Courses for Fall 2023

  • Elementary Italian

    Elective for students without previous training in Italian. No credit for first semester alone. Fundamentals of Italian grammar and development of skills in speaking, comprehension, and writing. Overview of contemporary Italian society. Four meetings per week, audio and video work, two Italian films. Note: This is a year course.
    ITAL 0100 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Abbona-Sneider
    ITAL 0100 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Abbona-Sneider
  • Intermediate Italian I

    Review of the fundamentals of grammar, with emphasis on speaking and writing. Reading of representative short stories. Weekly compositions, presentations, and a paper. Three Italian films. Prerequisite: ITAL 0100-0200, or ITAL 0110, or placement by examination. Requirement for enrollment in the Bologna Program.
    ITAL 0300 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Abbona-Sneider
    ITAL 0300 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Abbona-Sneider
  • Advanced Italian I

    The purpose of this advanced course is to improve speaking and writing skills by offering extensive practice in a variety of styles and forms. Students will discuss various aspects of contemporary Italian culture. Reading, analysis and class discussion of texts (articles, songs, pictures, short stories, movies and television), oral presentations, based on research, and a writing portfolio (compositions, essays, blog and a journal). Prerequisites: ITAL 0400, or placement by examination.
    ITAL 0500 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Abbona-Sneider
  • Bella Ciao: Resistances in Contemporary Italian Culture

    What does it mean to resist? This course explores the concept of resistance in its multiple cultural representations. Starting from the partisan Resistance against the Nazi-Fascist regime (1943-45), we will touch upon several historical uprisings: civil rights movements, feminist movements, the so-called Years of Lead, anti-mafia activism, anti-globalization movements, antiracist activism. From literature to film/tv series, from photography to visual art to poetry, artists have politically engaged, challenged and modified the idea of resistance embedded within the identity of contemporary Italians. We look at artistic expressions of resistance performed against different forms of power (nationalism, the colonial state, the patriarchal family, the Mafia, the Church, police violence). We interrogate how the idea of resistance comes to structure Italian culture today and how it reverberates in mainstream narratives of what it means to be Italian.
    ITAL 0960 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Zambon
  • Intensive Language and Culture Proseminar

    The Intensive Language and Culture Proseminar is a mandatory course designed to prepare students enrolled in the Brown-in-Bologna program to function well within the academic and social context of Bologna and to deepen their knowledge of the political, cultural and social environment in which they will be living for the duration of the semester. The Proseminar includes three components: (1) Intensive Language and Culture; (2) Bologna hidden town; (3) a number of activities organized by the program throughout the semester and a number of individual mandatory activities. At the end of the Proseminar course students will attain an in-depth and experiential knowledge of the Italian society.
    ITAL 0991 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Digirolamo
  • Borders, Belonging, and Memory in the Black Mediterranean

    How do histories of empire and extraction bear on the contemporary Mediterranean? How have scholars, writers, and artists documented and responded to these dynamics? In this course, we will examine the relationship between (post)coloniality, race, and mobility, focusing in particular on the expanding body of scholarly, literary, and artistic work on the Black Mediterranean. Looking both within and beyond Italy, we will consider how shifting notions of belonging shape Italian society and Europe more broadly, and how a Black Mediterranean framework can inform understandings of borders, migration, citizenship, and questions of racial and social justice.
    ITAL 1001 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Paynter
  • Dante in English Translation: Dante's World and the Invention of Modernity

    Primarily for students with no knowledge of Italian. Given in English. Concentrators in Italian should enroll in ITAL 1610; they are expected to read the material in the original. Close study and discussion of Dante's deployment of systems of retribution in the Inferno and rehabilitation in the Purgatorio with a view to imagining a society based on love and resistant to the effects of nascent capitalism and the money economy. Dante's work summarizes and transforms the entire ancient and medieval tradition of literature, philosophy, and science.
    ITAL 1010 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Martinez
  • Modernity, Italian Style. Class, Gender, Race, Ideology in the Cinema of the Economic Miracle

    Grappling with migration, class struggle, ethnic, gender and generational conflicts, environmental upheavals, counter-cultural movements and a profound ideological polarization, Italy in the 1960s provides a striking historical laboratory for our contemporary predicaments. We will watch a selection of films from the golden decade of Italian cinema, focusing in particular on how modernist masters such as Antonioni, Fellini and Pasolini, and young auteurs such as Bellocchio, Bertolucci and Cavani, forged original styles and expressive techniques in order to capture and denounce the contradictions of a neo-capitalist society. Taught in English (an Italian discussion session will be activated if enough students enroll).
    ITAL 1030B S01
    Primary Instructor
    Riva
  • Fissare Il Tempo. Scrittura E Fotografia/Freezing Time. Writing and Photography

    With the invention of photography, writing too, whether philosophical or literary, inaugurates a new way of freezing time, looking at the world, and confronting memory. From Italo Calvino to Giorgio Agamben, from Leonardo Sciascia to Mario Praz, from Lalla Romano to Antonio Tabucchi or more recent authors (Helena Janeczek or Paolo Maurensig), writing negotiates with photographic images, thematizing them or incorporating them into its textual body. This course will seek to interrogate how enduring images of things are imprinted in writing or, conversely, how writing invents its own photographic gaze. This course will be taught in Italian. Prerequisite: Italian 0600, Brown in Bologna Program or placement. Contact the instructor to verify your proficiency if you have not taken Italian at Brown. WRIT. DIAP.
    ITAL 1100 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Odello
  • Women, Gender, and Feminism in Early Modern Italy

    The variety of Italian women’s histories, issues of genders and sexualities, and women’s ingenious responses to circumvent the limitations placed upon them are the focus of this course. During a Renaissance of flourishing debate on women ranging from the theater of Machiavelli to the dialogue of Castiglione, women themselves transformed historical feminism, the intellectual and cultural movement that advanced the idea of equality and equal opportunity across genders. Materials include archival documents, treatises, letters, literature and the visual arts. This course is the same as HIST 1931L. (P) Taught in English.
    ITAL 1262 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Castiglione
  • Independent Study Project (Undergraduate)

    Undergraduate Independent Study supervised by a member of the Italian Studies Faculty. Students may pursue independent research in order to prepare for their honors thesis or honors multimedia project, or they may enroll in the course in order to work individually with a faculty member on a specific area of Italian Studies not covered in the current course offerings. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    ITAL 1920 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Castiglione
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1920 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Martinez
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1920 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Stewart-Steinberg
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1920 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Riva
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1920 S05
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
  • Senior Conference

    Special work or preparation of an honors thesis under the direction of a member of the staff. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    ITAL 1990 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Castiglione
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1990 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Martinez
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1990 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Stewart-Steinberg
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1990 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Riva
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 1990 S05
    Primary Instructor
    Abbona-Sneider
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
  • Introduction to Italian Studies

    This seminar, a requirement for graduate students in Italian Studies, has three objectives: 1) to provide a panoramic view of the current research in the interdisciplinary field of Italian studies (literature, history, arts and media); 2) to provide a picture of the professional state of the field, within the framework of more global developments in academia and the job markets; 3) to provide useful information about the resources and the new tools and techniques for research available to students at Brown and elsewhere (special collections in the Brown libraries, digital resources such as data bases, electronic journals, web projects, etc.).
    ITAL 2100 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Stewart-Steinberg
  • Italian Studies Colloquium

    The Italian Studies Colloquium is a forum for an exchange of ideas and work of the community of Italian scholars at Brown and invited outside scholars. Graduate students present their work in progress, and engage the work of faculty and visitors. They are expected to come prepared with informed questions on the topic presented. Presentations in both Italian and English. Instructor permission required.
    ITAL 2820 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Riva
  • Preliminary Examination Preparation

    For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination.
    ITAL 2970 S01
    Schedule Code
    E: Graduate Thesis Prep
  • Reading and Research

    Courses on special subjects individually planned and supervised. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    ITAL 2980 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Castiglione
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 2980 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Martinez
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 2980 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Stewart-Steinberg
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 2980 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Riva
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    ITAL 2980 S05
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
  • Thesis Preparation

    For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are continuing research on a full time basis.
    ITAL 2990 S01
    Schedule Code
    E: Graduate Thesis Prep