2022-23 Course Offerings

ITA1000H (Fall/Winter) - Methodologies for the Teaching and Study of Italian / Staff

Students are introduced to basic reference materials necessary for research and will familiarize themselves with the Reference, Periodical Rooms, and the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library. They will also study philological, computer-assisted and critical methods for the study of Italian literature and linguistics.

ITA1177HS/ITA427HS (Winter):  The Italian Questione della Lingua / F. Pierno

The aim of this course is to retrace “la questione della lingua” in Italy in order to suggest a different approach to, as well as another perspective on this crucial period of the history of Italian literature and language. Particular attention is given to those factors, which are usually considered marginal (book market, economic situation, religious influence, popular texts/works, and so on) to show how they interacted with the question of language. The main idea is that these very factors had a profound impact on Italian society and determined the socio-linguistic situation that ensued in the Italian peninsula.

ITA1535HF/ITA426HF (Fall) - Topics in Italian Literature: Women Writers in Italy / E. Morra  

The course analyzes the relationship between female identity and autobiographical component in some key texts of modern and contemporary Italian literature. We will reflect on the genesis and structure of the selection of texts, as well as on the relationship between documentable facts and autobiographical construction. The analysis of the cultural context will give us the opportunity to address the issues of genre (novel, autobiography, autofiction, diary, memoir), structural units (short story, dialogues, fragments), registers (irony and the comic, the epic and anti-epic) and to reflect on the models that shaped the textual corpus. Among the authors analyzed: Sibilla Aleramo, Grazia Deledda, Anna Banti, Natalia Ginzburg, Anna Maria Ortese, Elsa Morante, Jhumpa Lahiri. Students will conduct seminars on specific case studies of the theoretical issues raised in the course.

ITA1535HS (Winter) -  From Lombroso to the DDL Zan. Discourses of Gender and Sexuality in Italian Culture, 1870s - present day / Goggio Visiting Professor Charlotte Ross

Debates on gender and sexuality are increasingly central to Italian cultural life and politics. This course starts and ends with contemporary attitudes to gender, sexuality and identity. We begin by exploring some recent heated exchanges between politicians and high-profile cultural figures in the media, before jumping back in time to the late 19th century, when sexological theories began to impact significantly on the treatment of and attitudes towards ‘non-normative’ subjects. Drawing on medical tracts, legal and historical documents, literary and media texts, the course encourages students to engage critically with the development of socio-cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality over the last 150 years, and to analyse both the legacies of 19th century thought, and the impact of globalisation on the current situation. 

ITA1540HF/ITA425HF (Fall) - Renaissance Italian Theatre / L. Ingallinella

This course will investigate the representation of identity and difference in Renaissance Italy by interrogating spectacles designed for a public or private audience. By using an interdisciplinary approach, this course will combine close reading and book history with diverse critical frameworks such as gender performativity, Marxist theory, premodern critical race studies, and disability theory. Our goal will be to investigate how critical theory, in its varying facets, can help expose power structures and tensions within Renaissance and early modern literary artifacts—in this specific case, dramaturgical texts—as they relate to gender, sexuality, class, religious difference, and race. Representative authors to be studied are: Isabella Andreini, Pietro Aretino, Lodovico Ariosto, Feo Belcari, Maddalena Campiglia, Niccolò Machiavelli, Lorenzo de' Medici, Antonia Pulci, Beolco-Ruzante, Gian Giorgio Trissino. 

ITA1705HS/ITA426HS (Winter): Pirandello / L. Somigli

The cultural and theoretical issues that constitute the foundation of Luigi Pirandello’s essay on humor will provide the background against which several of his novels, short stories and/or plays will be discussed.  Narrative and dramatic texts are intertwined in the dialogic history of Pirandello’s overturning of traditional XIX century narrative and dramatic strategies. During the seminar, students will be engaged in the investigation of the complex trajectory travelled by Luigi Pirandello in his remapping of both genres (i.e. narrative and drama) in the Western tradition.

ITA1735HF (Fall) - Second Language teaching methodologies: From research to practice / E. Piccardo

This course deals with current theories and practice in second and foreign language methodologies, as well as their role and implications on language learning and teaching. Students will be introduced to several of the fundamental concepts of second language teaching. Starting from a historical overview of the evolution of language teaching methodologies and their informing theories, the course will provide a hand on experience to students by means of sample model classes as one of the assignments.

The latest developments in the field and the new perspectives opened by research will play a major role in the course, particularly the move from the communicative to the action-oriented approach, the notion of plurilingualism/pluriculturalism, and the pedagogical vision of assessment.

The course, offered in the department of Italian studies and open to both students of Italian and of other languages, is very relevant to students who intend to pursue a career in language education. Any language teaching experience of the students will act as a springboard to collectively develop students’ professional knowledge and critical capacities. In this respect, according to the composition of the class subgroups will be organized with students specializing in different languages.

ITA1737HS/ITA425HS (Winter): Reading Black Italy / A. Pesarini

This course will explore texts of different genres produced by Italian authors of African descent including novels, essays, poetry, slam poetry, short stories, autobiographical writing. Topics will include issues of race, gender, identity, racism and anti-racism, colonialism, coming to age experiences, agency, and resistance. This course will follow the principles of a reading group in which students will have the opportunity to take part in collective readings, using the Italian original texts or the English translation, with further socio-cultural context provided in class. Students will be asked to lead class conversations, presentations and text analysis. On occasion, some of the authors will join the class and engage in Q&A and conversations. During the course, students will also be invited to explore forms of autobiographical/creative/fiction writing as forms of assignment.

2022-23 Timetable

Fall Term (September 2022 - December 2022)

~ All times stated in Eastern Time. ~

Winter Term (January 2023 - April 2023) (ITA Grad Winter courses are not yet open for registration)

~ All times stated in Eastern Time. ~