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.

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.

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.

The focus of the seminar is to investigate the concept of “orientalism” in the Italian and Mediterranean context, an urgent question because Italy is at the center of recent crisis of migration, emigration and immigration. In a reading of texts that are theoretical, historical and literary, we will explore the complexities of national identity, structures of exclusion and racism, and as well the subtending rhetoric that has made Italy into a complex formation. We will analyze complexities of the concept of “orientalism” in the context of the Mediterranean generally and Italy specifically. The course is also open to graduate students, who will fulfill requirements by writing a final research paper. Undergraduates will write two papers: the first at mid semester, the second at the end.

How can storytelling help us cope with complexity? How can novels help us detect and debunk conspiracy theories? Is “paranoia” a delusional mental disorder or a vital critical tool, in the age of post-truth, fake news and infowars? We will dissect the double meanings of “plot” in major novels by Italian masters Italo Calvino (If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, 1979) and Umberto Eco (Foucault’s Pendulum, 1988). We will then tackle the paradoxes of paranoid fiction and conspiratorial evidence, from literature to the internet: from Luther Blissett’s Q (1999) to Q’Anon, Unfiction and ARG (Alternate Reality Games). Taught in English with a discussion section in Italian.

Renaissance Italian playwrights adapted dramatic models from the ancient world for their comedies and tragedies. At the same time, designers and architects created spaces for drama that imitated ancient models but also adopted innovative concepts of pictorial space pioneered by 15th century painters. All the participants were in turn conditioned by the various social and political contexts in which the plays were conceived and produced. How the mutually conditioning factors of the play-text, the stage space, and the larger civic or court context work together will be the focus of the course.

A close reading of the first two canticles of Dante's poem in the light of contemporary European and American critical interpretations. In Italian. Enrollment limited to 40.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are continuing research on a full time basis.