Course Descriptions
Italian (ITAL)

To view the complete schedule of courses for
each semester, go to Cardinal Students.

ITAL 101: Elementary Italian I
3 Credits

Designed for students with little or no prior experience with Italian. Introduction to the basic principles of language necessary for written and oral communication. Students use fundamental principles of vocabulary and grammar structures to talk about daily life and gain insights into aspects of Italian culture through simple readings and Internet activities. Class meets three days per week, plus one additional lab session in the multimedia classroom.

ITAL 102: Elementary Italian II
3 Credits

Continuation of Italian 101. Students speak and write about the present, past and future and continue to explore Italian culture through readings and Internet activities. Class meets three days per week, plus one additional lab session in the multimedia classroom. Prerequisite: C- or better in Italian 101, appropriate placement score or equivalent.

ITAL 103: Intermediate Italian I
3 Credits

Students improve their communication skills by discussing and writing about various topics drawn from readings and film focused on Italian culture. Includes some review and expansion of grammar and vocabulary. Class meets three days per week, plus one additional lab session in the multimedia classroom. Prerequisite: C- or better in Italian 102, appropriate placement score or equivalent.

ITAL 104: Intermediate Italian II
3 Credits

Continuation of Italian 103. Class meets three days per week, plus one additional lab session in the multimedia classroom. Prerequisite: C- or better in Italian 103, appropriate placement score or equivalent.

ITAL 177: Freshmen Seminar:
3 Credits

Students examine the complex world of Italy during WWII and its immediate aftermath. Elsa Morante's La Storia: romanzo is the main reading text. Set in Roma, the novel simultaneously lends itself to discussion both, on the notion of historical truth and also on what history entails--or amounts to--for simple human beings. Neo-realist cinema is an indispensable tool of reference for this dramatic moment in Italian history. Taught in English. Recommended for Italian Studies Minors.

ITAL 203: Advanced Italian I: Talking About Culture
3 Credits

This course emphasizes the development of conversational skills, vocabulary expansion, while deepening students' knowledge of current Italian literary, social, and cultural events through the study of Marco Tullio Giordana's 2002 film The Best of Youth. It also develops effective written skills in various contexts and prepares them for written assignments in upper division Italian courses. From a cultural standpoint, students will concentrate on pivotal Italian historic events occurred in the last thirty years which they will follow as the screening of Giordana's movie progresses. Newspapers and magazines will also be part of the material. Students will read/see these narratives with a pertinent critical approach, focusing on techniques and strategies, such as narration and summary of a story.

ITAL 204: Advanced Italian II: Talking About Culture
3 Credits

An ideal follow-up of Italian 203 (but the sequence can be inverted), Italian 204 is designed to further develop language skills through discussions of texts, films (The Best of Youth but not exclusively), and contemporary events, debates, writing workshops, and grammar review, while introducing a more complex syntax, both in conversation and writing.

ITAL 301: Survey of Italian Literature I
3 Credits

Readings in Italian, lectures and discussions introduce a broad range of topics on Italian literary genres from the Middle Ages to the end of the sixteenth century. The issue of a national language, Dante Alighieri's Comedia and its importance as the most important literary work in vernacular, Boccaccio's Decameron and the tradition of novellare, Ariosto's Orlando furioso, the gentilomo and the political writings of late Renaissance are some of the topics analyzed during this semester. Designed to fulfill requirement of Minor in Italian Studies and Humanities. Prerequisite: Italian 104.

ITAL 302: Survey of Italian Literature II
3 Credits

A continuation of the previous course. Survey II begins with the Italian Baroque and presents major authors (Foscolo, Manzoni, Leopardi) and the most important periods of Italian literature up to the beginning of Twentieth Century in a wide social and cultural context. Designed to fulfill requirement of Minor in Italian Studies and humanities. Prerequisite: Italian 301.

ITAL 304: Italy and the Renaissance
3 Credits

Italian Renaissance has consistently been a fascinating topic of study throughout the centuries. In this course, students will engage with texts highly representative of the culture of Renaissance, a period in which scholars stressed the importance of the liberty of the human spirit to form new models for the advancement of humankind in the arts, ethics, politics, and science (just to name some fields that thrived during this period). From humanist Petrarch to Boccaccio, from architect Alberti to Leonardo da Vinci, from political theorist Machiavelli to Campanella, important narratives of history, art, and literature will be analyzed to fully appreciate the cultural legacy of Italian Renaissance. Students will be encouraged to pursue their specific interests within the context of the course. Course taught in English. It satisfies humanities and literature requirements. It satisfies Italian Studies Minor Requirements.

ITAL 305: Culture Society and Space in the Italian Renaissance
3 Credits

Students will enjoy the reading and discussion of some of the most important Humanist and Renaissance texts revolving around fundamental cultural topics: the role of nature, the status of women, the epic genre, the neo-Platonic debate on beauty, the political, private, religious, intellectual and literary life in different Italian cities (Florence, Ferrara, and Venice).

ITAL 306: The Italian American Experience; A Survey
3 Credits

In this course students will analyze Italian migration in the United States from a cultural and literary point of view. The formation of a new identity arises from the bridging of the former culture and the new one to master. The process of formation, along with the issues raising from the condition of immigrants and the energy drawn from a new economic situation of mobility, have led Italian American artists to express themselves successfully in fiction and poetry, in film and in the visual arts. These are some of the aspects that students, after a historical introduction to the phenomenon, will observe and study during the semester. Lectures are supplemented by film excerpts and guest lecturers.

ITAL 308: From the Nutcracker to Science Fiction: The Fantastic in Italian Literature
3 Credits

Studying the fantastic in modern and contemporary Italian literature will make students enjoy even more every reference made to the uncanny characters they find in today's films. We will see how the fantastic is a literary mode which allows writers to make their personal argument about the representation of reality. We will pay special attention to the implications of transgressive aesthetic forms for social, political, musical and gender issues in order to examine how culture affects this particular genre. Students will learn critical tools useful to the analysis of the literary text in which the "fantastic mode" is employed. Conducted in English.

ITAL 310: Italian Women Writers
3 Credits

The evolution of 20th Century Italian culture, literature, and the novel genre are examined through the works of major female writers among which 1926 Nobel prize Grazia Deledda, Annamaria Ortese, Elsa Morante, and Luisa Passerini. How did Italian society develop from an agrarian society into an highly industrialized one, how women reached the vote and became journalists, the strong impact of the feminist movement upon 1970s Italy are among the topics students will read and discuss during the semester. Taught in English. Recommended for Italian Studies Minors. Dr.Lucamante

ITAL 311: French and Italian Women Writers
3 Credits

This women¿s studies course focuses on the genre of the novel as seen through the work of key French and Italian women writers. At the core of the novels studied are the themes of relationships and a sense of history, real and imaginary. Works by Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Julia Kristeva, Anna Banti, Annamaria Ortese, Elsa Morante, and Dacia Maraini will be studied chronologically according to the use of narrative techniques and the construction of Self. A comparative analysis will reveal how gender and class cut across women¿s definition of themselves and their personal and public lives, influencing their literary texts. Taught in English. Enrollment in an additional one-credit discussion section, ITAL 311D: French & Italian Women Writers Discussion, is mandatory for those with a French major or minor or an Italian Studies minor.

ITAL 311D: French and Italian Women Writers Discussion
1 Credits

This is a one-credit discussion; mandatory for those with a French major or minor or an Italian Studies minor and must be taken in conjunction with either French 311 or Italian 311.

ITAL 320: The Splendor of Rome in Literature & Film
3 Credits

Italian artists have always been preoccupied with the beauty and the historical import of Rome. As capital of the Italian state, in which many tragic events have played out, and as previous capital of the Vatican State, Rome incorporates centuries of history of Italian culture. Students will encounter works which will reveal the singular allure of the space of the city that is twice a capital. As history proceeds, changes in society and types of aesthetic visualization take place. From Fellini to Pasolini, from Moravia to Ammaniti, students will enjoy and analyze great examples of fiction and film. Artists' attempts to capture the importance and sometimes painful beauty of Rome though the centuries are at the core of this course. Recommended for Italian Studies Minors.

ITAL 327: The Contemporary Italian Novel
3 Credits

There is no other genre more comprehensive and interesting than the novel! Italian culture and society come together when reading Italian literary narrative. In this course, students will read novels published in the last twenty years from Italo Calvino onward in order to analyze the effects of the Italian novel tradition and the impact of postmodernism on recent output. Students will be encouraged to analyze the social context of the fiction studied, relating it to developments in Italian society in the postwar and more contemporary period. Students taking this subject will learn to apply contemporary literary theory of specific texts; to evaluate the importance of specific Italian elements in the novels studied and to be able to discuss novels.

ITAL 330: Social Issues in Italian Cinema
3 Credits

Italian directors and scriptwriters have consistently shown a strong awareness of their country¿s socio-political complexities. From Mafia to political corruption, Italian artists fearlessly engage with their society¿s renowned scandals, legendary corruption cases, and untimely and unjust deaths of their fellow citizens. Students will see and analyze socially-oriented films from postwar up to current times. Through these vivid depictions of reality, students gain an understanding of how movies centered on social issues can be entertaining and gripping at once. As Rossellini demonstrates in Rome Open City, political farce and humor can be used to show how reality can exceed the boundaries of common sense better than fiction. Taught in English.

ITAL 331: New Italian Cinema 1980-2005
3 Credits

Cinema is perhaps one of the most important elements that connote and make Italian culture so famous around the world. From La Dolce Vita to La Vita e Bella, Italian films speak to different crowds in different ways. The overall image is one of a county fraught by problems and existential issues that bears always that life must be lived at its fullest, no matter the historical period. At the core of this course lies the study of the techniques and the thematics employed by contemporary Italian directors in their distinctive engagement to treat and depict the problems of Italian society, lack of identity, massive immigration, Mafia, the relics of terrorism of this course.

ITAL 333: The Myth of Childhood in Italian Cinema
3 Credits

The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the important theme of childhood in Italian Cinema. In fact, this topic is very frequented by Italian film makers, as the child¿s point of view is present in many trends and periods of Italian cinema which often utilizes literary texts as its point of departure to develop new perspectives on childhood and Italian society in its transformations. In this course, students will be offered a unique chance of analyzing the theme of childhood in mainly two periods of Italian cinema. One, the famous period dubbed as Neo-realism, will make up the first part of the semester. We will analyze films by Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, and Roberto Rossellini. Films from postmodern cinema will constitute the second and final part of the semester. In this part of the course, we will screen films by Gianni Amelio, Oscar winner Gabriele Salvatores, and Cristina Comencini. The idea behind this division is to compare and contrast these two very different cinematic expressions which originate from different periods of Italian society and its history. The result I hope to reach is a fruitful semester after which students will be familiar and comfortable with Italian film reading and related cinematic techniques, with the desire to further pursue studies in both.

ITAL 494: Independent Study
3 Credits

no description available

ITAL 500: Reading for Comprehension
0 Credits

The fundamentals of the language and rapid reading experience. Passing this course fulfills the graduate language requirement. Additional preparation may be needed for advanced requirements in some schools and programs. Cost equivalent to that of a three-credit course.