Italian (ITAL)
ITAL 081 Film Music Post-1950 Italy
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 100 Topics: Freshman Seminar
Topics vary. See the Department's website at https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses for a description of current offerings.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 101 Italian Survival Kit: The Language and Culture of getting around in Italy
The following course is delivered in a fully online format in order to allow more flexibility for LPS students. Class sessions are offered through a course website and include live lectures and interactive discussions through both direct messaging and voice-over internet. Between classes, the learning experience is extended through assignments, threaded discussions and office hours. For additional information, please visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/onlinelearning This online course provides the flexibility of distance-learning and 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 survival 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. Class meetings combine original as well as online, authentic content. Adobe Connect allows students to engage in collaborative interaction under the instructor's supervision. Students participate in conversations that replicate day-to-day life in Italy, thereby developing the skills needed for face-to-face and online situations.
Taught by: Dr. Lillyrose Veneziano Broccia
Activity: Lecture
0.5 Course Units
ITAL 105 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. This course is delivered in an online format, with occasional face-to-face meetings. Class sessions are offered through a course website and include live lectures and interactive discussions. Between classes, the learning experience is extended through assignments, lectures and discussions.
Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for ITAL 105: Sicilian Language and Culture.
Activity: Seminar
0.5 Course Units
ITAL 110 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.
For BA Students: Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 112 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.
For BA Students: Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Proficiency in another foreign language.
Activity: Seminar
2 Course Units
ITAL 120 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.
For BA Students: Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Completion of Italian 110 or placement into second-semester Italian.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 130 Intermediate Italian I
Italian 130 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.
For BA Students: Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Completion of Italian 120 at Penn or a placement score between 450 and 540 on the Achievement Exam (SAT II).
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 134 Accelerated Intermediate Italian
Italian 134 is the intensive and accelerated course that combines in one semester the intermediate sequence (130 and 140). 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.
For BA Students: Last Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Italian 112 or departmental permit; proficiency in another foreign language.
Activity: Seminar
2 Course Units
ITAL 140 Intermediate Italian II
Italian 140 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.
For BA Students: Last Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Completion of Italian 130 at Penn or placement into Italian 140.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 180 Italian Conversation in Residence
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses All coursework will be in Italian. Currently and previously enrolled students of Italian will be given priority for registration. Please contact the instructor, Dr. Frank Pellicone, or the Undergraduate Chair, Dr. Lillyrose Veneziano-Broccia, for permission to register.
Two terms. student may enter either term.
Activity: Seminar
0.5 Course Units
ITAL 201 Advanced Italian I
Italian 201 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.
For BA Students: Advanced Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Open to students who have satisfied the language requirement in Italian. ITAL 201 or equivalent is a prerequisite for all other courses taught in Italian at the 200/300 level.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 202 Advanced Italian II
In Italian 202, 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.
For BA Students: Advanced Language Course
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed ITAL 201. Please see the Undergraduate Chair if you have any questions.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 203 Masterpieces-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 203 is mandatory for Minors in Italian Literature and Majors in Italian Literature. If necessary, ITAL 201 can be taken at the same time as ITAL 203.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed ITAL 201 or equivalent.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 204 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.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 208 Business Italian
The course is conducted entirely in Italian and should be taken after completion of Italian 201 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.
Course not offered every year
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed ITAL 201 or equivalent.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 213 Contemporary Italy Through Film
Topics vary. See the Department's website for a description of the current offering at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 217 Survey of Italian Theater
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 218 Film Sound and Film Music
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 220 Cultura E Letteratura
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 222 Topics in Italian Cinema
Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 230 Topics in European History
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 250 The Modern Novel: the Novel & Marriage
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 257 Fascist Cinemas
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
ITAL 288 Modern Italian Culture
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 300 Topics in Italian History, Literature, and Culture
Topics vary. Please check the department's website for a course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 308 Renaissance Europe
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
ITAL 322 Italian Cinema
The course will consist of a broad and varied sampling of classic Italian films from WWII to the present. The curriculum will be divided into four units: (1) The Neorealist Revolution, (2) Metacinema, (3) Fascism and War Revisited, and (4) Postmodernism or the Death of the Cinema. One of the aims of the course will be to develop a sense of "cinematic literacy"--to develop critical techniques that will make us active interpreters of the cinematic image by challenging the expectations that Hollywood has implanted in us: that films be action-packed, wish-fulfillment fantasies. Italian cinema will invite us to re-examine and revise the very narrow conception that we have of the medium. We will also use the films as a means to explore the postwar Italian culture so powerfully reflected, and in turn, shaped, by its national cinema. Classes will include close visual analysis of films using video clips and slides. The films will be in Italian with English subtitles and will include works of Fellini, Antonioni, De Sica, Visconti, Pasolini, Wertuller, Rossellini, Bertolucci and Moretti. Students will be asked actively to participate in class discussion, and to write a series of critical papers keyed to the units around which the course will be organized. Substantial Writing Component.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 333 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.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: When crosslisted with ENGL 323, this is a Benjamin Franklin Seminar
ITAL 340 Topics in the Renaissance
Content Varies. Possible contents may be: Renaissance Women Writers, Love and Sexuality in the Renaissance.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 341 Topics: Italian Art
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 380 Italian Literature of the 20th Century
Topics vary, covering a range of genres and authors. The reading material and the bibliographical references will be provided in a course reader. Further material will be presented in class. Requirements include class attendance, preparation, and participation, a series of oral responses, and a final oral presentation.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 384 The Holocaust in Italian Literature and Film
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 388 Italian-American Writers
This course will explore the emerging field of Italian American literature, a vast and varied collection of English language writers and poets who have one element in common: l'Italianita. We shall become acquainted not with the Italian Renaissance, but with a humbler Italy, the Italy that has determined the lives of millions of Italians so poor that they had to leave their country to try their fortunes in the United States and only now are making their voices heard. Readings will be a journey through first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants. Authors tell their stories and those of their illiterate parents or grandparents in memoires, autobiographies, and novels that witness their struggle, humiliation, and success from alienation to assimilation. The course will relate more broadly to issues of self and other, to the American immigrant experience of other ethnic groups in their process of Americanization. Authors include Tamburri, Barolini, Di Donato, Fante, Puzo, Mangione, Gambino, Prose, DeRosa, and Parini. Course offered in English, but if some students wish to practice the Italian language and use it in their written work, they are welcome and encouraged to do so.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: No prerequisites
ITAL 398 Honors Thesis
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
ITAL 399 Independent Study
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
ITAL 499 Independent Study
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
ITAL 512 A Black Seed (He) Sowed: An Introduction to Paleography & History of Books
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. The class will meet in Van Pelt.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 530 Medieval Italian Literature
Medieval Italian society, art, intellectual and political history. Please check the department's website for the course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 531 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.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: This course may sometimes be taught as the first part of a two-semester sequence.
ITAL 532 Divina Commedia II
"Divine Comedy" in the context of Dante's medieval worldview and culture.
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisite: Italian 531
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 535 Petrarch
Petrarch's life and work in the context of Italian and European culture and society.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 537 Boccaccio
Boccaccio's life and work in the context of Italian and European culture and society.
Taught by: Brownlee
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 540 Topics: Renaissance Culture
Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 581 Modern/Contemporary Italian Culture
Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 583 Post-Human Landscapes
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 584 20th-Century Italian Fiction and Film
Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 586 Topics in Italian Cinema
Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 588 Cinema and the Sister Arts
Cinema as a pan-generic system constructed of other art forms, including fiction, theater, painting, photography, music and dance.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 601 Italian Literary Theory
Please see department website for current description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 602 Tools of the Trade
Theoretical and practical aspects of academic research. Please check the department's website for the course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 603 Sociolinguistic Varieties
Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 630 Medieval Italian Lierature
Medieval Italian society, art, intellectual and political history. Advanced- level course.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 634 Woman's Place/Medieval Poetry
Poetry by women and about women. Advanced-level course.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 640 Studies in the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance Italian society, art, intellectual and political history. Advanced-level course.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 641 Topics in Southern Renaissance Art
Topic varies. Fall 2018: This innovative course will explore the cross-fertilization between manuscript illumination and other media such as wall-painting, panel painting, architecture, sculpture, and stained glass across the early modern world, 1300-1600. We will consider such topics as: intermediality, artistic transfer, miniature vs. monumental, workshop practice, patronage, and the nascent art market. Students will have the rare opportunity to see and handle manuscripts held in area collections such as the Kislak Center and the Free Library of Philadelphia. This course is open to all students who are interested in artistic practice, the historical dimensions of media, and the social function of art. Our seminar will be coordinated with the Annual Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies (November 15-17, 2018), which will bring together an international group of experts in the field.?
Taught by: Kim
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 660 18th Century Italian Culture
18th-century Italian society, art, intellectual and political history.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 672 Narrativa '800-'900
Modern and contemporary Italian fiction.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 681 Representations of Women in Italian Cinema
Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 682 Topics: Literature and Film
Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 685 20th Century Italian Culture
Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 687 Pasolini and Calvino
Please see department website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/graduate/courses
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 691 Italian Teaching & Learning
Two terms. student must enter first term.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 800 Exam Preparation
PhD Exam Preparation
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ITAL 990 Masters Thesis
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Masters Thesis
1 Course Unit
ITAL 995 Dissertation
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Dissertation
1 Course Unit
ITAL 998 Tutorial
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
ITAL 999 Independent Study
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit