Welcome to Italian Studies

GRADUATE COURSES OFFERED

(H = Half-year Course and Y = Full-year course)

ITA 1000H: METHODOLOGIES FOR THE TEACHING AND STUDY OF ITALIAN
STAFF (Co-ordinator:  Professor Salvatore Bancheri

Students are introduced to basic reference materials necessary for research and will familiarize themselves with the Reference, Periodical Rooms, and the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library.  They will also study philological, computer-assisted and critical methods for the study of Italian literature and linguistics.

ITA 1001Y: COLLOQUIA AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
STAFF

ITA 1025H: OLD ITALIAN
Professor F. Pierno

It deals both with historical grammar (the linguistic transition from Latin to Italo-Romance) and the analysis of early Italian texts. The nature of the course is, at present, anthological rather than monographic, in the sense that a number of related topics will be dealt with in order to provide students with a general understanding of the problems and issues involved in the study of Old Italian.

ITA 1026H: ITALIAN DIALECTOLOGY
Professor F. Pierno

It deals with the dialects of Italy primarily from a synchronic and descriptive standpoint, although diachronic considerations will not be excluded. Some attention is also paid to dialect authors, particularly Neapolitan, Sicilian and Milanese.

ITA 1029H: Italian Religious Language
Professor F. Pierno

This seminar will consist in a historical overview of Italian Religious Language, from the first Medieval documents to the recent Bible translations and other Ecclesiastical documents.
The aims of the course are the following :
A) identifying the principal features and the most important genres of the Italian Religious Language;
B) analyzing the relation between History of Italian Language and Religion;
C) understanding the ideological and religious situations which provoked changes and evolutions in Italian Language.
For a better comprehension of theoretical methodologies (point A), the students engage an individual research project focusing on a particular Italian religious text.

ITA 1030H Italian Lexicography. History and Methodologies
Professor F. Pierno
This seminar will consist in a historical overview of Italian lexicography, from Medieval glossaries to online or cd-rom dictionaries.

The aims of the course are the following:

         A) identifying the principal research instruments, and their appropriate use;

          B) analyzing the methodological issues in Italian Lexicography, also in comparison with other lexicographical traditions;

         C) understanding the ideological situations which provoked changes and evolutions in Italian Lexicography.
In order to study in depth the principal research instruments (point A), the students will work under the guide of the teacher in the library and in the computer laboratory. For a better comprehension of theoretical and historical methodologies (point B), the studetns engage in an individual research project focusing on a particular lexicographical question.

ITA 1165H: INTRODUCTION TO ITALIAN PHILOLOGY
Professor M. Lettieri

Along with providing an historical overview of the Italian philological tradition by investigating its evolution and transformations, this course will identify the principal research instruments, and their appropriate use. Particular attention will be given to the following topics: definitions and outline of the history of philology, the various types of editions, texts and their history, the preparatory stages of critical editions and their characteristics. The course is aimed at the philological "apprentice", that is, those who are approaching this field of study for the first time.

ITA 1170H: TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND THE EDITING OF EARLY ITALIAN TEXTS
Professor M. Lettieri

This course will consider both the philological problems facing editors of early Italian texts (1200-1600) - criteria of transcription, relations between manuscripts, or printed editions; the role of the copyist/printer and their audience - as well as the language of these texts. Emphasis will also be placed on the central concerns and history of textual criticism, and the different types of critical editions. A variety of manuscripts, early printed editions and critical editions will be discussed and analyzed.

ITA 1177H: THE ITALIAN QUESTIONE DELLA LINGUA
Professor F. Pierno

This course looks at some of the texts, from Dante to Pasolini, relating to the 'Questione' of which language is/should be used in Italy. Alongside the critical and theoretical texts, relevant examples of writers' practice will also be considered, e.g. Ariosto's corrections to conform to Bembo's theories, or Svevo's flouting of traditional norms.

ITA 1200H: DANTE
Professor D. Pietropaolo

An examination of Dante's works and criticism on them.

ITA 1203H: BOCCACCIO
STAFF

A study of Boccaccio's Decameron and a selection of his "minor" works in Italian within the social, cultural, and literary context of the 14th century. Particular emphasis is placed on the adaptation and transformation of traditional literary forms, both in the "minor" works and in the Decameron itself.

ITA 1330H: PETRARCH AND PETRARCHISM
Professor F. Guardiani

An examination of Petrarch's literary production and of its influence in the Renaissance. Special attention given to Petrarch's lyric poetry, and the phenomenon of European Petrarchism.

ITA 1520H: RENAISSANCE HUMANISM
Professor O. Zorzi Pugliese

Begins with a review of the definitions of humanism. The chief features of the movement (the cult of antiquity, the problem of imitation, the use of rhetoric, and the formulation of new educational theories) are illustrated through an analysis of writings by early Quattrocento authors like Bracciolini, Alberti and Valla, and also by the later 15th-century humanist poet, Poliziano. The man-centredness of humanist thought is discussed in connection with treatises by Ficino and Pico della Mirandola.

ITA 1525H: RENAISSANCE DIALOGUE
Professor O. Zorzi Pugliese

Traces the development of the dialogue genre from the beginning of the 15th-century to mid 16th-century, through a reading of texts, e.g., Bruni, Alberti, Valla, Castiglione and Della Casa. Consideration of classical models and theories of dialogue formulated by Renaissance and modern critics.

ITA 1530H: MACHIAVELLI
Professor O. Zorzi Pugliese

The course deals briefly with the context of Machiavelli's life and works and concentrates on the author's contribution to a number of literary genres, including the treatise, theatre, the short story, and historiography.  In addition to considering the richness of Machiavelli's thought on the subject of man, politics, language, and history, the course will highlight the literary qualities of his writings.  His best-known work, Il principe, will be used as the testing ground for the application of various modern critical approaches to literature (e.g. psychoanalysis, semiotics).

ITA 1535H: Topics in ITALIAN LITERATURE
STAFF

ITA 1540H: RENAISSANCE ITALIAN THEATRE
Professor K. Eisenbichler

The course will examine public and private spectacle in 15th/16th-century Italy in the light of its social, political, or religious implications. An interdisciplinary approach will be used, stressing not only the literary and dramaturgical aspects of the plays, but also the interaction of the power elites, the role of the individual, and the response of spectators. The course will include a close examination of the place of theatre in the political and cultural power structures of the time. Representative authors to be studied are: Jacopone da Todi, Feo Belcari, Lorenzo de' Medici, Agnolo Poliziano, Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Ariosto, Annibal Caro, Giovan Maria Cecchi, Beolco-Ruzzante, Tasso, Trissino.

ITA 1545H: THE SACRA RAPPRESENTAZIONE
Professor K. Eisenbichler

The course will examine Italian religious theatre, and especially the Sacra Rappresentazione, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It will open with an analysis of the origins of religious theatre within the liturgy of the Church and in Medieval theatre.  It will then trace the development of the Sacra Rappresentazione in Florence from its beginning in the mid-fifteenth century to its eventual metamorphosis at the end of the sixteenth century.

ITA 1550H: SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE
Professor K. Eisenbichler

This course will examine the literary and cultural world of Florence in the sixteenth century focussing primarily on the reign of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (1530s-1570s). After looking at the historical circumstances that affected Florence in those decades, we will proceed to an examination of various cultural products (narratives, poetry, histories, biographies, theatre, spectacle, printing, etc.) to determine how they related to the socio-political realities of the time and how they contributed to Florentine and Italian culture in general.

ITA 1565H: TASSO
Professor F. Guardiani

Designed to make graduate students aware of the place of Tasso within the culture of his time. A rhetorical perspective will be used in order to contextualize individual poems within the literary environment in which they were written. Great relevance is assigned to Renaissance writings on poetics and rhetoric, including Tasso's own Dialoghi, Discorsi dell'arte poetica, Discorsi del poema eroico.  The definition of literary genres is central in this course and will inform all textual analyses.

ITA 1591H: BAROQUE POETICS AND POETRY
Professor F. Guardiani

Aims to introduce the study of Baroque poetry through the analysis of those poetics which either led to specific poetical experiences, or were determined by them. An examination of the development of Aristotle and Horace's literary theories (on such points as verisimilitude, imitation, utile et dolci, marvelous, etc., in late Renaissance poetics will lead to the presentation of the changes, or deformations which those motives underwent during the Baroque. Major poets of the l7th-century, such as Marino, Tassoni, and Chiabrera, as well as minor authors, will be read in the light of those theoretical approaches.

ITA 1592H: BAROQUE POETRY AND NEOBAROQUE POETICS
Professor F. Guardiani

The purpose of this course is to examine the concept of Neobaroque in the context of recent discussions of rhetoric in Italy, and to explore the implications that it has for a modem reader of 16th and l7th-century texts. Specifically, among theorists, will be included R. Barilli, G. Preti, E. Grassi, 0. Calabrese; the literary texts will include selections from Tasso, Marino, Errico, Morando, Artale, Lubrano.

ITA 1597H: THE COMMEDIA DELL' ARTE
Professor D. Pietropaolo

An examination of the conventions and techniques of the Commedia dell'Arte tradition; viewed against the background of contemporary dramaturgy, and appraised from the perspective of modem theories of theatrical discourse. Topics studied include: the semiotics of performance; stochastic composition processes; plot-building strategies; space; structural rhythm; masks, and ideology. No previous knowledge of semiotics is required but a definite interest in theory is presupposed.

ITA 1601H: VICO
Professor D. Pietropaolo

A study of the fundamental concepts of the Scienza nuova considered against the back-ground of the European history of ideas in the 17th- and 18th-centuries; and in the context of the humanist tradition. Focus also placed upon what the implications of Vico's thought have for the chief cultural debates of our time, especially in the field of literary theory.

ITA 1605H: THEORIES OF THE STAGE AND DRAMATIC CRITICISM
Professor D. Pietropaolo

A study of the main statements on the theory of the stage in Italy (Serlio, Leone Ebreo, Sabatini, Perrucci, Ingegneri Riccoboni, Zeno, Metastasio, Goldoni, etc.) up to the end of the 18th-century in the context of the most recent contributions to dramatic criticism, including the semiotics of drama and performance. The purpose of the course is to acquaint the students with the historical development of the theory of the theatre and to provide them with the critical tools needed to analyse a play.

ITA 1610H: SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY THEATRE
Professor S. Bancheri

The course will study the most representative trends, authors and plays of Italian theatre of 17th and 18th century. Commedia dell'arte scripts as well as works by Guarini, Della Valle, De' Dottori, Gravina, Martello, Maffei, Marcello, Metastasio, Gozzi, Goldoni, Galiani, Bettinelli, and Alfieri will be studied.

ITA 1645H: POST-TRIDENTINE RELIGIOUS DRAMA
Professor S. Bancheri

The course will focus on the main aspects of the history of post-Tridentine Italian religious drama, will discuss the theoretical treatises on the genre by Castelvetro, Pallavicino Mazzoni, Maffei, Crescimbeni, Gravina, Martello, Quadrio, as well as authors such as Della Valle, De' Dottori, Scammacca, Metastasio, Martello, Bettinelli, Granelli.

ITA 1650H: NEOCLASSICAL AND PRE-ROMANTIC LITERARY CULTURE
Professor S. Bancheri

The course will focus on the main aspects of Neoclassicism and pre-Romanticism and discuss the relevant works by Savioli, Algarotti, Fantoni, Parini, Monti, Foscolo, Pindemonte, Cesarotti, and Alfieri.  One of the aims of this course will be to train graduate students in the use of cutting-edge computer technology programs which will allow them to better analyze and understand the style and characteristics of the works studied through text-retrieval (analysis of occurrences, frequencies, statistics, associations, etc.)

ITA 1661H: Topics in NINETEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN LITERATURE
STAFF

ITA 1705H: PIRANDELLO
Professor L. Somigli

The cultural and theoretical issues that constitute the foundation of Luigi Pirandello's essay on humor will provide the background against which several of his novels, short stories and/or plays will be discussed.  Narrative and dramatic texts are intertwined in the dialogic history of Pirandello's overturning of traditional XIX century narrative and dramatic strategies. During the seminar, students will be engaged in the investigation of the complex trajectory travelled by Luigi Pirandello in his remapping of both genres (i.e. narrative and drama) in the Western tradition.

ITA 1710H: ASPECTS OF MODERN ITALIAN POETRY
Professor L. Somigli

Focusing on the poetic oeuvre of Eugenio Montale, this course will explore a number of key issues in twentieth-century Italian poetry.  Attention will be given to the relationship between Montale and the major poetic movements and currents of his time (crepuscolarismo and ermetismo in particular, but also the neo-avanguardia as, to a certain extent, a reaction to Montale), to trace both their influence on his work and the originality of his poetic project.  Central issues to be considered include: 1) the role of the poet and of poetry itself in modernity and after the negative moment of the avant-garde; 2) the question of the relationship between poetic and everyday language; 3) the relationship between poetry and socio-political reality.

ITA 1723H: TRENDS IN THE ITALIAN NOVEL  1900-1960
Professor R. Capozzi

A course designed to cover some of the major Italian narrators from Svevo and Pirandello to the days of "Letteratura industriale" and the early days of "Neo-avanguardia".  Special focus is given to psychoanalytical trends (Svevo, Berto, Volponi, Morante), the early neorealistic phase (Bernari, Pavese, Moravia, Vittorini) and the post neorealist fiction (Calvino).  Narrative strategies will be examined within psychological, ideological, historical, and linguistic frames.

ITA 1728H: NEW TRENDS IN THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL FROM 1957 TO THE PRESENT
Professor R. Capozzi

Aspects of "Letteratura e industria", "neoavanguardia" and postmodernism will be examined in the works of writers such as Ottieri, Parise, Morante, Volponi, Calvino, Malerba, Eco, and Tabucchi.  Periodically this course will be offered as a monographic study of major authors such as Morante and Calvino; or, Calvino and Eco; or, new trends in "la nuova narrativa: cannibali e postmoderni".

ITA 1729H: CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY
Professor R. Capozzi

An examination of Marxist and psychoanalytical approaches to literary criticism.  Although the course focuses mainly on theoretical aspects, time will be dedicated to the application of Marxism and psychoanalysis to specific literary works.

ITA 1730Y: ASPECTS OF SEMIOTIC THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ITALY
Professor R. Capozzi

Intended to introduce semiotic theory and its applications to literary criticism in Italy. The first part will focus on fundamental concepts in semiotic analysis, discussion on the contributions of such scholars as Peirce, Hjelmslev, De Saussure, Eco, and others. This part will also deal with aspects of the semiotic analysis of the Italian lexicon. The second part will focus on the applications of semiotic concepts and analytical techniques to Italian literary texts. Contributions of Italian scholars Caprettini, Bettefini, Avalle, and others, will be discussed and applied to critical analysis.

ITA 1735H: TOPICS IN ITALIAN STUDIES I
STAFF

ITA 1736H: TOPICS IN ITALIAN STUDIES II
STAFF

ITA 1755H: ITALIAN MODERNISM
Professor L. Somigli

The course will cover the culture of the period between Italian unification and the 1930s. It will consider the various responses to the process of modernization and the ensuing transformations in the traditional modes of production, circulation and reception of literature and art. Topics to be discussed include: the debate on the function of art and the artist; the formation of new literary genres and forms; the rise of mass culture; the historiographic accounts of the period. Readings will include works by Pascoli, D’Annunzio, Aleramo, Marinetti, Svevo, Bontempelli, as well as historical and theoretical studies of modernism. Students will conduct seminars on specific case studies of the theoretical issues raised in the course.

ITA 1760H: From Futurism to Novecentismo: The Rise and Fall of the Italian Avent-Garde
Professor L. Somigli

Focusing mainly on works by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Aldo Palazzeschi, Massimo Bontempelli and Alberto Savinio, this course will explore the theoretical and historiographic issues involved in the study of the phenomenon of the avant-garde in Italy.  It will first consider Futurism, with particular attention to its critique and revision of traditional genres and modes of artistic production, and its attempt to forge a link between the practice of art and everyday life.  There will be discussion of the appropriation of Futurist techniques in purely aesthetic avant-garde projects such as Savinio's metafisica and Bontempelli's novecentismo.

ITA 1810H: STUDIES IN ITALIAN LITERATURE AND FILM
STAFF

The course will investigate the complex and rich relationship between film and literature in 20th-century Italy, and will address the numerous historical, theoretical and cultural questions: a. rising in Italy by the early borrowings of writers from literature to cinema; b. generated by what was to become a consolidated practice in the history and development of Italian cinema, that is the cinematic adaptation of a literary text; c. engendered by the meeting of the two media when one or more literary texts become a source for a cinematic text, and/or one or more cinematic text becomes a source for a literary text; d. rising whenever one "reads film" and/or "sees literature." As processes of exchange and borrowing, as well as those of translation, metamorphosis and contamination between literature and film are central to the development of post-war cultural discourse in Italy, students will be confronted with a selection of literary and cinematic texts which will provide a platform for profitable discussion of the historical and theoretical issues central to the development of contemporary Italian literature and film.

ITA 1815H: ISSUES IN ITALIAN FILM HISTORIOGRAPHY
STAFF

The course will examine crucial issues in the development of one of the world’s most influential film traditions by connecting with major transformations in the nation’s historical progression (propaganda filmmaking and Fascism, Neorealism and the Resistance, Commedia all’italiana and auteur cinema during the Economic Miracle, and so forth), and will evaluate critical topics related to more current practices in historical periodizing.

ITA 2011H: DIRECTED RESEARCH IN ITALIAN LINGUISTICS
STAFF

ITA 2041H: Directed Research Topics 1 / Staff
ITA 2042H: Directed Research Topics 2 / Staff
ITA 2043H: Directed Research Topics 3 / Staff
ITA 2044H: Directed Research Topics 4 / Staff

Based on a professor's research project currently in progress, the above courses will enable a student to play a useful role in the project while receiving concrete training in research.

ITA 2051H: Lecture Series Research 1
ITA 2052H: Lecture Series Research 2
ITA 2053H: Lecture Series Research 3
ITA 2054H: Lecture Series Research 4

Based on a visiting professor's lecture series and on a research project currently in progress, the above courses will enable students to further explore a topic closely related to the lectures and to participate meaningfully in a cutting-edge research project by a professor of international distinction.

ITA 3000H: ITALIAN CANADIAN CULTURE
STAFF

The course traces the settlement of Italians in Canada through readings of a wide variety of texts ranging from reports produced by early explorers and missionaries to more recent works by award-winning novelists, poets, playwrights, film-makers and others.  Considerable attention will be devoted to primary source material too.

JIC 5000H: NARRATIVITY AND INTERTEXTUALITY IN ITALIAN FICTION
Professor R. Capozzi

Notions of embedded narratives, narrative frames, cornice, repetition and difference, intertextual echoes, polyphony, and dialogical discourse will be traced in Boccaccio's Decameron.  The works of Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco will demonstrate how these notions are further developed and illustrated in contemporary encyclopedic fictions (with references to J.L.Borges, J.Barth, T. Pynchon etc.). Selected pages from the works of Propp, Bakhtin, Todorov, Kristeva, Barthes, Riffaterre, Lottman, Segre, Corti, and Eco will provide the theoretical background for the lectures and class discussions.

JIF 1000H - Romance Philology I
Professor D. Kullmann

Introduction to the various aspects of historical linguistics and the beginnings of literature in the Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian). Topics studied will include the history of Romanization, the emancipation of the vernaculars from Latin, medieval bilingualism, linguistic and cultural aspects of the beginnings of vernacular writing, as well as the creation of literary forms and traditions. Early written documents from all Romance languages will be read and analyzed, up to and including the first literary texts. Students will also become acquainted with existing research tools such as bibliographies, databases, and linguistic repertories. The course equips students with foundations in both linguistic and literary studies in the early periods of all of the languages concerned. Required preparation for Romance Philology II (Medieval and Renaissance literature and linguistics).

JIF 1001H - Romance Philology II
Professor F. Pierno

This course will discuss specific aspects of the early literature and linguistics of the Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian). Topics studied will include: Dialects and the creation of national languages in all the linguistic areas concerned, manuscript tradition, textual criticism and edition, orality and writing, genre traditions, social and cultural aspects of literature in earlier periods, and Romance languages in contact. Approximately half of the course will be dedicated to the study of selected medieval or Renaissance literary texts (in various Romance languages), illustrating particular problems and discussing various theoretical approaches. This course requires JIF 1000H Romance Philology I as preparation.

JMI 1951H: ITALIAN MUSICAL THEATRE OF THE BAROQUE AND CLASSICAL PERIODS
Professors D. Pietropaolo, M. A. Parker

An analysis of selected operas and dramatic oratorios of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries including an examination of music, libretto, and early production history. The chief critical issues involved in the study of musical drama will be examined against the background of contemporary musical style and dramatic theory as well as in the context of the staging and performance conventions of the age.

JRL 1100Y: INTRODUCTION TO ROMANCE PHILOLOGY
Professor F. Pierno

This seminar will consist of three parts: a) a brief general introduction to the field, including the problem of Vulgar Latin and the evolution and classification of the Romance languages, with notions of historical grammar; b) the more detailed treatment of selected topics, and the reading of early Romance texts; especially French, Italian, Provençal, and Spanish texts; c) presentation and discussion of oral reports by students.

MST 3162H: BOCCACCIO AND CHAUCER