FOOD CULTURES IN ITALIAN LITERATURE

LITTRANS 213

Explore Italian comedy and dramatic literature across the centuries through close reading and discussion of selected plays, from its Roman origins to contemporary examples. Read and discuss texts representative of the major comedic modes (e.g. erudite, improvised, etc.), paying close attention to language and structure, genre debates, character typologies, performance history, and the cultural-historical contexts that informed playwrights. Aims are cultivating a deeper understanding of Italian sensibilities and cultural attitudes regarding humor and satire, love and sex, tragedy within comedy, history, gender politics, public/private space, social customs, class, and other issues.

LITTRANS 248

What is a national identity in the context of the fluid globalized world in which we live? How are identities affected by big migratory waves within the same country and, more importantly, from one country or continent to another? The Italian case is one of the many in the so-called Western world that can help us to monitor the possible answers to these questions. Through readings and discussions of novels, avant-garde manifestoes, poems, two main tasks will be accomplished. The first task of analyzing literary texts in a variety of genres (epistolary novel, historical novel, avant-garde rhetoric, poetry) to familiarize ourselves with textual analysis and some theoretical tools supporting the interpretative tasks of literary criticism. And the second task of appreciating the rhetorical devices that those texts adopt at different times of Italian modern and contemporary history.

ITALIAN 730

Examination of aspects of Italian literature and culture, including disciplines such as language and cinema. Topic varies.

LITTRANS 410

Treatment of a specific perific period, genre, theme or movement in Italian literature.

LITTRANS 254

Covers Italian history and culture from the Unification (1860) to the 21st century.