fall Courses 2006
The City as a Metaphor: Representations of Urban Space in Italian Literature and Films
Professor Vincenzo Binetti, University of Michigan
4 credits
This course will analyze representations of chosen Italian cities in modern Italian literature, culture, and films. The course will have an interdisciplinary aspect, as it will include the study of history, art, politics and philosophy, as well as literature and cinema. Readings of novels by Luigi Pirandello, Cesare Pavese, Sibilla Aleramo, Italo Calvino, and Enrico Brizzi: screenings of films by Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mario Martone, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, and Nanni Moretti.
Italy and the Americas
Professor Stefania Buccini, University of Wisconsin
4 credits
This course explores the vision of the Americas in Italian literature and culture (1500-1800), from Christopher Columbus to Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's librettist and also the first professor of Italian language and literature at Columbia College. The curiosity with which Europeans approached the New World was reflected in the writings of several Italian historians, missionaries, travelers, and explorers, who described with fascination the customs of the people they encountered in their travels as well as in their readings. Given its interdisciplinary structure, this course may interest students in Classics, Comparative Literature, History, English, Philosophy, and Sociology.
The Enlightenment Self: Life-Writing in Early Modern Italy
Professor Stefania Buccini, University of Wisconsin
4 credits
One of the most enduring legacies of the Enlightenment period was its attention to the self as rational subject, social being, and locus of the passions. That attention, expressed in forms as diverse as academic èloges and personal diaries, was intimately connected to both the philosophical ideas and the pragmatic realities that confronted writers in that seminal age of European culture. This course is designed to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on life-writing, covering a broad time span (1700 to 1815). Readings will include memoirs and autobiographies by Giambattista Vico, Carlo Goldoni, Vittorio Alfieri, Giacomo Casanova, and Lorenzo da Ponte. Given the multifaceted aspects of the autobiographical genre, this course may interest students whose emphasis of study is in Italian, Classics, Comparative Literature, History, English, and Sociology.
Florence: Myths (and Some Realities) of a City
Professor Roberto Dainotto, Duke University
4 credits
This course is a topical tour of the city of Florence - its monuments, museums, taverns, piazzas - through literary, cinematic, and musical texts. By the end of the course we should be able not only to know Florence's sights and customs, but to understand what Florence has meant, and still means, for British, American, and Italian alike. Discussions will include: Florence as the "museum" of Western culture, as depicted in E.M. Forster's Room with a View; Mary McCarthy's notion of Florence as representations of Florence in contemporary British and American cinema; the role and personification of Florence from Dante to contemporary popular songs.
In the Beginning There was the Underwear: The Way young Italians speak
Professor Roberto Dainotto, Duke University
4 credits
Beginning with Rossana Campo's novel In principio erano le mutande, this course offers an overview of the ways in which the Italian language is changing under the pressure of new youth cultures. We will study and discuss literary, cinematic, and musical texts (mostly popular songs) to learn how new jargons negotiate their difference and consonance with more classical literary, filmic, and operatic versions of Italian. Some of the topics included in this course will be: Pier Vittorio Tondelli's rock and roll novels; the CCCP/Marlene Kuntz's refashioning of the love song; the 99 Posse's Neapolitan hip-hop; Guido Chiesa's and Luciano Ligabue's films on the sociological, political, and linguistic experiment of "free radios" in 1977; and Giulio Mozzi and Silvana Ballestra 'under 25' novels.
Florentine Renaissance Art: From the Age of 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 early reign of Cosimo I, the second Duke of Tuscany. We will begin with a survey of the artistic culture and major workshops of late 15th century Florence - those of Pollaiolo, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio. This constitutes the training ground of the masters of the High Renaissance whose lives and works will be our next focus. These include, among others, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, Filippino Lippi, Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto. More than monographic coverage of each, our studies will attempt to reconstruct their stylistic and cultural interactions and environment. We will witness the decorative cycles of Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican in Rome - paragons of a "golden age" dramatically interrupted by the "Sac of Rome" of 1527- and trace the spread of their "grand manners" into the next phase of development termed as 'Mannerism' or 'Maniera', a label that we will endeavor to define. Our investigation of this 'post-classic' era begins with the early experimental and expressively charged art of Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, and other Tuscan masters that we will compare with that of the points of tangency and fusion as well as the diversities that lead to the transformations in style and content now largely defined by the term 'mannerism'. The early stages of artistic activity in Florence at the time of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici will afford us the opportunity to examine works by some of the epoch's greatest protagonists, such a s Agnolo Bronzino, Francesco Salviati, Parmigianino and others.
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 social 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 partecipate regularly and do a presentation on one of the course subjects. Partecipation, presentation, and two tests (mid-term and final) will form the basis for the final evaluation.
Experiencing the City
Professor Neal Robinson, University of Michigan
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.
Required Readings:
Architecture Design Studio
Professor Neal Robinson, University of Michigan
This course is open to U-M graduate students only.
Italian Language
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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