Facts about Italian Studies at CUA

 

Minor in Italian Studies

 

Requirements:

 

• For students who wish to minor in Italian Studies and do not go to Rome we require 6 courses: ITAL 203-04 + 4 other courses of which 2 must be in Italian Studies.

 

• For students who wish to minor in Italian Studies and go to Rome, we require 6 courses: ITAL 201-02 (for the courses students take while in Rome), ITAL 203-04, and other 2 in Italian Studies.

 

Purpose of the Minor in Italian Studies:

 

• The goal of this program is to study the field of Italian culture from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students gain knowledge of Italian language and literature together with aspects of Italy’s art, culture, cinema, architecture and design, geography, history, institutions, politics, and thought; Italian American studies are also a strong component of the program.

 

• We offer many interesting and enriching courses, many of which qualify both for humanities and literature requirements. Please consult our on-line catalogue for the list of courses.

 

Faculty who are teaching or have recently taught courses in Italian literature and studies at CUA:

 

• Claudia Nasini, Doctorate Modern History, University of Rome, Italy
• Valeria Garino, Laurea in Russian Literature, University of Turin, Italy & MA in Itaian, The Catholic University of America
• Pamela Lalla, MA Italian, CUA
• Giuseppe Falvo, PhD Italian Literature, Johns Hopkins University
• Stefania Lucamante, PhD Comparative Literature, CUA and Program Coordinator
• Mayka Puente-De Righi, MA Romance Languages and Literatures, CUA
• Giuseppe Mazzotta, Sterling Professor of Literature, Yale University
• Cosetta Seno Reed, PhD Italian, UC-Berkeley

 

All our teachers are very active also in research and scholarship. (See their profiles on our Website at Modernlanguages.cua.edu).

The Italian Studies program hosts several events during the academic year, most notably  the Mastrangelo Endowed Lecture. This is a wonderful opportunity that the Mastrangelo family has made available for our students to get acquainted with the work of some of the most important scholars in Northern America.

 

 

Study Abroad Programs

The department recommends that language majors spend—at least a semester in a country in which the language is spoken in order to increase their language proficiency and to broaden their cultural horizons.

 

1. Any CUA undergraduate student may apply for the Study Abroad Program. Priority will be given first, to majors in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and Literatures; second, to minors in the department; and third, to others. Native-speaking majors in the department may also apply, but preference will be given to non-native speakers. The Study Abroad Programs are especially designed for juniors. To qualify, the applicant must comply with the following two minimum requirements:

 

1. Have a current minimum GPA of 3.00 in courses taken in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, with an overall minimum GPA of 2.5.

 

2. Have completed the 203-204 language sequence or have the equivalent language proficiency.

 

2. CUA students must have the approval of (1) the Undergraduate Adviser of the Language Program; (2) the adviser for the particular study abroad program; and (3) the Dean of the Study Abroad Program.

 

3. Applicants from other universities should contact the director of the specific program in which they are interested and the dean of the Study Abroad Programs directly.

 

Italian Courses

The department offers courses in Italian which may be used to fulfill the second language requirement.

Undergraduate programs in modern languages and literatures stress both practical and humanistic goals. A series of graduated language courses permits acquisition of oral, aural, and written mastery of a foreign language. A comprehensive program of courses in literature and civilization, ranging from introductory surveys through period and genre offerings to seminars treating individual major authors, provides, in depth and in breath, the experience of another culture and of its modes of thought and expression.

For students not majoring in languages, distribution requirements in literature as well as in humanities, as outlined under BA degree requirements, may be fulfilled by a number of courses offered by the department.

Note: All entering students and transfer students with one year of college French, German, Italian, or Spanish, and wishing to continue in that language, are required to take a placement examination. The resulting placement will be valid up to one semester after the date of the examination.

Language Requirements

While there is at present no formal program of major in Italian Studies, a course sequence is provided for students wishing to earn credit in advanced language and literature to meet the requirements for graduate study.

Perché impare l’italiano ? Ce lo dice una scrittrice:  Ippolita Avalli

 

Memoria collettiva e memoria privata: il ricordo della Shoah come politica sociale, Rome, Reale Istituto Neerlandese; Casa della Memoria e della Storia 6-7 giugno 2007. Click here