ITAL 240 - Italian Folklore and Popular Culture

Through multiple interdisciplinary approaches, this course focuses on the dynamics between Italian folklore, or materials that are produced outside of the authoritative and sanctioned Culture, and their depictions in 20th-21st-century popular culture. It will explore the oral narratives (fairy tales, legends, saints' legends) and customary crafts of ordinary Italians and Italian Americans, their variations through the transmission process and their depictions in contemporary media. To better understand folkloristics materials, we will situate them in their cultural contexts: specifically, the culture of the historical Italian peasantry and working-class people as well their geographical placements (North, South, and the implications thereof).