Spring 2004

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

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 a 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. In Italian 110 your listening skills will be greatly developed for you will be exposed daily to authentic language spoken at normal speed by native Italians. Some of these are short conversations, songs, and poems. As the semester progresses the conversations will be longer. Your classwork 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 sentences and building up to paragraph-length essays.
 

Italian 112
Elementary Italian-Accelerated
Staff
(See timetables for times)

Italian 112 is an intensive elementary language course for students who have never studied Italian before but who have demonstrated a certain facility for learning languages and who have already fulfilled the language requirement. This course may not be taken to fulfill the language requirement or by students with previous knowledge of Italian. The course is designed to develop function proficiency in the four skills and gain familiarity with Italian culture. 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 well for you will be exposed to daily authentic language spoken at normal speed by native Italians. Among these are 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 a small group and pair work which simulates real-life situations. Your class work will be supplemented with homework using a cassette with a workbook, to further enhance your listening skills. You will also be exposed to authentic Italian texts so that your reading skills will be developed. 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. You will also be challenged to work on your writing skills, for you will be given ample opportunity to write about diverse topics.

Italian 120
Elementary Italian
Staff
(See timetables for times)

Prerequisite: Italian 110 or a score equivalent for placement in level 120 on the Italian placement exam (see Romance Languages Department). Italian 120 is the continuation of an elementary level sequence designed to develop functional proficiency in the four skills. The primary emphasis is on the development of the oral-aural skills, speaking and listening. Readings on topics in Italian culture as well as frequent writing practice are also included in the course.

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 proficiency that should allow you to function comfortably in an Italian speaking environment. 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. 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.

As in other Italian courses at Penn, class will be conducted entirely in Italian. In addition to structured oral practice, work in class will include frequent communicative activities such as role-plays, problem-solving tasks, discussions and debates often carried out in pairs and small groups. Through the study of authentic materials such as articles, poems, songs, films, videos and taped conversations between native speakers you will deepen your knowledge of the Italian-speaking world. Daily homework will require listening practice with audio and video cassettes, in addition to regular written exercises in the Libro degli esercizi, and weekly composition practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Italophone world on the Internet.

Italian 134
Intermediate Italian-Accelerated
Staff
(See timetables for times)

Italian 140
Intermediate Italian
Staff
(See timetables for times)

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. 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. 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.

As in other Italian courses at Penn, class will be conducted entirely in Italian. In addition to structured oral practice, work in class will include frequent communicative activities such as role-plays, problem solving tasks, discussions and debates often carried out in pairs or small groups. Through the study of authentic materials such as articles, poems, songs, films, videos and conversations between native speakers you will deepen your knowledge of the Italian-speaking world. Daily homework will require listening practice with audio and video cassettes, in addition to regular written exercises in the Libro degli esercizi, and weekly composition practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Italophone world on the internet.

Italian 180
Italian Conversation in Residence
Prof. Landi
Must be resident of the Modern Language House

Italian 202-301
Advanced Italian
Prof. Johnston
MWF 1-2

This is an advanced language course open to students who have successfully completed Italian 110 through 140 and wish to prepare for higher courses in Italian culture and literature or simply to perfect their knowledge of the language. All four language skills will be addressed, but particular emphasis will be placed on writing and speaking in a formal academic setting.

Based on the analysis and class discussion of the readings in Ìssimo and of audio-visual material, the students will be introduced to a variety of styles and literary genres and will learn to recognize and use different linguistic registers. They will progress from informed analytical readers and listeners to creative writers and speakers.

According to Gloria Paganini, the author of Ìssimo, the experience of many students of Italian suggests that "it is possible to learn the language creatively following the example of writers and advertisments, or taking notes on a walk through town" (p. 9). With her, I invite the students to find confirmation of this in her book and this course.

Italian 214-301
Italian Play Production
Prof. Marini-Maio
W 2-5

The purpose of this course is to reinforce students' command of Italian language and to improve their knowledge and understanding of Italian culture through a play production, which will be performed at the end of the semester. Class meetings will analyze a play of a 20th-century Italian writer in lectures, discussions, and demonstrations as well as provide lab time for extended workshops in acting, directing, design, and production problems. Students will be required to attend all the rehearsals. The course will be conducted entirely in Italian.

Italian 216-301
Cycling Through Italy: Survey of Italian Culture Across Time
Prof. Cracolici
MWF 12-1

Conceived as a road map of Italian history and culture, this course addresses the major historical, anthropological, and ideological forces that shaped the culture of Italy along its history-from the Roman foundation to its postmodern present. Drawing on a variety of documents, both textual and visual, and material of an ethnographic nature, the course seeks to provide a plot of empirical clues to get a dynamic understanding of what we call "italianness" (italianità). Topics for discussion will include macro-historical issues, such as war and epidemic, reforms and revolutions, religion and mythology; and questions of micro-historical and sociological character, such as folk music and regional customs, eating habits and food, family and community. Special effort will be given to strengthen students' language skills through guided reading, oral presentations, video viewing, short papers, and a final research project on a topic of their choice. Class discussions and requirements will be in Italian.

Italian 288-301
Italian Postcards
Freshman Seminar
Prof. Cracolici
MWF 11-12

Picture postcards represent an easy and pleasant way to share our views and feelings about a specific place. By going repeatedly back and forth from image to text and from text to image, we let ourselves being mentally invaded by the presence of the place portrayed in the picture, while feeling both emotionally and intellectually close to the person who wrote and sent us the card. Taking this rather intimate activity as an heuristic pattern to explore a foreign culture, this course will try to capture some of the most alluring contradictions of the Italian scene: enduring tradition and trendy consumerism, ravishing landscapes and urban sprawl, demonic burocracy and unvanquinshable human warmth. Written and visual records (including films, paintings, and photographs) from different cultures and different time periods will lead our conversation towards a better understanding of what is arguably one of the most amiable and beloved country in the world. Readings and discussions will be conducted in English.

Italian 300-401
Italian History/Italian Film
Prof. Marcus
MW 3-4:30, T 4:30-7

The aim of this course is to combine two very different approaches to a joint project: to understand the history of a great European society by fusing the techniques of historical science and the insights of modern film studies. Our choice, Italy, is not accidental. Italy has historically been a country in which the visual arts have had a unique place. Modern Italy has added to the traditional belle arti of painting, sculpture, and architecture new fields like fashion, industrial design and film. "Made in Italy" has come to stand all over the world for quality workmanship and fine design. Yet this same country has been involved in the last hundred years in two terrible world wars, a brutal fascist dictatorship, violence both political and criminal and a flood of emigration. It has been bankrupt, occupied by foreign forces, recovered and enjoys today one of the highest standards of living in the world. The story of modern Italy is fascinating and in this course we will review that history, its triumphs and disasters, by combining film and written texts. Both media are equally important and ought to enrich each other.

One of the main purposes of the course will be to explore the complex relationship between the two elements of its title, or to put it another way, to determine the meaning of the / between "Italian History/Italian Film." How is history represented in the cinema? Why is it the obsessive focus of the most important films to emerge in Italy since WWII? What transformations take place when the historical becomes cinematic, and how do these two discourses set themselves in dialogue to create a rich and multi-leveled commentary on the Italian national scene?

The course will be divided into four units: 1) Liberal Italy 1861-1918, 2) Fascism, 1919-1939; 3) War and Resistance, 1939-1948, 4) Postwar Italy 1949 to the present. Each unit will contain three films accompanied by three history lectures. Among the films to be analyzed are Salvatores's Mediterraneo, Olmi's Tree of the Wooden Clogs, De Sica's Garden of the Finzi-Contini, Visconti's The Leopard, Fellini's La dolce vita, and Rossellini's Paisan.

Fulfills Distribution in Area II

Italian 337-301
Love and Friendship: Petrarca, Boccaccio, and the Early Italian Renaissance
Prof. Kirkham
TR 12-1:30

This course will introduce Francesco Petrarca, Italy's greatest lyric poet, and Giovanni Boccaccio, the master of the Italian short story, in their historical context at a transitional moment between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Selections will be read from Petrarca's Rime sparse, which tell the story of his life-long love for Madonna Laura, and from Boccaccio's novelle about love-ranging from romantic to forbidden, from parodic to tragic-in the Decameron, set during the Black Death of 1348. We shall also read some of the surviving letters exchanged in friendship by these two founding fathers of Italian poetry and prose, considering them as early expressions of Renassaissance humanism. The letters, originally in Latin, will be read in English; Petrarch will be read in an edition with facing text and translation; Boccaccio will be read in an Italian edition that assists the reader with explanatory notes. Prerequisite: 5 semesters of Italin or equivalent language skills.