Fall 2003

(Course information subject to change)
(Cross-reference with Department Roster)

Italian 080
Introduction to Italian Cinema
Prof. Marcus
TR 4:30-6:00; W 4:30-7:00

The course will consist of a broad and varied sampling of classic Italian films from WWII to the present. We will consider the works which typify major directors and major trends through five decades of filmmaking and will trace a certain stylistic and thematic development from WWII on, pointing out both the continuity of the tradition, and exceptions to it, in an attempt to define the art of Italian film. Units will include "Neorealism: The Cinematic Revolution, "Self-Reflexivity and Meta-cinema," "Fascism and War Revisited," and "Postmodernism, or the Death of the Cinema." One of the aims of the course will be to make us aware of the expectations that Hollywood has implanted in us: that films be action-packed wish-fulfillment fantasies. Italian cinema will challenge us to re-examine and revise the very narrow conception that we Americans have of the cinematic medium. Classes will include close visual analysis of films using video clips and slides. Students will be required to attend weekly screenings of the films on Mondays from 4:30-7:00 p.m. The films will be in Italian with English subtitles. There will be 12 in all, and will include works by Fellini, Antonioni, De Sica, Visconti, Pasolini, Wertmuller, Rossellini, Bertolucci and Moretti.

Italian 110
Elementary Italian
Staff
(See timetables for times)

A first-semester elementary language course for students who have never studied Italian before or who have taken the placement test and received a score below 380. All students who have previously studied Italian are required to take the placement test. Classes are conducted in Italian and emphasize the development of listening comprehension and speaking, with training in reading and writing.

The course is organized around oral/aural communicative activities such as role-plays and interactive grammar exercises. Your listening skills will be developed by daily exposure to authentic language spoken at normal speed by native Italians, including short conversations, songs, and poems. As the semester progresses the conversations will be longer. Your class work will be supplemented with homework using a cassette with a workbook to further enhance your listening skills. In class you will get ample opportunity to speak, as much of the class period will be spent working in pairs or small groups. You will also be exposed to simple Italian texts so that your reading skills will be developed. These texts will gradually become more complex as you acquire the vocabulary necessary to read at a higher level. You will also be challenged to work on your writing skills, starting with short compositions and building up to longer essays.

Italian 112
Elementary Italian-Accelerated
Staff
MWF 9:00-10:00; TR 9:00-10:30

Italian 112 is an intensive elementary language course covering the equivalent of Italian 110 and 120 in one semester. Students must have departmental permit to register. The course is open to students who have no previous knowledge of Italian, and who have already fulfilled the language requirement in another language. See course description of Italian 110 and 120.

Italian 120
Elementary Italian
Staff
M-F 11:00-12:00

Italian 120 is the second-semester continuation of the elementary level sequence designed to develop function competency in the four skills and gain familiarity with Italian culture. Students with a placement score of 380 - 440 should enroll in this level. The primary emphasis is on the development of the oral-aural skills, speaking and listening. Readings from authentic material on topics in Italian culture as well as frequent writing practice are also included.

As in other Italian courses, class will be conducted entirely in Italian. Your listening skills will be further developed by daily exposure to authentic language spoken at normal speed by native Italians, including conversations, both brief and lengthy, songs, letters and poems. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class which lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will be given frequent opportunity to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small group and pair work which simulate real-life situations. You will also be exposed to authentic Italian texts to develope your reading skills. These texts include articles from newspapers and magazines as well as literary pieces. They will become more complex as you acquire the vocabulary necessary to read at a higher level. Your writing skills will also be improved through assignments on diverse topics.

Italian 130
Intermediate Italian
Staff
(See timetables for times)

Italian 130 is the first half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of competency that should allow you to function comfortably in an Italian-speaking environment. Students having completed Italian 120 or with a placement score of 450 - 540 should enroll in this course. The course will build on your existing skills in Italian, increase your confidence and your ability to read, write, speak and understand the language, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. You are expected to have already learned the most basic grammatical structures in elementary Italian and to be able to review these on your own

A unique focus of this course will be on developing cross-cultural skills through computer-mediated communication with students in Italy. The Confronti project will allow you to compare and analyze your cultural views, assumptions and values with those of your Italian counterparts on a variety of topics. Through a web site developed especially for the course you will fill in questionnaires and then participate in an e-mail exchange through the discussion board.

As in other Italian courses at Penn, class will be conducted entirely in Italian. Your attendance and participation is of the utmost importance, because you will work collaboratively with your classmates and your instructor both toward an increased linguistic competence and a more complex understanding of Italian culture. You will have an active role in class organization; daily homework will include conducting research and interviews to present to the class, and developing or responding to questions that will serve as starting points for class discussions. You will be expected to read, watch video clips, and listen to music online in preparation for class. Assignments in the reference grammar will provide structured practice of the linguistic forms necessary for negotiating the concepts and questions presented through the Confronti project, while writing assignments will challenge and improve your linguistic, analytical and creative skill

Italian 134
Intermediate Italian-Accelerated
Staff
MWF 9:00-10:00; TR 9:00-10:30

Italian 134 is an intensive intermediate course, covering the equivalent of Italian 130 and 140 in one semester. It is primarily designed for students who have completed Italian 112, but students with a strong performance in Italian 120 are allowed to enroll with a departmental permit. See course descriptions of Italian 130 and 140.

Italian 140
Intermediate Italian
Staff
MWRF 11:00-12:00

Italian 140 is the second half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that should allow you to function comfortably in an Italian-speaking environment. Students having completed Italian 130 or with a placement score between 550 - 640 should enroll in this level. See course description for Italian 130.

Italian 180
Italian Conversation in Residence
Staff
Must be resident of the Modern Language House

Italian 202
Il mondo e l'Italia: Italians in the World, The World in Italy
Johnston
MWF 12:00-1:00, MWF 2:00-3:00

This is a content-based, advanced language course open to students who have successfully completed Italian 110 through 140 and wish to perfect their knowledge of the language while exploring Italian culture and the position Italy currently occupies in the world. Through a variety of media from print to the web and videos, and materials ranging from songs to personal letters to newspaper articles to literary texts, this course will focus on Italy as a country of migrants.

For centuries, Italians have left their country on a quest for knowledge or looking for work and a better life. France, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Argentina, and Australia have been the preferred destinations of migrant Italian workers. Likewise, for centuries Italy has attracted people from other countries on a quest for knowledge or, particularly in the past twenty years, for work and a better life. Immigrants come to Italy from Eastern European, African, Asian and South American countries. What happened to the culture and the language of the Italians in the world? And what is happening to Italian culture and the Italian language with the world in Italy? How has Italy's economic and political role changed in the world, and particularly within the European Union, as the country is no longer only an exporter but an importer of manpower and culture? Readings and class discussions in Italian.

Italian 208
Business Italian I
Prof. Gentili
MWF 1:00-2:00

The purpose of the course is to enable students to acquire language proficiency in the area of current Italian business-related culture. Italian business language and culture in terms of structural language knowledge and form of cultural behavior will be emphasized. Through a communicative approach, the course intends to develop students' understanding in real situations by perfecting their two competencies, linguistic and cultural, in an interactive way by adapting the contexts with the aid of informative material (Italian Internet, magazines and newspapers.) The course will also emphasize business written skills through the textbooks L'Italiano in Azienda and Introduzione al Commercio Italiano. Classes will also include lectures on current political, economic, and labor developments in Italy as well as in the European Community. The students will have two oral presentations during the semester, and midterm, and a final exam. Readings and class discussions in Italian.

Italian 210
Viva Voce: Contemporary Italian Culture and Beyond
Prof. Marini
TR 10:30-12:00

The main purpose of this advanced course is to reinforce students' command of the language while guiding them to an extensive comprehension of the culture of contemporary Italy. Students will implement their linguistic competence in various communicative situations through an integrated approach: inputs coming from various sources (articles, short literary texts, songs, pictures, audio and video clips) will be the starting point for a thorough analysis of significant aspects of contemporary Italian culture. Politics, lifestyle, fashion, literature, music, art, cinema and material culture will be the subjects of structured activities, such as roleplays, debates, discussions, short oral presentations, forums developed on the Internet, and weekly projects. Students will also explore the Italophone world on the Internet in search of information and source material for class discussion and individual or group projects.

The cultural content of the course, the intense communicative practice and the revision of specific linguistic structures should enable students to communicate effectively in a broad range of situations. Differences between popular and standard, formal and colloquial speech will be emphasized as well. Some expository writing will be done with the goal of refining students' writing skills. Readings and class discussions in Italian.

Italian 215
Love and Beauty in the Italian Literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Prof. Johnston
MWF 11:00-12:00

This course will intertwine the study of Italian medieval and Renaissance literature, the visual arts and scientific studies. We will proceed thematically exploring ideas of love and beauty primarily in literary texts. In addition, we will discuss how these ideas are interrelated and how they are also expressed in other media and in different disciplines according to some common underlying principles. We will read texts ranging from love poetry to scientific and technical writings, from the Sicilian School to Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Alberti, Leonardo and others. We will look at paintings and technical and scientific drawings of the time from Simone Martini to Leonardo to Bronzino. Connecting lines will be cast in the direction of music and of later periods, so that for their final assignment the students will be able to follow their interests in other directions on the basis of what has been studied and discussed in class.

The course will be taught entirely in Italian, although the materials will also be available in translation. Students will learn to write in more formal Italian and to present their work orally in an academic setting.

Italian 336
Divina Commedia
Prof. Kirkham
TR 12:00-1:30

Dante's Divina Commedia will be read and discussed in Italian. The first half of the semester will be devoted to Inferno; the second half to selected cantos of the Purgatorio and Paradiso. We shall consider this masterpiece of Italian literature in the context of Dante's medieval worldview and culture, his identity as a Florentine, his politics, and his poetics. The text will be read in a facing Italian-English edition with class discussion in Italian designed to arrive at an appreciation of the poem that builds on the students' previous knowledge of the language and is geared toward developing skills of literary analysis in Italian. Visual materials from illustrated manuscripts of the Commedia and recently developed web-based resources will complement class readings.
Prerequisite: Four semesters of Italian or the equivalent. Requirements: Occasional brief oral presentations of a canto during the semester, midterm, and final exam.

Italian 390
Sicily in Literature and Film
Prof. Marcus
TR 10:30-12:00, M 4:30-7:00

Sicily has always occupied a privileged place in the Italian literary and cinematic imagination. While such writers as Pirandello, Sciascia, and Verga have created what can legitimately be called a distinctly Sicilian category of Italian literature, such filmmakers as Visconti, Rosi, and Tornatore have been drawn to the island as a space for cinematic experimentation and artistic self-discovery. From Visconti's l948 neorealist masterpiece La terra trema to Tornatore's l988 Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso, from Verga's late ninteenth-century short stories to Sciascia's Mafia-based thrillers, Sicily has become both a mythic space of the mind, as well as a signifier, in extremis for its own, and the rest of Italy's, social, political, and historical concerns. The course will involve close analysis of selected novels, short stories, and films with a specific focus on such issues as unification history, the Mafia, and social/sexual mores. Attendance at Monday night screenings is required.