Courses » » Italian Studies 298. Experimental Courses

Food in the Italian Imagination

An interdisciplinary journey through Italian history, geography, literature and culture to uncover the paradox of Italy’s relationship with food, a paradox marked by hunger and abundance, simplicity and art. We will study food as culinary tradition, as political tool, as charged artistic and literary sign. Readings will be drawn from Artusi’s classic Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, as well as Boccaccio’s Decameron, Calvino’s Under the Jaguar Sun and Clara Sereni’s Keepin House: A Novel in Recipes. Discussions will include the “Slow Food” movement, the translation of the Italian culinary tradition into U.S. culture, and contemporary shifts in Italian eating patterns as a result of globalization.

Conducted in Italian.

Prerequisite: ITAS 200 or permission of the instructor.

Love and Marriage: Cultural and Gender Anxiety in Modern Italian Literature and Film

This course explores representations of love and marriage in modern Italian literature and cinema. Through a diverse sample of “high” and popular culture, from 19th century romantic novels to 20th century gothic films, we will examine the cultural and gender anxiety produced by the urbanization process, social change and women’s emancipation in modern Italy. (Taught in English).

Modern Italian Theatre: Performance and Transgression

This is an Italian Studies course, not a performance-based theater course. The 298 level is most suited to students who have completed ITAS 220 but have not taken any other advanced courses in Italian.

This course explores the shifting zones between stage and audience, between written text and social intervention. Beginning with Pirandello’s seminal masterpiece, Six Characters in Search of an Author, students will explore the radical artistic and political potential of theatre in modern Italian society. Readings and viewings may include: avant-garde Futurist theatre; De Filippo’s Neapolitan theatre; Martinelli’s Afro-Italian collaborations; and works by Betti, Pasolini, Maraini, Ginzburg and the renowned Fo-Rame team.