Italian (ITAL)

ITAL 081 Film Music in Post 1950 Italy: Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone

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.

Taught by: Samuel

Also Offered As: CIMS 081, MUSC 081

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: CIMS 014, COML 107

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 101 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 120 should register for Italian 110 rather than Italian 101. 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.

Taught by: Lillyrose Veneziano Broccia

Course usually offered in spring term

Activity: Seminar

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. Class sessions include lectures and interactive discussions. Between classes, the learning experience is extended through assignments, lectures and discussions.

Taught by: Lillyrose Veneziano Broccia

Course usually offered in fall term

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

Taught by: Veneziano Broccia

One-term course offered either term

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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. Prerequisite: Proficiency in another foregin language. 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

2.0 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

Taught by: Veneziano Broccia

One-term course offered either term

Prerequisite: ITAL 110

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Prerequisite: ITAL 120

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Prerequisite: ITAL 112

Activity: Seminar

2.0 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

Prerequisite: ITAL 130

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 180 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. Knowledge of Italian Language at any level is prerequisite.

Taught by: Lillyrose Veneziano Broccia

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. Prerequisite: 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. 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

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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. Prerequisite: Open to students who have completed ITAL 201. Please see the Undergraduate Chair if you have any questions. 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

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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. Prerequisite: Open to students who have completed ITAL 201 or equivalent.

For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector

One-term course offered either term

Also Offered As: COML 203

Prerequisite: ITAL 201

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: CIMS 206, COML 206

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 205 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.

Taught by: Broccia

Course usually offered summer term only

Also Offered As: CIMS 204, COML 208, ENGL 083

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

Notes: Course taught in English. Course Materials in English. There are no prerequisites for this course.

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. Prerequisite: Open to students who have completed ITAL 201 or equivalent.

Course not offered every year

Prerequisite: ITAL 201

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

1.0 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

1.0 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

1.0 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

1.0 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

Also Offered As: CLST 230, COML 248, GRMN 232, HIST 230, JWST 230

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 257 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. All readings and discussions in English.

For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: CIMS 257, COML 269, GRMN 257

Activity: Lecture

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 288 Modern Italian Culture: Italian American Experiences

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

Taught by: Veneziano Broccia

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: CIMS 240

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: CIMS 300, COML 300, ENGL 231

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 308 Renaissance Europe

One-term course offered either term

Also Offered As: HIST 308

Activity: Lecture

1.0 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. When crosslisted with ENGL 323, this is a Benjamin Franklin Seminar.

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: COML 333, ENGL 323

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

Notes: When crosslisted with ENGL 323, this is a Benjamin Franklin Seminar

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

Also Offered As: CIMS 387

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 398 Honors Thesis

One-term course offered either term

Activity: Independent Study

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 399 Independent Study

One-term course offered either term

Activity: Independent Study

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 499 Independent Study

Course usually offered in fall term

Activity: Independent Study

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 511 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.

Taught by: Del Soldato

Course usually offered in spring term

Also Offered As: COML 513

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 512 A Black Seed (He) Sowed: An Introduction to Paleography & History of Books

Course not offered every year

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

1.0 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

Also Offered As: COML 533

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: COML 524

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 540 Plato and Aristotle in the Renaissance

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 Latin West 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.

Taught by: Del Soldato

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: CLST 540, COML 545, PHIL 545

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 541 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. Undergraduates must obtain permission from instructor to enroll.

Taught by: Soldato

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: COML 552, FREN 541

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: COML 593, JWST 581

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

1.0 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

Also Offered As: CIMS 584

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 594 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.

Taught by: Wallace

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: COML 591, ENGL 594

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: COML 609

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: COML 602, MUSC 604

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 641 Topics in Southern Renaissance Art

Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Fall 2020 semester, the topic will be "Figure and Ground." We owe the Renaissance picture more than the idealized human figure. For figure, depends on ground, here defined in at least three senses: 1) the ground as the material preparation of the support; 2) the plane where figures anchor their place in the pictorial world; and 3) the field in and against which figuration occurs, namely the background. In this graduate seminar, we will attempt to discuss, debate, and formulate ideas and methods to interpret the Renaissance picture according to these three semantic areas of ground. We will begin with gold grounds in the fourteenth century and conclude with the darkened grounds of tenebrist painters such as Caravaggio. In addition to reading current art historical scholarship grappling with several "turns" (material, global, ecocritical) as well as Anne Cheng's notion of "ornamentalism" that draws from critical race and gender theory, we will also focus our attention on those Renaissance writers who described and prescribed the look of the picture in ways not usually accommodated by standard art historical approaches. Rather than recuperating the ground as an integral category, we will instead consider the acute dilemma of the ground's theoretical exception.

Taught by: Kim

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: ARTH 750

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

Also Offered As: CIMS 682, COML 680, GSWS 682

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 685 20th Century Italian Culture

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

Course not offered every year

Also Offered As: ARTH 786, COML 786

Activity: Seminar

1.0 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

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 691 Italian Teaching & Learning

Two terms. student must enter first term.

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 800 Exam Preparation

PhD Exam Preparation

Course not offered every year

Activity: Seminar

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 995 Dissertation

One-term course offered either term

Activity: Dissertation

1.0 Course Unit

ITAL 999 Independent Study

One-term course offered either term

Activity: Independent Study

1.0 Course Unit