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1890 Best Sellers in Italian Literature

This course surveys the history of Italian literature through its major masterpieces. Beginning with Dante's Divine Comedy, Petrarca's love poems, and Boccaccio's Decameron, we will follow the development of Italian literary tradition through the Renaissance (Machiavelli's political theory and Ariosto's epic poem), and then through Romanticism (Leopardi's lyric poetry and Manzoni's historical novel), up to the 20th century (from D'annunzio's sensual poetry to Calvino's post-modern short stories). The course will provide students with the tools needed for analyzing the texts in terms of both form and content, and for framing them in their historical, cultural, and socio-political context. Classes and readings will be in Italian. ITAL 1890 is mandatory for Majors in Italian Literature and Minors in Italian Literature. If necessary, ITAL 1000 can be taken at the same time as ITAL 1890. Prerequisite: Open to students who have completed ITAL 1000 or equivalent.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 1890

Prerequisite: ITAL 1000

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1900 Italian History on Screen: How Movies Tell the Story of Italy

How has our image of Italy arrived to us? Where does the story begin and who has recounted, rewritten, and rearranged it over the centuries? In this course, we will study Italy's rich and complex past and present. We will carefully read literary and historical texts and thoughtfully watch films in order to attain an understanding of Italy that is as varied and multifacted as the country itself. Group work, discussions and readings will allow us to examine the problems and trends in the political, cultural and social history from ancient Rome to today. We will focus on: the Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Unification, Turn of the Century, Fascist era, World War II, post-war and contemporary Italy. Lectures and readings are in English.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 1900

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1910 Sicily on Page and Screen

What images come to mind when we hear the words Sicily and Sicilians? Often our thoughts range from scenic vacation spots, delicious seafood and cannoli, and sweet grandmothers dressed in black, to mafia violence, vendettas, and the deep-rooted code of silence, omerta. But, how did these ideas get to us? Is there truth in them? Is there more to this island and its people? Through careful analysis of literary and cinematic representations of this Italian region, and those that do and have inhabited it, we will trace and analyze how Sicilians have represented themselves, how mainland Italians have interpreted Sicilian culture, how outsiders have understood these symbols, how our own perceptions shaped what we thought we knew about this place and, finally, how our own observations will have evolved throughout our studies. We will watch films such as Tornatore's Cinema paradiso and Coppola's The Godfather II, and read texts such as Lampedusa's The Leopard and Maraini's Bagheria. This course aims to increase students' understanding and knowledge of the Sicilian socio-cultural system. It will help students develop their ability to understand and interpret Sicilian culture through close analysis of its history, values, attitudes, and experiences, thereby allowing them to better recognize and examine the values and practices that define their own, as well as others', cultural frameworks.

Summer Term

Also Offered As: CIMS 1910

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1920 Italian History on the Table

"Mangia, mangia!" is an expression commonly associated with the American stereotype of Italians, whose cuisine is popular throughout the world. But is the perceived Italian love of food the same in the United States and in Italy? Is it an issue of quantity or quality? Of socioeconomics, politics, education, health ...? Global, local or maybe, glocal? In this course, we will explore the role of food in Italian culture and in the shaping of the Italic identity, in Italy and abroad since antiquity. We will trace its evolution through literary documents, works of art, music and film, as well as family recipes and cooking tools; from ancient Rome to Dante and Boccaccio, to Stanley Tucci's Big Night; from court banquets to food trucks that, while always a feature at Italian fairs and open air markets, are now being "Americanized" under the influence of American cooking shows on Italian television. This course will be taught in English. It is an OBL (Object Based Learning) Course and will include class visits, in person and/or virtual, to the Penn Museum and to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It counts also as a credit for the minor in Global Medieval Studies.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ENGL 1295

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1930 Fascist Cinemas

Cinema played a crucial role in the cultural life of Nazi Germany and other fascist states. As cinema enthusiasts, Goebbels and Hitler were among the first to realize the important ideological potential of film as a mass medium and saw to it that Germany remained a cinema powerhouse producing more than 1000 films during the Nazi era. In Italy, Mussolini, too, declared cinema "the strongest weapon." This course explores the world of "fascist" cinemas ranging from infamous propaganda pieces such as The Triumph of the Will to popular entertainments such as musicals and melodramas. It examines the strange and mutually defining kinship between fascism more broadly and film. We will consider what elements mobilize and connect the film industries of the Axis Powers: style, genre, the aestheticization of politics, the creation of racialized others. More than seventy years later, fascist cinemas challenge us to grapple with issues of more subtle ideological insinuation than we might think. Weekly screenings with subtitles.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 1070, COML 1071, GRMN 1070

1 Course Unit

ITAL 1982 Film Sound and Film Music

Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: MUSC 1810

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2200 Florence in History

Florence is justly famous for its art and learning, especially during the era of the Renaissance. It was also one of the most literate states in Europe during this era; thanks to the city’s 3 abundant records, it is one of the best-studied cities in Europe from the later Middle Ages through the early modern era. Our course readings present a mix of major primary sources, synthetic summaries, and important modern scholarship. Most of our class time will focus on the information and issues they raise.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: HIST 2200

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2201 The City of Rome: From Constantine to the Borgias

The great city of Rome outlived its empire and its emperors. What happened to the Eternal City after “the fall of the Roman Empire in the West?” In this course, we will follow the story of this great city, its people, its buildings old and new, and its legacy across Italy, Europe, and beyond. Rome rebuilt and reshaped itself through the Middle Ages: home for popes, destination for pilgrims, power broker for Italy. It became a great Renaissance and early modern city, a center of art and architecture, of religion, and of politics. We will be reading a mix of primary sources and modern scholarship. All required texts are in English, though students who take this course for Italian Studies credit may choose to read some works in Italian.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: HIST 2201

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2204 Food and Diet in Early Europe: Farm to Table in the Renaissance

What did medieval and Renaissance Europeans choose to eat? What did they have to eat? Before the age of mass transportation, was all food locally sourced? In an era when most medicines were plant based, what did it mean to eat a balanced diet? “Feed a cold, starve a fever.” Why? In this course we will examine food, foodways, and diet in European culture, thought, and society with a focus on the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, and with a mix of primary sources and modern scholarship on food, cuisine, religion, and diet.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: HIST 2204

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2210 Intensive Italian, Culture, and Conversation - Penn in Florence

This course, taught in Italian, has been designed to enhance the students’ reading, speaking, and listening abilities in Italian and to enrich their knowledge of Italian culture. Aspects of contemporary culture, civilization, and current events will be explored through the discussion of articles, short stories, selections from novels, movies, and documentaries. Students will have the opportunity to practice the language in context and use a variety of formats, including debates, role plays, scene analysis, and quote or text interpretation. The course requires students to explore the city and its cultural landscape, starting with group forays and proceeding through meetings and interviews.

Summer Term

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2240 Italian Feminisms

Western notions of feminism are often dominated by anglophone cultures and experiences, but the fight for rights and equity for women is intrinsically tied to their lived experiences and the socio-political-economic factors that contribute to their position within a society. In this course students will research and reflect on many of the topics at the heart of feminist debate in Italy throughout the decades. From voting, to procreation laws, to abortion rights, to IVF, to sex work, to transfeminist debates, to anti-femicide actions, to intersectional feminist experience, to neofascist feminist moralism, to transnational feminist activism, this class will seek to explore various feminist movements of the 20th and 21st century in Italy and the contexts from which they stemmed as well as the moments of conflict between various factions of national feminism and transnational feminist discourse.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: GSWS 2240

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2320 Medium Matters: How to Make Books, Cuneiform to Kindle

This course is a hands-on historical and theoretical investigation into diverse media of textual and literary expression from clay tablets to digital texts. Through the direct examination of rare books and various textual oddities from Penn’s Special Collections and Archives and the Penn Museum, we will inquire into the history of the book and the history of writing. We will focus on different textual technologies and modes of composition, circulation, transmission, and reception of texts (from antiquity to the present day). By engaging in such topics as the transition from manuscript to print, from scroll to codex, and from book to Kindle, we will consider the history of literacy and literature in relation to other forms of expression (oral, visual, networked) and analyze different practices of organizing textual materials (from punctuation to annotation). We will examine paratextual elements (titles, forewords, afterwords) and various forms of verbal and visual accretion (from commentaries to illustrations). We will survey shifting notions of authorship, intellectual property, creativity, and originality and explore different systems of storage (libraries, archives, museums). By questioning the multi-faceted, non-deterministic interplay between textual artifacts and the media by which they are formalized and materially formed, we will conduct a critical reflection on the nature of textuality, writing, literature, and media. Readings will set essays in the history of the book and media studies alongside key case studies from various periods and geographical areas. And we will engage with textual materiality through the creation of book-objects of our own.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 2320, ENGL 0761, ENGL 2320

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2500 Cultura E Letteratura

Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 2500

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2510 Black Italy: Transnational Identities and Narratives in Afro-Italian Literature

This course focuses on how the migration movements to Italy, mainly from the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa in the '80s and '90s contributed to change Italy's status and image. From a country of emigration to other parts of the world, Italy became - as many historians, geographers, and scholars have observed - an immigration site, playing a pivotal role in the African diaspora. In the shadow of Italy's colonialist heritage (a past that Italy still has not fully confronted), these phenomena of mass migration challenge, complicate, and develop the notion of Italian-ness and undermine the fixity of an Italian identity in favor of multicultural and transnational identities. This course focuses on several Black Italian artists, writers, filmmakers, and activists of Somali, Eritrean, Tunisian, Ethiopian, and Egyptian origins (e.g. migrants or children of immigrants who were born or raised in Italy and children of mixed-race unions) who contribute to broaden the definition of Italian-ness and to challenge its racial, social, and cultural boundaries. Students will analyze short stories, novels, documentaries, songs, blogs, journal articles by Igiaba Scego, Cristina Ali Farah, Gabriella Ghermandi, Medhin Paolos, Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, Amir Issaa, Amara Lakhous, Pap Khouma, and Kaha Mohamed Aden, among others. They describe their multicultural identities, their senses of belonging, their feelings for the place that is depriving them of foundational rights (such as citizenship or a legal status), their nostalgia for their homeland or the countries where their parents were born, their fights to find or create a social and literal space where being recognized not as foreigners or worse as "clandestini." Their works offer an original, complex, and multilayered depiction of contemporary Italy and its social and cultural changes, where the African community is becoming larger and better represented. Some questions this course will ask include: what are the historical and geographical components of blackness in Italy? How, if at all, have these phenomena of migration changed Italian identity? How do black Italians live within the context of anti-blackness? How do these Italian writers and artists relate to African American histories and experiences of diaspora? How can African Italian literature contribute to a deeper understanding of the Black diaspora in Europe and elsewhere? The course will pursue answers to these questions by exploring issues of race, color, gender, class, nationality, identity, citizenship, social justice in post- colonial Italy while drawing on related disciplines such as Geography, Mediterranean Studies, Diaspora Studies, Post-Colonialism, and Media and Cultural Studies. Course taught in English. Course Material in English.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 2084, ENGL 1296

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2512 Introduction to Italian Cinema

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 2512, GSWS 2512

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2520 Contemporary Italy: Pop Culture, Politics, and Peninsular Identity

Is the land of good food, beautiful landscapes, and la bella vita really how it looks in the movies? Where do our ideas about Italy come from and how do they compare to the realities of its cultural production and its contemporary day-to-day life? This cultural survey course on contemporary Italy will investigate the similarities and divergences of these perceptions by researching current social, political, and media trends and putting them face to face with our preconceived notions. The course will cover major cultural trends from fashion and food trends, to eco-Italy, criminality and the Anthropocene, to immigration, to Black and LGBTQ Italia, to contemporary transfeminism, to Berlusconismo and Populism, to Netflix Italia and Social media culture. Through written assignments both in and outside the classroom, oral presentations, and multimedia projects we will critically reflect on these contemporary issues and gain a stronger understanding of the socio-cultural specificity of the Italian cultural landscape and its relationship to contemporary global socio-political trends and identities.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 2520

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2522 Modern Italian Culture

Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 2522, GSWS 2522

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2525 Florence Throughout the Centuries

Summer Term

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2550 Michelangelo and the Art of the Italian Renaissance

An introduction to the work of the Renaissance artist Michelangelo (1475-1564)-his sculptures, paintings, architecture, poetry, and artistic theory-in relation to his patrons, predecessors, and contemporaries, above all Leonardo and Raphael. Topics include artistic creativity and license, religious devotion, the revival of antiquity, observation of nature, art as problem-solving, the public reception and function of artworks, debates about style, artistic rivalry, and traveling artists. Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course selects works as paradigmatic case studies, and will analyze contemporary attitudes toward art of this period through study of primary sources.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ARTH 2500

Mutually Exclusive: ARTH 6500, ITAL 6500

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2600 Italian Theater

Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 2600

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2620 Italian Scandals

When you think of the term “scandal,” what comes to mind? Is there something about a society’s national identity that makes particular scandals resonate and shake the culture more than others? By exploring several Italian scandals that have helped define the cultural fabric of generations of Italians, we will learn to understand the social and political roots behind the what and why of these phenomena. Through cross-mediatic and transnational archival research, we will look at the ways that different media and different nations use these phenomena to represent national belonging, social fear, and cultural expectation. Each crime has its own story, but how do they help us understand how Italy makes sense of itself through tragedy, corruption, murder, and mayhem? How bello is this bel paese after all? Did you ever wonder what’s behind Italy’s ever-revolving government? Or why do Italians prefer to use the English word “serial killer”? This course will be taught in English

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: GSWS 2620

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2950 Palermo: Urban Migration, the Built Environment, and Global Justice

This City Seminar sponsored by Penn’s Humanities+Urbanism+Design initiative explores Palermo, Italy, its migrant communities, built environment, and related questions of justice. In the first half of the semester, we will survey Palermo’s long history as one of the most “conquered” cities in the world, tracing different empires and peoples’ impacts on the city, its social life and built environment, to its recent history as a “sanctuary city” and center of diverse communities from Africa, Asia, and Europe. The class will travel to Palermo during the week of fall break, documenting the built environments of historic and contemporary immigrant neighborhoods, and meeting with leaders of city government, immigrant rights movements, and migrant community associations. Assisted by “cultural mediators” from various communities, students will produce case studies of different migrant communities, their civil society organizations, and the recent impacts they have had on the city and its built environment. Leaders of Palermo’s elected migrants’ city council, the Consulta delle Culture, will be our partners in this class and its engagement with migrant communities. During the second half of the semester, we will continue to explore contemporary topics related to migration, the built environment, and social justice in the city while students work to develop their case studies, which we will publish at the end of the semester on a web site that we build together.

Also Offered As: URBS 2950

Mutually Exclusive: URBS 2952

1 Course Unit

ITAL 2952 Palermo: Empires, Mafia, and Migration

This seminar explores the history and contemporary experiences of the peoples of Palermo, Sicily, especially its migrant communities. Historically one of the most "conquered" cities in the world and today the fifth largest city in Italy, Palermo is an important site to consider critical questions about: race and ethnicity, diversity and intercultural relations, organized crime, power and exploitation, mobility and human rights, among other issues at the intersection of migration and cities. In the first half of the semester, we will survey Palermo’s long history, with a focus on its different rulers (including the mafia), migrations, and the relationships, experiences, identities, and impacts of different peoples on the city, its social life, built environment and cultures. The class trip over spring break will include visits to and assignments exploring: 1) historic sites, museums, and neighborhoods related to the historic peoples of Palermo; and 2) contemporary migrant neighborhoods, shops, and organizations with our hosts and cultural mediators from the communities we visit. Migrant leaders long involved in city government and civil society will be our partners in this trip, helping us engage with migrant communities. In the second half of the semester, our readings, discussions, and assignment will expand our focus on the contemporary politics of immigration, inclusion, and related topics in Italy and Europe. Students will identify specific topics they wish to explore and help lead our conversations about readings and other material we choose to explore.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: URBS 2952

Mutually Exclusive: URBS 2950

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3030 Queer Cinema

Queer Cinema, in Theory: This course explores the role of cinema in shaping the history of gender and sexuality, at the same time introducing students to some of the most relevant texts in the field of queer, gender and trans studies. While the last decades have been characterized by increasing acceptance of gays, lesbians and trans people into mainstream society, this process has no doubt reproduced new inequalities and asymmetries – in terms of race, class, and gender presentation. Does “queer” still pose a threat to the mainstream or is it now part of the “normal”? Should one welcome the progressive acceptance or queer lives within the mainstream or should one reject it in the name of an indissoluble difference? How do whiteness and homonormativity participate in the structural marginalization of black and trans people? Some of the topics addressed by this course are the “closet” in classical Hollywood cinema and its critique in 1990s queer films such as Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997); the intersection of sexuality and race in black feminist films such as Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden,1983) and Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996); the treatment of reproductive labor in experimental feminist films such as Jeanne Dielman (Chantal Akerman, 1975); the representation of the AIDS crisis in new queer films such as The Living End (Gregg Araki,1992); sex reassignment politics in 2000s Iranian films such as Sex My Life (Bahman Motemedian).

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3030, GSWS 3020

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3050 Rome in Cinema: Representations of The Eternal City

In this course we will look at the different ways in which Rome’s cityscape has been represented in 20th and 21st century Italian and American cinemas, intersecting with historical events such as the rise of Italian fascism, WWII, the 1960s economic boom, as well as the political impact of the current migratory crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. Why is Rome often referred to as "The Eternal City"? In what ways has the myth of Rome’s eternality been politically exploited throughout Italy’s modern history? Students will acquire technical vocabulary to improve their visual interpretation skills, as well as knowledge of some of the most impactful historical and cultural events of last century. Requirements will include readings in cultural and film history, an analytical essay, a research paper, weekly blog posts, and active participation in class discussion. Films may include Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953), La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960), Accattone (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1961), The Talented Mr, Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999), The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013).

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3050

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3060 Mafia in the Movies

This course examines representations of the mafia in Italian and American cinema from the early 20th-century until contemporary times, exploring the historical, economic and political causes that led to the mafia’s rise in Italy and the USA. Beginning with an analysis of the social problems that led to its emergence in 19th-century Sicily, the course will trace the transformation of the mafia into an international criminal organization throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing on historical events such as Italian migration to the Americas, the Second World War, the rise and consolidation of an Italian-American mafia in 1950s and 1960s New York, the Sicilian mafia’s attack on the Italian justice system in the 1980s and 1990s, and its more recent transformation into a global financial player. Some of the films we will watch and discuss include Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990), Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor (2019), and popular American and Italian TV shows such as David Chase’s The Sopranos (1999-2007) and Stefano Sollima’s Romanzo criminale (2008-10). In our discussions, we will pay particular attention to the ways that gender, class and race figure in cultural perceptions of the mafia and of Italy more broadly. Taught in English.

Also Offered As: CIMS 3060

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3070 Pier Paolo Pasolini : Aesthetics, Politics, Sexuality

Pier Paolo Pasolini—poet, filmmaker, and radical intellectual—created some of the most provocative and influential films of the 20th century, blending insights from Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxism and religious mysticism. This course, marking the 50th anniversary of Pasolini’s death, explores his groundbreaking cinematic work in dialogue with the ideological struggles and artistic movements of the 20th century. We will trace Pasolini’s evolution from his representation of the Rome’s peripheries in Accattone (1961) through his mythological (Oedipus Rex, 1967; Medea, 1969) and experimental works (Teorema, 1968), culminating in his controversial Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). In addition to his feature films, we will examine his documentary work, including Notes for an African Orestes (1970) and Love Meetings (1964), which offer key insights into his views on sexuality, political struggle, and the postcolonial world. At the core of our exploration will be Pasolini’s radical vision of sexuality and desire, which challenged social norms while positioning him within a broader network of queer and avant-garde filmmakers such as Agnès Varda, Andy Warhol, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, among others. Students will engage with his work through key theoretical frameworks—Gramsci, Freud, Lacan, Barthes—alongside contemporary approaches from queer theory, critical race studies, and ecocriticism. We will also examine his enduring influence on radical philosophy and feminist film criticism in the works of Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Mayne, Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek. This course is taught in English; no prior knowledge of Italian cinema or language is required.

Also Offered As: CIMS 3070, GSWS 3070

Mutually Exclusive: ITAL 6070

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3080 Soccer Beyond the Field: Sport and Politics in Italian Culture

In recognition of the 2026 FIFA World Cup—hosted also in Philadelphia among other cities—we will explore soccer’s centrality in Italian Culture. Italy is a country where cultural traditions run deep, and among its most compelling cultural phenomena is the nation’s fervent attachment to soccer, or “calcio” as it is known in Italian. As historian John Foot claims, “You can’t understand Italy without understanding football, and you can’t understand football without understanding Italy.” Indeed, beyond its role as a popular sport, calcio is a cultural phenomenon reflecting and influencing political discourses, national identities, social values, and local communities. This course seeks to explore the significance of soccer in and outside Italy, considering it not just as a pastime, but as a powerful cultural lens through which we can gain a deeper understanding of Italian society. We will analyze how calcio functions as a social institution that transcends regional differences, class divisions, and generational gaps, uniting diverse groups in shared experiences. At the same time, the course will investigate how soccer can also amplify differences, exclusion, and racist behaviors. Moreover, we will explore how soccer relates to design, architecture, music, and soccer icons (Maradona, Totti, Messi, Zidane, etc.). By examining the cultural, historical, and social dimensions of Italian soccer, this course will provide a rich framework for exploring how soccer intersects with broader cultural narratives and social dynamics in Italy and discussing crucial issues in Italian culture, such as multiculturalism, immigration, and anti-racist movements. Students will be exposed to a diverse array of films and visual, literary, theoretical, and historical materials, including Gramsci, Barthes, Nussbaum, Bourdieu, Pasolini, Saba, Soriano, Vázquez, Salvatores, and Sorrentino, among others. At the end of the course, students will gain a unique perspective on Italian culture and society, analyze the role of soccer in Italian culture and from a global perspective, understand how sports can be a lens for examining broader cultural issues, develop critical thinking skills to analyze complex social phenomena. Course taught in English.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 3080

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3220 Italian Translation

Translation is a complex and multifaceted practice that goes beyond simply decoding words from one language to another. It is a creative process that demands a deep understanding of language, culture, and the nuances of human communication. In this course, we will delve into some fundamental principles of translation theory and put them into practice through hands-on exercises and case studies. We will explore the intricacies of translating texts from English into Italian and vice versa, examining a wide range of genres, from advertising and marketing materials to legal, official, and scientific documents. We will also engage with literary narratives, comics, poems, songs, and audiovisual material, gaining insights into the challenges and rewards of translating creative works. Adopting a task-based approach, we will closely examine the specific tasks that translators perform, from understanding the source text to creating an effective target text that reflects the original author's intent and style. We will analyze fundamental differences in registers, rhetorical style, and grammar structure between Italian and English, gaining a deeper understanding of the linguistic and cultural nuances that can impact translation decisions. Throughout the course, we will emphasize the relationship between language and culture, recognizing that translations often extend beyond mere words and convey the essence of a particular culture. Additionally, we will evaluate the role of artificial intelligence and computer programs in translation, assessing their strengths and limitations. The course is conducted in Italian and consists of guided readings and discussions, small group works, presentations, translation tasks, pre and post-task reflections, and a final translation project. Readings are in English and Italian.

Not Offered Every Year

Prerequisite: ITAL 0400 OR ITAL 0340

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3250 Italian Ecologies and Environments: Stories and Images in the Age of the Anthropocene

The course investigates how Italian writers, artists, and directors have depicted, discussed, and challenged the relationship between humankind and the environment in modern and contemporary Italy. Using an environmental humanities framework and drawing upon a few theoretical texts in contemporary ecocriticism as well as material and posthuman philosophies, this course examines a selection of texts and media, including novels, poetry, essays, films, and visual art to investigate how Italian culture has responded to key environmental issues—such as industrialization, urban expansion, climate change, ecological disasters, and environmental justice—which have shaped Italy’s histories and landscapes. The central questions that this course will ask are: in which forms and modalities do Italian authors define nature, human beings, and their relationships with the earth and nonhuman animals? What are the most pressing ecological challenges that Italy is facing? Are these works, and literature in general, able to help us to interpret the world, raise awareness, and more importantly, encourage us to adopt strategies that help us to be environmentally and ethically responsible for our planet? At the end of the course, students will develop a deeper understanding of literary ecology and will be more conversant in the most recent discussions about ecocriticism; analyze different genres and formats; gain awareness of their role within the broader global discussion and explore the latest literary works addressing the climate crisis; understand the key issues surrounding the Anthropocene and will be capable of analyzing artistic works from this specific perspective.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3300 Historical Eras and Topics: Earlier Periods

Classes under this number offer a more in-depth look at historical eras and topics or repertories associated with a specific period of music history. Classes will focus on one historical epoch (Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque). The purpose of this course is to give students the opportunity to engage deeply with musical objects, both historically and analytically, as well as to expose them to a range of methodologies with which to study music. Topics include: the Italian and English Renaissance madrigal; Baroque Opera 1600-1750.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: MUSC 3300

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3323 Baroque Opera from Monteverdi to Gluck

We will explore the history of Baroque opera from the vantage point of its beginning and its end: Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) and Christoph Willibald Gluck‘s Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), both works setting into music narratives about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as told by Ovid, Virgil, and others. We will discuss not only the historical documents that survive about these two masterworks (scores, librettos, letters etc.) but also today’s productions available in video. Why was the myth of Orpheus central to creators and audiences? What do these two operas and their performances tell us about being human in the world, both back then and today? How do we approach and understand this 400-years old multimedia genre, and why do these works still attract worldwide audiences today? We will also investigate works by Sartorio, Lully, Charpentier, Purcell, Telemann, and Handel. These works are based on poetic texts (“librettos”) thus we will explore text/music issues, focusing on prosody. Students in ITAL/FIGS are not expected to know music (in technical terms) but will have an opportunity to be exposed to poetic texts (in Italian, French, and German) that, by supporting music, function differently from other texts.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: MUSC 3323

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3328 The Holocaust in Italian Literature and Film

Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3328

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3330 Dante's Divine Comedy

In this course we will read the Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, focusing on a series of interrelated problems raised by the poem: authority, fiction, history, politics and language. Particular attention will be given to how the Commedia presents itself as Dante's autobiography, and to how the autobiographical narrative serves as a unifying thread for this supremely rich literary text. Supplementary readings will include Virgil's Aeneid and selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses. All readings and written work will be in English. Italian or Italian Studies credit will require reading Italian texts in their original language and writing about their themes in Italian. This course may be taken for graduate credit, but additional work and meetings with the instructor will be required.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 3330, ENGL 0509

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3335 BFS--Med/Red Dante in English: Creative Responses to the Divine Comedy

A cross-period and in-depth look at Dante's Divine Comedy and the many creative responses it has spawned across the globe and across languages. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

Also Offered As: COML 0502, ENGL 0502

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3400 Italian American Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3400, ENGL 2299

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3401 Contemporary Italy

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3401, GSWS 3401

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3402 Italian Film and Media Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3402, GSWS 3402

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3403 Race and Ethnicity in Italy

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3403, GSWS 3403

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3404 Italian Gender Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3404, GSWS 3404

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3405 Italian Fashion

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3405, GSWS 3405

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3406 Italian Visual Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3406, GSWS 3406

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3407 Italian Foods and Cultures

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3407, GSWS 3407

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3408 Italian Literature

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3408, GSWS 3408

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3409 Italian Innovations

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3409

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3410 Italian Renaissance Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3410, GSWS 3410

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3411 Mediterranean Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3411, GSWS 3411

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3412 Italian Performance Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3412, GSWS 3412

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3413 Italian Science and Philosophy

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3413, GSWS 3413

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3414 Italian Material Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3414

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3415 Italian Digital Humanities

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3415

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3416 Boccaccio

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: GSWS 3416

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3417 Machiavelli

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3418 Petrarch

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3419 Italian Music

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3420 Italian Histories

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3500 Italian Diaspora Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3501 Contemporary Italy

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3502 Italian Film and Media Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3502

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3503 Race and Ethnicity in Italy

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3503

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3504 Italian Gender Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: GSWS 3504

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3505 Italian Fashion

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3505

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3506 Italian Visual Studies

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3506

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3507 Italian Foods and Cultures

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3508 Italian Literature

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3509 Italian Innovations

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3510 Italian Renaissance Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3511 Mediterranean Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3512 Italian Performance Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: THAR 3512

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3513 Italian Science and Philosophy

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3514 Italian Material Studies

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3515 Italian Digital Humanities

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3516 Boccaccio

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3517 Machiavelli

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3518 Petrarch

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3519 Italian Music

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3520 Italian Histories

Taught in Italian. Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3820 Renaissance Europe

The Renaissance was a defining era in European history, the age of Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci, crucial in the formation of Europe’s culture and identity. In this course we will examine the philosophers, writers, artists, and scientists of this era, as well as the political and social climate in which they lived and worked. We will give particular attention to the humanist movement, university culture, revolutionary changes in the visual arts, science, and religion. Readings will include key primary sources from the Renaissance era as well as the writings of modern historians.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: HIST 3820

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3830 French & Italian Modern Horror

This course will consider the horror genre within the specific context of two national cinemas: France and Italy. For France, the focus will be almost exclusively on the contemporary period which has been witnessing an unprecedented revival in horror. For Italy, there will be a marked emphasis on the 1960s-1970s, i.e. the Golden Age of Gothic horror and the giallo craze initiated by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. Various subgenres will be examined: supernatural horror, ghost story, slasher, zombie film, body horror, cannibalism, etc. Issues of ethics, gender, sexuality, violence, spectatorship will be examined through a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, aesthetics, politics, gender, etc.).

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 3830, COML 3830, FREN 3830

1 Course Unit

ITAL 3999 Independent Study

Independent research under the supervision of a department faculty member. Research topic is determined in consultation with the supervising faculty member.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

ITAL 4000 Honors Thesis

Honors thesis in Italian Studies. This course is open to undergraduate

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

ITAL 4301 Seminar in Music History

This is an advanced seminar, primarily for juniors and seniors who are prepared to engage deeply and critically with a specialized research topic. The topic of the seminar focuses on a particular genre or body of repertoire, music-maker or composer, or the cultural and social dynamics of a period in music and Italian or American history. Among the topics that we will explore are: opera and its literary and figurative sources 1600-1900; opera performance 1600-today; music and rhetoric ca. 1500-1800; text, music, and image ca. 1500-1750.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: MUSC 4301

1 Course Unit

ITAL 4999 Independent Study

Independent research under the supervision of a department faculty member. Research topic is determined in consultation with the supervising faculty member.

Fall

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5110 Introduction to Paleography & Book History

Writing and reading are common actions we do every day. Nonetheless they have changed over the centuries, and a fourteenth century manuscript appears to us very different from a Penguin book. The impact of cultural movements such as Humanism, and of historical events, such as the Reformation, reshaped the making of books, and therefore the way of reading them. The course will provide students with an introduction to the history of the book, including elements of paleography, and through direct contact with the subjects of the class: manuscripts and books. Furthermore, a section of the course will focus on digital resources, in order to make students familiar with ongoing projects related to the history of book collections (including the "Philosophical Libraries" and the "Provenance" projects, based at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and at Penn). The course will be conducted in English; a basic knowledge of Latin is desirable but not required.

Spring

Also Offered As: CLST 7709, COML 5111

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5254 Myth Through Time and in Time Seminar

The textual and physical remains of Greek and Roman culture and belief as 'myth' entranced the post-antique European world and its neighbors. Makers, patrons and viewers manipulated those survivals to challenge and speak to a contemporary world. This course focuses on how and why artists and their patrons engaged the mythic and examines the various areas of political and religious life that sought animation through an evocation of narratives from the past. Readings and case studies will examine very late antique through medieval and early modern art. This seminar is open to graduate and undergraduate students.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: AAMW 5254, ARTH 5254, CLST 7407

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5300 Medieval Italian Literature

Medieval Italian society, art, intellectual and political history.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5300

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5310 Dante's Commedia I

Please check the department's website for the course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses Dante Visualizing: Dante Visualizing and Dante Visualized. Dante's Commedia has inspired art, but at the same time art is present within the Comedy itself, through images, metaphors, descriptions and even more concrete examples. This course aims at discussing these aspects, taking into consideration also the philosophical, political and religious background of these motifs. While analyzing images in and from the Commedia, we will look at illustrations and artistic interpretations, spanning from medieval illuminations and Renaissance printed boooks (mainly from Van Pelt Library) to contemporary examples, and focusing on artists such as Giotto, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Blake, Dore, and Dali. The course will be taught in English.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5310

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5320 After Dante’s Divine Comedy: Transmission and Material Form, Creative Adaptation and Performance

This 5000-level seminar, co-taught by Marco Aresu (Italian) and David Wallace (English, Comparative Literature), considers how Dante and the copyists of his works deployed the tools of scribal culture to shape, signal, or layer meanings beyond those conveyed in his written texts. Medieval texts, uniquely positioned to provide such perspective, are foundational to theoretical understanding of new forms and materials in our media-saturated, contemporary world. In this course, we also read later creative responses to Dante, especially in Irish and English, American and African American contexts, and in poetry and prose, video and film. We will work from a parallel text, paying attention to the Italian but with no prior experience of the language required.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5320, ENGL 5320

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5330 Dante Studies

This PhD-level seminar offers a rigorous examination of Dante Alighieri’s works within their literary, philosophical, theological, and political contexts. Framed as both an intensive investigation of the central questions, themes, and formal features—textual and material—of Dante’s oeuvre and an introduction to the practices of philology and literary criticism within and beyond Dante Studies, the course situates Dante's works in the broader networks of production, circulation, transmission, reception, and dissemination of medieval and early modern literature. Students will engage with Dante’s texts in the original Italian, working closely with critical editions, commentaries, and a range of bibliographic and digital research tools. Emphasis will be placed on close reading and scholarly method. Participants will lead seminar discussions, evaluate current trends in Dante scholarship, provide peer feedback, and develop original research projects. Designed to cultivate advanced expertise in Dante Studies, the course prepares students for scholarly research and teaching in medieval literature and culture.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5350 Petrarch

Petrarch's life and work in the context of Italian and European culture and society.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5351

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5370 Boccaccio

Boccaccio's life and work in the context of Italian and European culture and society.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5384 Plato and Aristotle in the Early Modern Period

In one of the most evocative frescoes of the Renaissance, Raphael juxtaposes Plato and Aristotle. The pairing would seem obvious, since the two thinkers had been for centuries symbols of philosophy and wisdom. But only the recent revival of Plato, begun in the mid-fifteenth century, had allowed the Latin world to gain a better understanding of Platonic philosophy and, therefore, to compare Plato's doctrines directly to those of Aristotle. Were master and disciple in harmony? And if not, which of the two should be favored? Such questions were less innocent than one might think, and the answers to them had implications for philosophy, theology, speculation on the natural world, and even politics. The course will offer an overview of Renaissance philosophy and culture by focusing on the different ways in which Plato and Aristotle were read, interpreted, and exploited between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The course will be conducted in English; a basic knowledge of Latin is desirable but not required.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5384

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5400 Topics: Renaissance Culture

Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CLST 7704, COML 5450, PHIL 5150

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5410 Transalpine Tensions: Franco-Italian Rivalries in the Renaissance

In the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, France and the Italian States were bound together by linguistic, economic, political, and religious ties, and intellectual developments never flowed unilaterally from one country to the other. On the contrary, they were transnational phenomena, and French and Italian thinkers and writers conceived of themselves and their work both in relation to and in opposition to one another. This course will consider the most fundamental aspects of Franco-Italian cultural exchange in the medieval and early modern period, with an emphasis on humanism, philosophical and religious debates, political struggles, and the rise of vernacular languages in literary and learned discourse. Authors to be studied include Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola Castiglione, Bembo, Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, Du Bellay, Machiavelli, and Montaigne. In addition to learning the material covered in the course, students will gain expertise in producing professional presentations and research papers, and will also have the opportunity to consult original material from the Kislak Center. This course is open to undergraduates with permission of the instructors. It counts toward the undergraduate minor in Global Medieval Studies and the graduate certificate in Global and Medieval Renaissance Studies.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5411, FREN 5410

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5550 Digital Humanities

This course examines the literary and social resonances of mural arts in medieval and Early Modern Italy. We will investigate emerging artistic conventions alongside textual moments that employ ekphrastic descriptions of mural art as a point of departure for larger commentaries on the role of gender, social hierarchies, the labor of the author and the artist, and civic justice. How did mural arts in medieval and early modern Italy shape viewers’ understanding of justice, society, and city life and their role within it? How did Italian authors appropriate artistic conventions, through text, in order to intervene in public discourse on sociopolitical concerns? Through a comparison of images and texts, we will explore the ways in which Italian writers and artists visualized justice, critiqued dominant social hierarchies, and renegotiated gendered spaces in their literary and artistic works. Alongside viewing works of art, course readings will explore literary representations of mural arts, both fictional and real, described ekphrastically in the works of Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Machiavelli, among others. Select readings from the work of Marguerite de Navarre, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Classical antecedents will shed light on cross cultural dialogue on the representation of civic life, gender, and justice in the Early Modern period. Primary source readings will be accompanied by selections from contemporary and critical theory on art history, gender, race, and politics. Finally, we will examine contemporary street art and graffiti in Florence to consider the legacy of these early modern tensions in Florentine culture today.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5710 Literature and Multilingualism

Since several years, the societal and cultural reality of multilingualism has become an important research field in linguistics and literary studies, as in cultural studies more generally. This graduate course will investigate how multilingual poetics challenge and resist paradigms and ideologies of innate monolingualism, linguistic mastery, absolute translatability and monocultural nationalism. To begin with, the course will introduce central aspects of scholarship on literature and multilingualism, covering concepts such as heteroglossia, code switching, translingualism and macaronic language, and debates such as those on world literature, global English, foreignization, (un)translatability and non-translation, including their political and ethical importance. After a brief historical overview, glancing at western literary multilingualism in the Middle Ages, Romanticism and the avantgarde, the course will mainly focus on literature of the late 20th and 21st centuries taken from Germanic and Romance linguistic contexts. Using an exemplary selection, the course will cover prose, poetry and drama, and include excerpts of texts by authors such as Andrea Camilleri, Gino Chiellino, Fikry El Azzouzi, Ernst Jandl, Jackie Kay, Çağlar Köseoğlu, Monique Mojica, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Olivier Rolin, Yoko Tawada, Nicoline van Harskamp, and others. Reading these texts, we will try to determine how multilingualism manifests itself (linguistically, discursively, rhetorically, thematically, contextually etc.) and how the texts engage with linguistic, cultural and social pluralities. The course will conclude with a focus on the translator as a central character in fictional prose and movies. Classes will take place in an interactive format that stimulates discussion and exchange. Students will get the respective excerpts – both in the original version and in English translation – one week at a time so that they can prepare themselves each week for the discussion. Theoretical and contextual information will be provided via Power Point presentations.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5710, DTCH 5710, FREN 5710, GRMN 5710

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5810 Modern/Contemporary Italian Culture

Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 5811, JWST 5810

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5820 Topics: Literature and Film

Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 5820, COML 5821

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5830 Post-Human Landscapes

Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5840 20th-Century Italian Fiction and Film

Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 5840

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5850 Italian Thought

What is Italian philosophy? Does Italian philosophy have a peculiar character? Can we speak of "Italian philosophy" if Italy became a unified country only recently, and its history is complex and fragmented? Yet “Italian Thought” and its genealogy are central to today’s theoretical debates on concepts such as biopolitics, reproductive labor and “empire” among others. This course will offer a diachronic review of the most important Italian thinkers, highlighting the political vocation of Italian philosophy, and its engagement with history and science, while discussing the modern supporters and opponents of the “Italian Thought” category. Readings might include Dante, Machiavelli, Bruno, Vico, Beccaria, Gramsci, Cavarero and Agamben among others.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 5850, COML 5850

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5851 Machiavelli’s Political Thought and its Modern Readers

There is hardly an author who has been as controversial as Niccolò Machiavelli. The influence of this Italian political thinker on the theoretical imaginary of subsequent thinkers and writers has been huge. Yet, there have been strong disagreements on how to interpret Machiavelli’s ideas and questions still abound on the political meaning of his thought. Is there a core message of Machiavellian politics? Is he a political philosopher or a theorist or a ‘scientist’ of politics? Can we call him a realist? Or is he rather a republican or a plebeian actor and thinker, as recent scholars have pointed out? If so, what kind of republicanism or plebeian ideas can be found in his context and in his works? What has been the impact of his ideas in 20th century political thought? The goal of this course is two-fold. Each class will comment and discuss passages from The Prince and the Discourses or important modern and contemporary texts based on Machiavelli’s ideas. On the one hand, the course aims to directly analyze some key passage of the two main texts of Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses. The aim of this investigation is to stress the complexity of Machiavelli’s thought in its own context, which substantially challenges any attempt to reduce him to simple labels. Machiavelli’s texts will also be approached through a close and thorough reading as well as a comparison with the ideas of its own sources (especially Polybius, Dante, Petrarca, Plutarch, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero etc.). On the other hand, the course aims to analyze the influence of Machiavelli thought on some 20th century thinkers (The students will also read texts from Antonio Gramsci, Claude Lefort, Isaiah Berlin, Leo Strauss, Louis Althusser, next to the most recent scholarly historical literature in Machiavelli studies). This will allow the students to become familiar not only with Machiavelli’s texts but also with several thinker who have drawn on this author from completely different perspectives to shape their own political thought.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5851

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5870 Pasolini and Calvino

Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5910 Italian Teaching & Learning

This is a year-long course required of all first-year Teaching Assistants in Italian. It is designed to provide new instructors with the necessary practical support to carry out their teaching responsibilities effectively and to build their own portfolio. It will also introduce students to various approaches to foreign language teaching as well as to current issues in second language acquisition.

Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given after both terms are complete

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5940 Theories of Nationalism

You cannot build a wall to stop the free flow of literary and creative ideas. But in constructing narratives of national identity, states have long adopted particular texts as "foundational." Very often these texts have been epics or romances designated "medieval," that is, associated with the period in which specific vernaculars or "mother tongues" first emerged. France and Germany, for example, have long fought over who "owns" the Strasbourg oaths, or the Chanson de Roland; new editions of this epic poem, written in French but telling of Frankish (Germanic) warriors, have been produced (on both sides) every time these two countries go to war. In this course we will thus study both a range of "medieval" texts and the ways in which they have been claimed, edited, and disseminated to serve particular nationalist agendas. Particular attention will be paid to the early nineteenth century, and to the 1930s. Delicate issues arise as nations determine what their national epic needs to be. Russia, for example, needs the text known as The Song of Igor to be genuine, since it is the only Russian epic to predate the Mongol invasion. The text was discovered in 1797 and then promptly lost in Moscow's great fire of 1812; suggestions that it might have been a fake have to be handled with care in Putin's Russia. Similarly, discussing putative Mughal (Islamic) elements in so-called "Hindu epics" can also be a delicate matter. Some "uses of the medieval" have been exercised for reactionary and revisionist causes in the USA, but such use is much more extravagant east of Prague. And what, exactly, is the national epic of the USA? What, for that matter, of England? Beowulf has long been celebrated as an English Ur-text, but is set in Denmark, is full of Danes (and has been claimed for Ulster by Seamus Heaney). Malory's Morte Darthur was chosen to provide scenes for the queen's new robing room (following the fire that largely destroyed the Palace of Westminster in 1834), but Queen Victoria found the designs unacceptable: too much popery and adultery. Foundations of literary history still in force today are rooted in nineteenth-century historiography: thus we have The Cambridge History of Italian Literature and The Cambridge History of German Literature, each covering a millennium, even though political entities by the name of Italy and Germany did not exist until the later nineteenth century. What alternative ways of narrating literary history might be found? Itinerary models, which do not observe national boundaries, might be explored, and also the cultural history of watercourses, such as the Rhine, Danube, or Nile. The exact choice of texts to be studied will depend in part on the interests of those who choose to enroll. Faculty with particular regional expertise will be invited to visit specific classes.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5904, ENGL 5940

1 Course Unit

ITAL 5990 Teaching and Learning

The course focuses on diverse areas of Foreign Language and Second Language Acquisition research and theories and how they apply to foreign language teaching. Students will familiarize themselves with the major foreign language methodologies and approaches, as well as the ACTFL standards and proficiency guidelines for foreign language learning. Similarly, students will analyze the resources and tools for planning instruction in a second language based on Backward Design and the Universal Design for Learning. Furthermore, students will research and discuss the most effective ways to promote diversity, inclusivity, and equity; enhance learning experiences and outcomes through technology; foster engagement and active learning; and build a sense of community in the foreign language classroom

Fall

Also Offered As: FREN 5990, GRMN 5990

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6010 Italian Literary Theory

Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6010

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6050 Modern Literary Theory and Criticism

This course will provide an overview of major European thinkers in critical theory of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will pay particular attention to critical currents that originated in Eastern European avant-garde and early socialist contexts and their legacies and successors. Topics covered will include: Russian Formalism and its successors in Structuralism and Deconstruction (Shklovsky, Levi-Strauss, Jakobson, Derrida); Bakhtin and his circle, dialogism and its later western reception; debates over aesthetics and politics of the 1930s (Lukacs, Brecht, Adorno, Benjamin, Radek, Clement Greenberg); the October group; Marxism, new Left criticism, and later lefts (Althusser, Williams, Eagleton, Jameson, Zizek).

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 6050, ENGL 6050, ENGL 7905, FREN 6050, GRMN 6050, REES 6435

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6070 Pier Paolo Pasolini: Aesthetics, Politics, Sexuality

Also Offered As: CIMS 6070, GSWS 6070

Mutually Exclusive: ITAL 3070

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6381 Troubadours at the Center

‘Troubadour’ is a term whose meaning has evolved from the eleventh century to our day. In the Middle Ages, a troubadour was a singer-songwriter (male or female) who composed in a language called Occitan, the language spoken in northern Italy, across southern France, and into today’s Catalonia. Medieval works in this language include epic poetry, didactic texts, lengthy romances, and love poetry. Renowned and imitated throughout medieval Europe – by authors from today’s Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal – the Occitan literary heritage cannot be ignored. Though sometimes presented as a dead language, Occitan is very much alive, and one purpose of this course is to introduce students to it and to its broad importance in European literary history. This course will present the literary and cultural history of the Occitan region, writ large, from the Middle Ages to the modern day. By the end of the course, students will be able to read Occitan with the aid of a dictionary; they will understand the culture of the French Midi as distinct from that of France; they will know something of the distinctive cultural elements of Occitania. They will also have a profound knowledge of at least one Occitan author, medieval, modern, or contemporary. The course will be taught in English. In addition to learning the material covered in the course, students will gain expertise in producing professional presentations and research papers.

Also Offered As: COML 6381, FREN 6381, GRMN 6381

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6500 Michelangelo and the Art of the Italian Renaissance

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ARTH 6500

Mutually Exclusive: ARTH 2500, ITAL 2550

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6540 Titian and Venetian Painting

This lecture course examines the art and architecture of the Venetian Republic, with emphasis on the work of the renowned painter, Titian.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ARTH 6540

1 Course Unit

ITAL 6541 Caravaggio

This lecture course explores the artistic culture of Baroque Rome, with focus on the life and career of Caravaggio.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ARTH 6541

1 Course Unit

ITAL 7320 Studies in Baroque Music

Seminar on selected topics in the music of the Baroque period. The seminar explores musical genres (madrigal, opera, cantata, etc.) using poetic texts in Italian (primarily), French, and German, which circulated mainly in Europe in both private and public settings during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Issues of reception and performance/staging during the 20th and 21st centuries are also investigated. Each instance of the seminar has a focus, e.g.: Monteverdi’s madrigals, opera in seventeenth-century Venice and Paris, Guarini and Marino in music, histories of the madrigal, Petrarchism and music, the ”Baroque” in theory and practice, Handel’s operas, staging Baroque opera today, historically informed performance practice, etc. Please see department website https://music.sas.upenn.edu/course-list/ for current term course descriptions.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: MUSC 7320

1 Course Unit

ITAL 7770 Francophone, Italian and Germanic Proseminar

This proseminar will introduce first-year FIGS graduate students to doctoral studies in the humanities. It is organized into four parts. Part I, “Scholarly Habits and Resources,” introduces students to a variety of resources at Penn, discusses the scholarly habits that graduate students should develop, and covers strategies for promoting mental and physical well-being as a graduate student. Part II, “Intervening in the Field,” introduces students to the processes of conference participation and article publication. Part III, “The Dissertation,” covers the ins-and-outs of writing the dissertation. Part IV, “Awards, Networking, and Jobs,” addresses the importance of awards and networking as well as the academic and non-academic job markets. While DEI issues are constantly addresses throughout the course, also in the form of assignments, there are also bridge sessions to other courses, especially on pedagogy and recent research trends. In addition to weekly discussions and activities, this course will include a number of guest speakers who will share their expertise and give guidance on the how-tos of the field. Students will be given pre- as well as post-class activities to reflect on each week’s topic and begin to prepare a dossier for later use in their graduate studies. Much of the information in this proseminar becomes particularly relevant during the final years of coursework and your dissertation writing years, but it is important to be introduced to these topics and to begin to think about them now. This course is designed for PhD students in Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies. Many of the topics apply to all three fields; however, students will also have the opportunity to work on areas that are specific to their language for certain topics. They will also be able to add to the course materials for future graduate students in FIGS.

Fall

Also Offered As: FREN 7770, GRMN 7770

1 Course Unit

ITAL 8000 Exam Preparation

PhD Exam Preparation

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

ITAL 9950 Dissertation

Preparation for the dissertation

Fall or Spring

0 Course Units

ITAL 9999 Independent Study

Independent research under the supervision of a department faculty member. Research topic is determined in consultation with the supervising faculty member.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

Italian (ITAL)

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