Results for ITALIAN

Preference to freshmen. To the English and American literary imagination, Italy has long been a source of fascination. During the past hundred years, writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Frances Mayes have explored the broad range of contradictory resonances of the Italian setting, in fiction, travel essays, and memoirs. While some writers have celebrated the sensuality of Italian culture and landscape, others have imagined Italy as a more dangerous place -- as dangerous as the erotic love with which it is often identified. The range of literary responses to Italy by writers in English during the past hundred years will be examined, and the ways in which our culture has continued to construct myths of Italy will be explored. We will also see how these myths have been transformed into commodities in today's consumer culture, making "Italy" one of the most profitable fictions in the marketplace. Taught in English.

Even if many of us don't fully believe in an afterlife, we remain fascinated by visions of it. This course focuses on Near-Death Experiences and the stories around them, investigating them from the many perspectives pertinent to the growing field of narrative medicine: medical, neurological, cognitive, psychological, sociological, literary, and filmic. The goal is not to understand whether the stories are veridical but what they do for us, as individuals, and as a culture, and in particular how they seek to reshape the patient-doctor relationship. Materials will span the 20th century and come into the present. Taught in English.

Renowned for its rich cultural tradition, Italy is also one of the most problematic nations in Europe. This course explores the contradictions at the heart of Italy, focusing on five key words and their corresponding human figures, which embody the spirit of Italy and its people: Stile (the artist), Spirito (the hero-saint), Scienza (the thinker), Migrazione (the explorer), and Crisi (the political man). Through the study of historical and literary texts, films, and news media, the course addresses figures such as Dante, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Galileo; and socio-cultural phenomena such as fashion and design, the scientific revolution, immigration, and Berlusconi. Offered as a part of the Gateways to the World program. Taught in English.

Passion, nostalgia, mafia, women. What has it meant to be Italian in the past hundred years? How are these stereotypes invented, portrayed and dismantled by filmmakers such as Fellini, Scola, Giordana, Benigni and Torre? This course will address the problem of Italianità, its anomalies and contradictions, and look at how Italians have imagined themselves on the big screen, from the figure of the hopeless romantic to the mafioso. Films will be in Italian with English subtitles. Taught in Italian.

The origins of Italian literature. Poetry such as 13th-century love lyrics, Dante's Vita Nuova and Petrarca's Canzoniere; prose such as stories from Boccaccio's Decameron. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent.

The literature, art, and history of the Renaissance and beyond. Readings from the 15th through 18th centuries include Moderata Fonte, Machiavelli, Ariosto, Tasso, Galileo, and Goldoni. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent (2 years of Italian)

The history of the Italian nation and national literary identity in the 19th and 20th centuries. The relationship between literary texts and their historical context from the Risorgimento to the Resistance. Focus is on the romantic lyric, futurism, fascism, and the changing status of women. Authors include Foscolo, Leopardi, D'Annunzio, Aleramo, Marinetti, Pirandello, Ungaretti, and Montale. Prerequisite: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent. Taught in Italian.

This course involves an in-depth study of Boccaccio's Decameron in the context of medieval theories of poetry and interpretation. The goal is to understand more fully the relationship between literature and lived experience implied by Boccaccio's fictions. We will address key critical issues and theoretical approaches related to the text. Taught in English translation, there will be an optional supplementary Italian discussion section during weeks 2-9.

Issues of freedom, morality, faith, knowledge, personal identity, and the value of truth explored through film; philosophical investigation of the filmic medium itself. Screenings to include Twelve Monkeys (Gilliam), Ordet (Dreyer), The Dark Knight (Nolan), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Allen), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kaufman). Taught in English.

The mafia has become a global problem through its infiltration of international business, and its model of organized crime has spread all over the world from its origins in Sicily. At the same time, film and fiction remain fascinated by a romantic, heroic vision of the mafia. Compares both Italian and American fantasies of the Mafia to its history and impact on Italian and global culture. Taught in English.

The traditional canon of Italian literature consists almost exclusively of male authors. Yet Italian women writers have been active since the time of Dante. This presents an overview of women's prose fiction of the last 100 years, from Sibilla Aleramo's groundbreaking feminist novel *Una donna* (1906) to novels from the 80's and 90's. We will examine such issues as the central issue of sexual violence in many female autobiographies; the experience of motherhood; the conflict between maternal love and the desire for self-determination and autonomy; paths to political awareness; reinventing the historical novel. Taught in English.

Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track: majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Issues may include authorship, selfhood, truth and fiction, the importance of literary form to philosophical works, and the ethical significance of literary works. Texts include philosophical analyses of literature, works of imaginative literature, and works of both philosophical and literary significance. Authors may include Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Borges, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas, Pavel, and Pippin. Taught in English.

The course will follow the development of Italo Calvino's literary career, with a particular focus on his interest in fantastical and meta-fictional forms of narrative. Readings of Calvino's literary works, such as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and Mr. Palomar, will be supplemented by readings from his critical prose, collected in the volumes The Uses of Literature and Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Taught in English.

The major topic will be the indeterminacy regarding the survival of humankind. With the advent of the atomic bomb humankind became potentially the maker of its own demise. Will combine a number of significant case studies (environmental disasters, industrial catastrophes, threat of nuclear devastation, technological risks) with the lessons drawn from a form of literature that is at the intersection of STS and the Humanities, in particular the early warnings made by such thinkers as Ivan Illich, Martin Heidegger, Hans Jonas, Günther Anders, and Hannah Arendt.

Intensive reading of Dante's "Inferno" (the first canticle of his three canticle poem The Divine Comedy). Main objective: to learn how to read the Inferno in detail and in depth, which entails both close textual analysis as well as a systematic reconstruction of the Christian doctrines that subtend the poem. The other main objective is to understand how Dante's civic and political identity as a Florentine, and especially his exile from Florence, determined his literary career and turned him into the author of the poem. Special emphasis on Dante's moral world view and his representation of character. Taught in English.

Reading the second and third canticles of Dante's Divine Comedy. Prerequisite: students must have read Dante's Inferno in a course or on their own. Taught in English. Recommended: reading knowledge of Italian.

Writing is not a mere recording of the past, but a selection and reinvention of our experiences. We will look at how writing is central to the philosophical project of fashioning the self, even as it reveals that much of what we call the self is a fictional construct. Materials include fiction and memoirs (Primo Levi, Michel Tournier, Melania Mazzucco, Jonathan Littell), and theoretical works in philosophy (Bergson, James, Freud, Jung, Derrida, Wyschogrod, Nehamas), psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. Taught in English.

The starting point for our seminar is the question of how postcolonial thought enhances our possible understandings of Italy - as a nation, as a territorial unit coalescing cultural parts that remain disparate to this day, and as a population that has not come fully to terms with its fascist history, its crimes in World War II, or the atrocities it perpetrated as a colonizing state. The Italian case is unusual compared to others, in that the country's colonial past in north and east Africa is still being uncovered after a long period of public silence and government suppression; and what might be called the postcolonial Italian project has begun only recently, driven by a distinct minority of scholars, 'migrant' authors, and activists.nnFrench cultural politics and history are often taken as a point of reference from which to analyze Italian phenomena. In this case, we will make use of the French postcolonial tradition as a point of both comparison and differentiation. Among other things, we will focus on the different meanings of 'postcolonial' in a country that is strongly centralized (France) and another which is unremittingly fragmented (Italy). As just one example, we will scrutinize how Gramsci's work has been understood in Anglophone and Francophone criticism (cultural studies, Subaltern studies, and so on), as opposed to how it may be read in its original Italian context, where it concerned subalterns within the nation-state.nnAsking what is postcolonial, for whom, when, and where?, ultimately our goal is to discern the specific contours of Italy's postcolonialism by juxtaposing it with France's, and to simultaneously ask what light can be shed on French postcolonial particularities by placing it in this dialogue. Beginning with fundamental historical readings (Gramsci, Fanon, Memmi) and touching on some early Anglophone postcolonial critics (Said, Bhabha), the seminar will then be structured around key literary and theoretical readings from Italy and France. Ideally, readings will be in the original language, but as often as possible they will be selected such that they will be accessible in English translation as well. Taught in English.

Some critics claim that film has displaced the novel as the most popular narrative form of contemporary culture. What is the relationship between the two media? Which novels are chosen for adaptation and why? What are the relative strengths and limitations of literature and film as media? What are the specific pleasures of adaptations? In this course we will read five Italian novels and analyze their film versions, viewing adaptation as a legitimate creative response to a work of literature. We will first read the novel and consider the particular challenges it presents to transposition into film. We will follow this discussion with a close reading of the film version. The goal of the course is to examine cinematic adaptation as a cultural process by introducing a group of significant texts from the Italian tradition. Taught in English.

The role of narrative in the well-lived life. Are narratives necessary? Can they, and should they, be literary? When might non-narrative approaches, whether literary or otherwise, be more relevant? Is unity of self something given, something to be achieved, or something to be overcome? Readings from Aristotle, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, MacIntyre, G. Strawson, Velleman; Ricoeur, Brooks; Shakespeare, Stendhal, Musil, Levi, Beckett, Morrison; film. Taught in English.

This course involves an in-depth study of Boccaccio's Decameron in the context of medieval theories of poetry and interpretation. The goal is to understand more fully the relationship between literature and lived experience implied by Boccaccio's fictions. We will address key critical issues and theoretical approaches related to the text. Taught in English translation, there will be an optional supplementary Italian discussion section during weeks 2-9.

The traditional canon of Italian literature consists almost exclusively of male authors. Yet Italian women writers have been active since the time of Dante. This presents an overview of women's prose fiction of the last 100 years, from Sibilla Aleramo's groundbreaking feminist novel *Una donna* (1906) to novels from the 80's and 90's. We will examine such issues as the central issue of sexual violence in many female autobiographies; the experience of motherhood; the conflict between maternal love and the desire for self-determination and autonomy; paths to political awareness; reinventing the historical novel. Taught in English.

A number of faculty will present published work and discuss their research and composition process. We will read critical, theoretical, and literary texts that address, in different ways, "What is a World?" Taught in English.

Discussion of one contemporary or historical text from the Western philosophical tradition per quarter in a group of faculty and graduate students. For admission of new participants, a conversation with H. U. Gumbrecht is required. May be repeated for credit. Taught in English.

Enrollment is limited to French/Italian Ph.D. students. Course is designed for French/Italian Ph.D. students to prepare for department milestone exams.

Repeatable for Credit

Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. For Pirandello (1867-1936; Nobel Prize, 1934), to suddenly realize your entire life has been a performance is a moment of utmost horror, comedy, and opportunity for self-awareness. In a quintessentially modern fashion, he claims that the performance cannot be stopped, that authenticity is a mirage, and that learning to laugh at oneself is the only liberation. Materials include Pirandello's existential "theater within the theater," his novels, and their film adaptations, which we will study in their cultural context.

This course serves as an introduction to the world of Italy by focusing on the cultural significance associated with five key words and their concomitant human figures: ¿Stile¿ (the artist), ¿Spirito¿ (the hero-saint), ¿Scienza¿ (the thinker), ¿Migrazione¿ (the explorer), and ¿Crisi¿ (the political man). Readings will address figures such as Dante, Michelangelo, Saint Francis, Da Vinci, Galileo, Fermi, and Columbus; and socio-cultural phenomena such as fashion and design, the scientific revolution, brain drain, immigration and emigration, religion, and politics.

Gateway course for Italian studies. An examination of representations of love and sexuality in Italian literature, art, film, and popular culture from the Italian Renaissance to the current period. Beginning with the figure of Silvio Berlusconi and ending with Dante's love for Beatrice, the course considers differences in social practices and mores over time, the role of literary and artistic representations in establishing cultural expectations about love, the question of gender roles and identity in Italian society, as well as contemporary stereotypes about love in Italy and Italians in love. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent

A comparison between the different roles played by writers as members of the intellectual establishment in Catalonia, Spain and Italy. Focus on the relation between intellectuals and politics in shaping national identity. We will give especially consideration to the role played by intellectuals during the Fascist and Francoist dictatorships and during Spain's transition to democracy. Taught in English.

Explores some of the key texts of European early modernity and the critical paradigms according to which the idea of the "Renaissance" has been formed, analyzed, and questioned since the 19th century. Will aim to provide a broad introduction to Early Modern studies from the point of view of the Italian Renaissance and its reception in different European contexts. Taught in English.

More than in any other tradition, Italian poets of the twentieth century focus on "ultimate questions," and look all the way back to Dante in doing so: why do we die? is there a God? what does it mean to love? are we responsible for our neighbors? is beauty related to truth? what do we learn from the past? what makes life meaningful? Poets include Ungaretti, Montale, Caproni, Sereni, Rosselli, Pasolini, Luzi, Merini, and Zanzotto. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: Second-year Italian minimum

A comparative seminar on medieval love books and their reception. We will examine and question the notion of "amour courtois," which arose in the lyrics and romances of medieval France and was codified in Romantic-era criticism. Primary readings will be enriched by thinking about this notion through the lens of modern theories of desire, such as those of Girard, Lacan, and Zizek. Conducted in English with readings in translation.

Focus on Italy's presence in Shakespeare's corpus; his use of Italian literary sources, and the Italian settings of some of his plays. It will also look at the reception of Shakespeare in Italy, especially in Italian opera and film. Readings will include Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bandello and Machiavelli; Shakespeare's sonnets and some of his major plays that are set in Italy. We will also discuss Verdi's opera, Otello, and Zeffirelli's movie Romeo and Juliette, among others Italian renditions of Shakespeare's plays. Taught in English.

One of the most difficult tasks of Italian unification was to negotiate the many differences between North and South -- economic, social, cultural, and linguistic. The phenomenal growth of regional and even separatist sentiment exemplified in the Northern League shows that Italian integration is far from complete. In this course we will explore the history of conflict between North and South from the Risorgimento to the present day, with a primary focus on prose fiction and film. Taught in English.