Language Courses
ITAL 3355 – Advanced Italian Conversation – The course is designed to achieve communicative proficiency and will develop the necessary skills to communicate and writing effectively in Italian with a great importance given to vocabulary and idioms. It includes grammar review through expository articles.
ITAL 3357 – Italian Grammar and Composition – Analysis and imitation of short contemporary texts: letters, film reviews, articles, criticism, narratives. Development of oral and written proficiency. Selective study of grammar.
(Prerequisite: ITAL 2401)
ITAL 3373 – Italian Culture – The evolution of Italian society with emphasis on cultural, artistic and intellectual trends.
(Prerequisite: ITAL 2401)
Literature Courses
ITAL 4323 – Modern Italian Literature II – From the latter half of the 19th century to World War I. Realism, Decadentism, and the Grotesque. Authors studied are Verga, DíAnnunzio, Pirandello.
(Prerequisite: ITAL 2401)
ITAL 4324 – Contemporary Italian Literature – The Fascist Period and World War II. Introspection, society and the problem of evil: Moravia, Pavese, Bassani, Buzzati and Ginzburg.
(Prerequisite: ITAL 2401)
ITAL 4325 – Italian Poetry Since Dante – Historical survey of works of poetry presented in their original form, from the medieval Dolce Stil Novo to the poetic styles of the twentieth century.
(Prerequisite: ITAL 3357 or permission of the instructor)
ITAL 4368 – Italian Authors: Contemporary
(Prerequisite: ITAL 2401)
ITAL 4381 & ITAL 4382 – Tutorial for Juniors and Seniors: Directed Readings and Research – Directed reading and research in specific literary topics or writers.
(Prerequisite: ITAL 3357 or permission of the instructor)
Italian Culture and Literature Courses in English
FL 2201 – Italy Today: Contemporary Italian Culture and Institutions
FL 2395 – Italian Culture
FL 3390 (CTV 3390) – Italian Cinema
FL 3391 TOPICS IN ITALIAN LITERATURE in translation- The Italian Novel- The course aims to develop an appreciation of the modern Italian novel through a close reading of five representative works. While the novels will be considered in light of historical events, we give special attention to the form and rhetoric of the novel in order to understand its unique ability to express and create reality.
FL 3392 TOPICS IN ITALIAN LITERATURE in translation- EARLY ITALIAN HUMANISM- The course helps students to define and characterize major aspects of early Italian Humanism (the belief that certain academic subjects known since ancient times as the studia humanitatis must shape the education and culture of those who rule society) by exploring seminal works of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and others.
FL 3393 DANTE'S POETIC VISION- The Divine Comedy is a work of exceptional cultural and poetic value that reflects a specific world vision strongly conditioned by religious and political philosophy. While invested with the political passions of the time, the poem profoundly explores the many facets of the human soul, affirms a sense of divine justice, and reveals an extraordinary expressive and inventive power that would, ultimately, change the course of the Italian language. Students will read the Inferno and Purgatory in English translation.
FL 3394 Boccaccio’s Decameron and Medieval Storytelling- The course locates the 14th century masterpiece, the Decameron, in the context of its narrative predecessors so that in addition to the novella, students are introduced to such varied genres as Roman exempla, hagiography, monks’ tales, sermons, and the bawdy French tales, the fabliaux. Students will read stories from the Decameron in English translation.