ITAL 103     Elementary Italian I  (4)

An intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week.

ITAL 104     Elementary Italian II  (4)

An intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week. Prerequisite: ITAL 103 or placement.

ITAL 203     Intermediate Italian  (4)

An intensive grammar review. Emphasis is on correct expression, vocabulary, and reading facility. Students completing this class may register for ITAL 301. Prerequisite: ITAL 104 or placement.

ITAL 301     Introduction to Italian Literature  (4)

This course serves as a bridge from language and culture courses to literary studies. Students read Italian poetry from the thirteenth century to the present, with discussions focusing on the comprehension of complex grammatical structures, tools for literary analysis, and historical-cultural analysis of Italian poetic works. Taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 203 or placement.

ITAL 302     Introduction to Drama  (4)

This course serves as a bridge from language and culture courses to literary studies. Students read Italian plays from the sixteenth century to the present, with discussions focusing on the comprehension of complex grammatical structures, tools for literary analysis, and historical-cultural analysis of Italian poetic works. Taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 203 or placement.

ITAL 303     Introduction to Prose  (4)

This course serves as a bridge from language and culture courses to literary studies. Students read texts in a variety of major genres (letters, short stories, travelogues, treatises, novels) from the fourteenth century to the present. Students also continue to develop language skills by observing complex grammatical structures while acquiring the tools needed to conduct literary analysis and criticism. Taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 203 or placement.

ITAL 304     Petrarch's Many Tongues  (4)

Petrarch has many claims to fame: master of the love sonnet, obsessive curator of the lyric self, father of humanism, stylistic exemplar to the Renaissance. Students will delve deeply into Petrarch's Canzoniere -- his major collection of poetry -- and his pithy works in prose, gaining a nuanced understanding of the 14th-century Italian author's contribution to the Western literary canon. All texts will be read and discussed in English; students with knowledge of Italian or Latin are encouraged to read in the original language.

ITAL 305     Italian Culture and Society  (4)

This course examines themes of Italian culture and society (such as art, architecture, music, food, folklore, migration) through texts from various media. Taught in Italian. Prerequisite: ITAL 203.

ITAL 309     Italian Americans in Cinema and Literature  (4)

This course analyzes the experience of migration and assimilation of Italian Americans in films and novels. Coursework explores the representation of Italian American identities with regards to race and ethnicity, family and gender roles, labor and political activism, and the glamorization of crime. This course is taught in English.

ITAL 310     Being Good in Medieval and Renaissance Italy  (4)

This course involves the examination of medieval and Early Modern Italian texts that aim to define morals, ethics, or manners. What does it mean to be a good person? What makes for a good community? How should one order one's responsibilities to the self, community, and God? What is justice, and where might it be found? If people desire good things, why do they often find vice more interesting than virtue? Such questions are addressed through analysis of selected writings by Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Baldassare Castiglione, and Giovanni Della Casa. Taught in English, but students with the equivalent of four semesters of Italian language may elect to do some reading or other coursework in Italian.

ITAL 315     Italian Cinema  (4)

This course focuses on Italian cinema from Neorealism to the present day. Through films, the course examines the social, cultural, and political history of Italy from the 1940s to today. Taught in English.

ITAL 325     Women Writers in Early Modern Italy  (4)

A study of poetry, plays, letters, treatises, and prose written by Italian women in the fifteenth-seventeenth centuries. Students examine the varied ways in which women in early modern Italy engaged questions of gender, aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy in their writings, encountered here in translation.

ITAL 326     Environmental Crises in Italy  (4)

This course explores modern and contemporary environmental crises through the lens of Italy and its experts: ecocritics, writers, and filmmakers. We will track the meaning of key terms such as “environment,” “ecology,” “nature,” analyzing how the history of environmental crises and discourse on current crises are integrated into the critical analyses of key Italian literary and cinematic texts. We will take the lessons learned from Italian texts to interrogate the underlying causes behind the environmental issues that humanity currently faces and to propose approaches that could potentially resolve them. Prerequisite: ITAL 203.

ITAL 350     Special Topics  (4)

Study of a variable topic of special interest pertaining to Italian literature, culture, or cinema. Taught in English. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.

ITAL 355     Special Topics  (4)

An introduction to a literary genre or other special topic of interest in Italian literary or cultural studies. Taught in Italian. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs. Prerequisite: ITAL 203.

ITAL 440     Directed Reading  (2 or 4)

A study of Italian literature from the twelfth century to the present. Texts selected will vary each spring. Taught in Italian. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs. Prerequisite: Instructor prerequisite override required.