Italian

ITAL UN1101 ELEMENTARY ITALIAN I. 4.00 points.

Limited enrollment.

Elementary level of Italian

ITAL UN1102 ELEMENTARY ITALIAN II. 4.00 points.

Limited enrollment.

Prerequisites: ITAL UN1101 or the equivalent.
Prerequisites: ITAL V1101 or the equivalent. Introduction to Italian grammar, with emphasis on reading, writing, listening and speaking skills

ITAL UN1121 INTENSIVE ELEMENTARY ITALIAN. 6.00 points.

Limited enrollment.

An intensive course that covers two semesters of elementary Italian in one, and prepares students to move into Intermediate Italian. Students will develop their Italian communicative competence through listening, (interactive) speaking, reading and (interactive) writing. The Italian language will be used for real-world purposes and in meaningful contexts to promote intercultural understanding. This course is especially recommended for students who already know another Romance language. May be used toward fulfillment of the language requirement

ITAL UN2101 INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN I. 4.00 points.

Limited enrollment.

Prerequisites: ITAL UN1102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester.
Prerequisites: ITAL V1102 or W1102, or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester

ITAL UN2102 INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN II. 4.00 points.

Limited enrollment.

Prerequisites: ITAL UN1201 or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester.
Prerequisites: ITAL V1201 or W1201, or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. A review of grammar, intensive reading, composition, and practice in conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural material. Lab: hours to be arranged. ITAL V1202 fulfils the basic foreign language requirement and prepares students for advanced study in Italian language and literature

ITAL UN2121 INTENSIVE INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN. 6.00 points.

Limited enrollment.

Prerequisites: ITAL UN1102 or the equivalent, with a grade of B+ or higher.
Prerequisites: ITAL UN1102 or the equivalent, with a grade of B or higher. An intensive course that covers two semesters of intermediate Italian in one, and prepares students for advanced language and literature study. Grammar, reading, writing, and conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural materials. This course may be used to fulfill the language requirement

ITAL UN2221 Intermediate Conversation. 2 points.

Prerequisites: ITAL W1112 or sufficient fluency to satisfy the instructor.
Corequisites: Recommended: ITAL V1201-V/W1202 or ITAL W1201-W1202.

Conversation courses may not be used to satisfy the language requirement or fulfill major or concentration requirements. Intensive practice in the spoken language, assigned topics for class discussions, and oral reports.

ITAL UN3333 INTRO TO ITALIAN LITERATURE I. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: Intermediate Italian II ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent.
Prerequisites: Intermediate Italian II ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334x-UN3333y is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3333: This course, entirely taught in Italian, introduces you to Medieval and early modern Italian literature. It will give you the opportunity to test your ability as a close-reader and discover unusual and fascinating texts that tell us about the polycentric richness of the Italian peninsula. We will read poems, tales, letters, fiction and non-fiction, travel writings and political pamphlets. The great “Three Crowns” - Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio - as well as renowned Renaissance authors such as Ludovico Ariosto and Niccolò Machiavelli, will show us the main path to discover Italian masterpieces and understand the European Renaissance. But we will also explore China with Marco Polo and the secrets of the Medieval soul diving into the mystical poems by Jacopone da Todi. We will study parody and laughter through the “poesia giocosa” (parodic poetry) by Cecco Angiolieri and the legacy of Humanism through the letters of Poggio Bracciolini. This first overview will allow you to explore Italian literature from its complex and multicultural beginnings to its diffusion across Europe during the Renaissance

ITAL UN3334 INTRO TO ITALIAN LITERATURE II. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent.
Prerequisites: ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334-UN3333 is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3334: Authors and works from the Cinquecento to the present. Taught in Italian

ITAL UN3335 ADVANCED ITALIAN I. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: ITALUN2102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Intermediate Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester.
Prerequisites: ITALUN2102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Intermediate Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. Written and oral self-expression in compositions and oral reports on a variety of topics; grammar review. Required for majors and concentrators

ITAL UN3336 ADVANCED ITALIAN II. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: ITAL V3335
Prerequisites: ITAL V3335 Advanced reading, writing, speaking with emphasis on authentic cultural materials. Topic and semester theme varies

ITAL UN3337 ITALIAN THROUGH CINEMA. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: ITAL UN3335
Prerequisites: ITAL V3335. Students will develop advanced language competence while analyzing and discussing Italian film comedies and their reflection of changing Italian culture and society. Films by Monicelli, Germi, Moretti, Wertmuller, Soldini and others

ITAL UN3338 Italiana. Introduction to Italian Culture, the High, the Low, and the In-between. 3 points.

"Italiana. Introduction to Italian Culture, the High, the Low, and the In-between" aims at expanding the students' knowledge of Italian culture and improving and refining their language skills, through writing, reading, speaking, and listening. This is a content based course in which the students familiarize with the most crucial moments of Italian history and are exposed to the issues that are currently debated in Italy, such as national identity, immigration, emigration, homoparental family, and the truthfulness or deceptiveness of the brand Made in Italy. Naturally, considerable attention is given to the distinctive geographical, economical, and cultural traits of Italian regions and their cities. The students apply their communicative skills in Italian by conversing with the Italian students currently registered at Columbia University and by conducting interviews within New York's Italian communities on the subjects studied and discussed in class.

ITAL UN3590 Anatomy of Fantastic Fiction: The Uncanny, the Monstrous and the Other in Modern and Contemporary Italy. 3 points.

What is a fantastic text and what renders it "scandalous" (R. Caillois)? How do nineteenth-century fantastic tropes and motifs survive in present-day narratives? What assumptions about "real" and "reality" do they reveal? How can fantastic representations of the inexplicable, supernatural and inhuman shape and enrich our understanding of the human mind and the world around us? And finally, why are we so fascinated by that which frightens us? In this course, we will address these and many other questions by looking at short stories, films, TV shows and comic books from the Italian and other traditions, from the 19th century to the present day. The course will be loosely chronological, but will be based mainly around thematic units. Through a comparative approach, we will explore the relationship between the fantastic mode and notions such as the uncanny, the repressed and the unconscious. We will look at our primary texts through an interdisciplinary lens spanning literary theory and genre studies to psychoanalysis and reader-response theory. Some primary texts are only available in Italian; however, accommodations can be made for non- Italian speakers.

ITAL UN3642 ROAD TRIPS:TRAVEL IN ITAL CIN. 3.00 points.

Explores the representation of national identity in Italian cinema from the Facist era to the present. Examines how both geography and history are used to construct an image of Italy and the Italians. Special focus on the cinematic representation of travel and journeys between North and South. Films by major neo-realist directors (Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti) as well as by leading contemporaries (Moretti, Amelio).

ITAL UN3993 SENIOR THESIS/TUTORIAL. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: the faculty adviser's permission.
Prerequisites: the faculty advisers permission. Senior thesis or tutorial project consisting of independent scholarly work in an area of study of the student’s choosing, under the supervision of a member of the faculty

ITAL GU4089 Petrarch's Canzoniere. 3 points.

This course presents a reading of Petrach's Canzoniere and a theory of the lyric sequence as a genre. In this course we examine Petrarch as he fashions himself authorially, especially in the context of Ovid, Dante, and previous lyric poets. We bring to bear ideas on time and narrative from authors such as Augustine and Ricoeur in order to reconstruct the metaphysical significance of collecting fragments in what was effectively a new genre. We will consider Petrarch's lyric sequence in detail as well as read Petrarch's Secretum and Trionfi. Lectures in English; text in Italian, although students from other departments who can follow with the help of translations are welcome.

ITAL GU4100 Narratives of Modernity. 3 points.

In revisiting two major authors of the Italian modern novel, the course investigates the relation between fiction and the "conditions of modernity" (personal risk, anxiety and lack of control on reality, secularization, to name a few). Special attention will be paid to the response of the novelistic discourse to modernity, and to Italy's peculiarly peripheral position in the modern world. Primary texts will be read in Italian, while theoretical references will be in English.

ITAL GU4395 Fifty Years of Impatience: The Italian Novel between 1950-2000. 3 points.

The course examines some of the most important novels that belong to Italy's period of major social and economic transformations. Only after WWII Italy finally becomes a modern nation, i.e. a republic based on truly universal suffrage, and an industrialized country. Such accelerated progress, though,causes deep social instability and mobility which obviously results in heavy psychological pressures on the people: adaptation becomes crucial and inevitable. Fiction therefore resumes the task to represent such awkwardness of integration into a modern bourgeois society that, contrarily to its European and American counterpart, is extremely tentative and insecure per se, since it's political identity has extremely precarious grounds. Among other authors, primary readings include Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard and Italo Calvinos's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. Primary Readings in Italian.

ITAL GU4502 ITALIAN CULTURAL STUDIES I. 3.00 points.

An interdisciplinary investigation into Italian culture and society in the years between Unification in 1860 and the outbreak of World War I. Drawing on novels, historical analyses, and other sources including film and political cartoons, the course examines some of the key problems and trends in the cultural and political history of the period. Lectures, discussion and required readings will be in English. Students with a knowledge of Italian are encouraged to read the primary literature in Italian

ITAL GU4503 ITL CULTRL ST II:WWI-PRESENT. 3.00 points.

An interdisciplinary investigation into Italian culture and society in the years between World War I and the present. Drawing on historical analyses, literary texts, letters, film, cartoons, popular music, etc., the course examines some of the key problems and trends in the cultural and political history of the period. Lectures, discussion and required readings will be in English. Students with a knowledge of Italian are encouraged to read the primary literature in Italian.

ITAL GU4725 Pirandello and Modern Drama. 3 points.

The course will examine the foundations of modern drama and stage representation by analysing Luigi Pirandello's plays and theoretical works in close comparison with the major authors and drama theorists of the XIX century, including Bertolt Brecht, August Strinberg, and Jean Genet.

CLIA GU3660 MAFIA MOVIES. 3.00 points.

Examines representations of the mafia in American and Italian film and literature. Special attention to questions of ethnic identity and immigration. Comparison of the different histories and myths of the mafia in the U.S. and Italy. Readings includes novels, historical studies, and film criticism. Limit 35

CLIA GR6999 MAFIA MOVIES. 3.00 points.

Examines representations of the mafia in American and Italian film and literature. Special attention to questions of ethnic identity and immigration. Comparison of the different histories and myths of the mafia in the U.S. and Italy. Readings includes novels, historical studies, and film criticism. (NOTE: This is the graduate section of CLIA GU3660 which meets W 6:10p-10:00p)