Course module - Introduction to Italian Studies
Code : ITAL10300 (IT1300) Credit rating: 20 Semester : both
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Aims |
Objectives |
Assessment |
Information
|
Course Content |
Course Materials |
Tutors |
Timetable |
Teaching Methods |
Keywords
Aims
Throughout the unit attention will be paid to the development of the applied skills of independent research, writing, and presentation.
Objectives (Learning Outcomes)
Upon successful completion of the course unit students will be able to demonstrate:
- a working knowledge of the broad sweep of post-war Italian social and political development;
- possession of a range of research and bibliographical skills with which to undertake cultural and textual analysis;
- the ability to present written work in a professional manner (footnotes, references, quotation, bibliography, etc.);
- an understanding of what it means to read.
Assessment
One 2,000-word essay (50%) and three 1,000-word analytical commentaries on a narrative passage, a poem and a film sequence (50%).
Deadlines for submission of coursework:
Semester 1: the essay is to be submitted by the Thursday of Week 12;
Semester 2: the commentaries are to be submitted by the Thursday of Weeks 5, 8, and 11.
Nature and timing of feedback:
Feedback on formative assessment exercises will be delivered in the appropriate tutorial hour and/or in the form of reflections and suggestions posted on Blackboard; summative assessments (essay and commentaries) will be returned within a three-week period with written comments by the marker.
Information
Pre-requisite:
ITAL10200 or ITAL10210
Pathway:
Second-year Italian cultural course units
Course Content
This course unit is designed to provide an introduction to the culture and society of contemporary Italy in the post-war period, with the particular aim of identifying and challenging traditional stereotypes. In Semester 1 (Contemporary Italy) the course identifies the major political, economic, and social changes which have affected Italy since the Second World War, providing introductions to themes such as the problematic question of Italian national identity, the complexities of Italian politics, the family as a societal structure, issues of gender and regional diversity, and the cinema and culture industry; and in Semester 2 (Fictional Forms: Making and Meaning) attention will be directed towards the study and interpretation of particular texts (narrative, filmic, and poetic) created in this cultural context. Weekly lectures are accompanied by a fortnightly tutorial, for which the cohort will be divided into small groups. Alternate tutorial hours, with associated formative assessment, will be devoted to (i) discussion of specific chapters of set texts and pre-circulated reading studied in connection with the themes of the course unit and (ii) the rhetoric of everyday texts, designed to familiarize students with the way in which the Italian language operates at levels beyond the sentence.
Course Materials
Tutor(s)
Milner, Stephen - Semester 1
Billiani, Francesca - Semester 2
Armstrong, Guyda
Timetable
Lecture: Tuesday at 10-11 & Thu 4-5 pm. Students are assigned tutorial groups at the Year 1 meeting in Welcome Week.
Teaching Methods
One 1-hour lecture and one 1-hour fortnightly tutorial.
Preliminary reading
Set texts
Semester 1: David Forgacs and Robert Lumley, eds., Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Paul Ginsborg, Italy and its Discontents 1980-2001 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
Semester 2: Leonardo Sciascia, Il giorno della civetta (Turin: Einaudi, 1961): any edition of the Italian text; Federico Fellini, I vitelloni, 1953; selected poems by Eugenio Montale and Vittorio Sereni (to be supplied)
Further reading
- D. Bordwell and K. Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (Boston and London: McGraw-Hill, 2004)
- J. Dickie, Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia (London: Hodder, 2004)
- J. Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football (London: Fourth Estate, 2006)
- M. Gieri, Contemporary Italian Filmmaking: Strategies of Subversion (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1996)
- P. Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy 1943-1980 (London: Penguin Books, 1990)
- J. Lennard, The Poetry Handbook, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) and companion website
- P. McCarthy, ed., Italy Since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
- S. Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London: Methuen, 1983)
Keywords
Italian