FALL Courses 2007
History of Italian Cinema
Professor Patrick Rumble, Department of French and Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison
4 credits
This course offers a survey of Italian filmmaking, with a focus on post-World War II cinema. Students will be introduced to the most significant developments in Italian film, including Futurism, Neorealism, Feminist and Avant-Garde filmmaking, and so forth. Students will watch and discuss films by several of Italy’s most significant directors, including Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Antonioni, Pasolini, Wertmuller, Cavani, Fellini, Bertolucci, Moretti, and others. Students will also be introduced to the essential vocabulary of film analysis, and will gain a broad sense of post-war debates in Italian and European film theory. The textbook for the course will be Peter Bondanella’s Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (Continuum Press).
Modern Italian Culture
Professor Grazia Menechella, Department of French and Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison
4 credits
The focus of this course is the cultural history of Italy from late 19th-Century Unification to the present. The course is structured in four parts: Unification, Fascism, the Italian Republic, and the “Second” Republic. Within each historical unit, there will be discussion of high and popular culture with chapters and short stories from writers such as Primo Levi, Italo Calvino, Pier Vittorio Tondelli and clips from important documentaries, films, television programs, popular music, and so forth. The main textbook is Forgacs-Lumley, Italian Cultural Studies. There will also be a photocopy Reader with documents and fiction. The strong and visible antifascist history of Italy in Sesto-Fiorentino and Tuscany will be integrated in the course with visits to the centri sociali in Sesto and elsewhere. The discussion of the history of Italian mass media and television in Forgacs-Lumley will also be integrated with easily accessible material around us.
Women in Italy: history, protagonists, transformations
Professor Grazia Menechella, Department of French and Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison
4 credit
Italian Women and Italian Women Writers.
The purpose of this course is to offer an overview of important changes in the roles of women in Italian society from the end of 19th-century to the present. Among the topics covered:
• Antifeminist theories by Italian anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza in the second half of 19th-century Italy-- a visit to the Mantegazza museum in Florence is recommended.
• Women and fascism and women and consumerism using for both categories the work by historian Victoria de Grazia – much of her discussion on consumerism focuses on Florentine women and modern supermarkets in Florence.
• Italian Feminism in the Seventies and changes in legislation (abortion, divorce, etc.).
• Immigration and identity since the Nineties.
• Important feminists such as Anna Maria Mozzoni, Sibilla Aleramo, Carla Lonzi, Franca Rame, Adriana Cavarero, Luisa Muraro.
• Fiction by Italian women writers and foreign women writers writing in Italy (Sibilla Aleramo, Anna Banti, Dacia Maraini, Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, Silvia Ballestra).
This course will encourage discussion of closer material. For example, the course would benefit from 1) a visit to the Mantegazza museum in Florence; 2) a close look at traditional and modern supermarkets in Florence in the Fifties as discussed by de Grazia in her study on women and consumerism; 3) research at the women’s archives of visual material in Florence.
Italy and Western Civilization in the High Middle Ages
Professor Joseph Shatzmiller, Department of History, Duke University
4 credits
Florence played a crucial role in one of the most important chapters in the history of western civilization, the Renaissance. In fact, Italy was the home of a Proto Renaissance in the “Century of Dante Alighiere” (c. 1265 – 1321), and it reached its peakin the late fifteenth – turn of the sixteenth century with the works of artists like Leonardo and Michelangelo, who produced “eternal” works of art. The course will introduce students to these achievements, and others, and will provide the social, economic, and political background that permitted the Renaissance. Florence’s monumental buildings and museums will help students to grasp more fully the essentials of one of the most extensively studied centuries of human history. Documents of the époque, in translation to English, will be studied and analyzed as well.
Jews of Italy: From Antiquity to the Present
Professor Joseph Shatzmiller, Department of History, Duke University
4 credits
Italy can boast of the most ancient Jewish presence in Western Europe. Some famous families can trace continuous presence in the peninsula back to the time of the classical republic and stretching over to the early Middle Ages. Nowhere can one observe more Hebrew inscriptions of the 4th and 5th centuries than in Apulia. During the high and late Middle Ages (the centuries of Dante), Hebrew authors participated actively in the Proto Renaissance as they did with much vigor in the ensuing fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Dozens of Baroque style synagogues, in Tuscany and elsewhere, bear witness to the enthusiasm with which Jews adopted the architectural achievements of the early modern period. This course will deal with aspects of the history of the Jews in Italy and will include the study of the part they took in the nineteenth century’s Risorgimento as well as their fate under the fascist Mussolini regime. Today’s Jews who are totally integrated into the life and culture of the country will be discussed as well.
Florentine Renaissance Art: From Lorenzo il Magnifico to Cosimo I: 1469-1539
Professor Josephine Rogers Mariotti
4 credits
The course proposes to survey the development of the arts in Florence from the time of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici (the Magnificent) to the reign of Cosimo I, the second Duke and the first Grand Duke ofTuscany. We will begin with a survey of the major workshops of late 15th century Florence: Pollaiolo, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio, whose culture and activities constitute the training ground of the masters of the High Renaissance. These include Leonardo, Raphael, Filippino Lippi, Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo, whose life-span covers the entire period under exam, and whose art will serve as a guideline throughout the course: Michelangelo’s early activity in Florence, his decorative cycles in the Vatican in Rome, and his later activity. The ‘rival’ prince of the papal court, Raphael Sanzio, will likewise be our focus, as both become paragons of a ‘golden age’ of classicism, dramatically interrupted by the ‘Sack of Rome’ of 1527.
The ‘post-peak’ era to follow begins with the experimental and expressively charged art of Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino and other Tuscan masters who, along with the followers of Raphael and Michelangelo in Rome, are the protagonists of a transformation in style and content termed as ‘Mannerism’ or ‘Maniera,’ a label we will endeavor to define. The development of a self-conscious ‘stylish style’ in the 16th century brings us to admire the ‘court art’ of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, whose artists include some of the epoch greatest protagonists: Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Francesco Salviati, Parmigianino and Giambologna. More than monographic coverage of each artistic persona, our goal will be to reconstruct the stylistic and cultural interactions and environment in which the artists and patrons operated.
In-class sessions will alternate with visits to monuments and museums in and around Florence, allowing students to integrate their academic studies with direct experience of the works and artists under study.
European Societies
Professor Ettore Recchi, University of Florence
4 credits
This course seeks to illustrate long- and short-term dynamics of social change in Western Europe. Starting from a historical overview of national identities and the post-WW II integration process, the basic puzzle ‘What it means to be an European?’ will be addressed. As a general objective, the course is designed to stimulate students to have a comprehensive view of the conflicting political and societal forces driving contemporary Europe towards unification on the one hand and further territorial and cultural divisions on the other. The course is organized in three teaching units: a) National identities in Western Europe: a long-term historical perspective; b) The European integration process and the European Union; c) A comparative analysis of European societies. Readings will be drawn from a variety of sources in coursepack form. Students are required to participate regularly and do a presentation on one of the course subjects. Participation, presentation, and two tests (mid-term and final) will form the basis for the final evaluation.
Architecture Design Studio
Professor James Bassett, Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning, U-M
6 credits
This course is open to U-M graduate architecture students only.
Experiencing the City
Professor Paola Zellner, Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning, U-M
4 credits
This course introduces students to the urban history, morphology and spatial experiences of cities in general, and Florence in particular. Structured around lectures and on-site projects, the course will engage students through a variety of forms of representation (drawing, photography, analytical and cartographic constructs) to translate spatial, experiential, and material aspects of Florence. Lectures will introduce the development of Florence and provide broader historical and cultural perspectives. Weekly site visits to Florence and project assignments will be organized in conjunction with the lecture topics and extend pertinent themes through the aforementioned representational methods. As the primary means of engaging course material, these analytical projects comprise a significant portion of the coursework.
Italian Language
Previous study of Italian is not required in order to apply for the program, as all non-language courses are taught in English. All program participants will be required to take one Italian language course and they are encouraged to study Italian prior to their participation in the program in order to facilitate their integration into Italian culture.
First Semester Italian
Professor Silvia Sammicheli
4 credits
Second Semester Italian
Professor Silvia Sammicheli
4 credits
Third Semester Italian
Professor Lucrezia Sarcinelli
4 credits
Fourth Semester Italian
Professor Lucrezia Sarcinelli
4 credits
Advanced Italian
Professor Lucrezia Sarcinelli
3 credits
Italian for Architects
Professor Sammicheli
2 credits
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