Course Schedule

ITAL 101 – Elementary Italian I

Listening, speaking, reading, and writing; introduction to the basic structures and vocabulary of Italian. (Does not count toward the Italian major or minor.)

ITAL 102 – Elementary Italian II

Listening, speaking, reading and writing; an introduction to the basic structures and vocabulary of Italian, continuation. (Does not count toward the Italian major or minor.)

ITAL 150B1 – The Holocaust in France and Italy

The course examines the origins, development, and implementation of discriminatory racial policies in France and Italy as well as their impact on Jewish citizens during and after World War II through the study of historical texts, survivor testimonies, war memoirs, memorials, commemorations and film.

ITAL 160D1 – Food for Thought in Italian Culture

Food has always been an important thread woven through the fabric of Italian culture. Italian cuisine, as diverse and heterogeneous as it is inside the country from North to South, largely contributed to the building of a strong Italian identity, as testified in recent times by the worldwide success of large-scale marketplaces such as Eataly. This course will investigate food's role in shaping Italian society and its cultural practices by looking at images of food in visual art, literature and film. Our historical review will focus on the many symbolic meanings circulating around the representation of food in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the 20th and 21st centuries. Food will be a lens through which we will read the political, social, and economic changes that have affected Italy in its millennial history.

ITAL 201 – Intermediate Italian I

Continued skill development; reinforcement of basic language skills.

ITAL 202 – Intermediate Italian II

Continued skill development; reinforcement of basic language skills.

ITAL 230 – Introduction to Italian Culture

This gateway course introduces students to Italian thought and culture through multiple perspectives and disciplines including history, philosophy. literary traditions and cultures, arts and architecture, film, cultural studies and geography. By the end of the course, students will have acquired a broad historical understanding of Italian culture and a deeper sense of the interdisciplinary perspectives that contribute meaning to individual and collective Italian identities. Taught in English.

ITAL 231 – Fashion and Culture in France and Italy

The study of fashion is an important conduit for the expression of social identity, political ideas, and aesthetic taste. This course considers the history of style, fashion and dress in France and Italy from a cultural and fashion studies perspective. After a general introduction to models of interpretation and conceptual terms, FREN/ITAL 231 surveys topics in French and Italian fashion design and history from the 1300s to the present day

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).

ITAL 250B – The Italian Renaissance

This course investigates the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, a time when renewed interest in the Classical past completely altered Western Culture: the arts flourished, the sciences developed, and philosophers re-conceived of the value of the individual. This course focuses on the great artists and writers of the age, for instance, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Gaspara Stampa, and Veronica Franco. This course may be applied toward the major or minor in Italian or Italian Studies (please speak with an advisor for more information). Taught in English.

ITAL 310 – Italian Encounters: Spoken Italian in Context

Course emphasizes advanced spoken language through the study of Italian popular culture, which can include history, music, media studies, cultural studies, literature, the visual arts, and everyday Italian life.

ITAL 320 – Italian Encounters: Written Italian in Context

Course emphasizes advanced written language as found in Italian culture through a variety of genres, which can include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, opera, cinema, music and history.

ITAL 330A – Resisting Fascism

This course examines how artists dealt with the Italian armed resistance against Fascism particularly during the last two years of World War II, and its continuing importance in post-war Italy. The course analyzes how the representation of the Resistance in literature, art and film have evolved and why, with reference to numerous artistic, literary, and cinematic works. The course aims also at inspiring reflections on the relevance of rethinking the history of that period in light of present political developments in Italy and Europe.

ITAL 410 – Words and Worlds: Italian Literature and/or Film

Course is an advanced seminar on Italian narratives, either visual or literary.

ITAL 498H – Honors Thesis

An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course for two sequential semesters. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.