Italian

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. By the end of the course, students will have acquired a solid understanding of key aspects of Italy's cultural heritage, as well as a deeper appreciation of the complexities of its history and society. They are equipped to independently develop advanced knowledge and specialized skills, applying these to the analysis of cultural and institutional phenomena that define Italian culture and society. This course offers an overview of key moments in 20th-century Italian history, aiming to develop both linguistic and intercultural skills through the analysis of texts, guided activities, and group discussions. Topics covered include war, dictatorship, post-war reconstruction, and the profound cultural and social changes of the second half of the century. Special attention is given to comparing Italian historical processes with those experienced in the students’ countries of origin, fostering a broader and shared understanding of the complex dynamics of the 20th century.

The course is divided into five thematic modules, each focusing on a significant historical moment:

1. World War I, exploring how war vocabulary and narrative structures reflect the experience of conflict.
2. Fascism and political language, analyzing the rhetoric and discourse of the regime.
3. World War II and the Resistance, with a focus on the vocabulary of freedom and clandestinity.
4. The birth of the Republic, examining institutional language.
5. The 1968 movements and the feminist revolution, exploring the language of protest and civil rights.

Classes are conducted in Italian and include interactive activities, language exercises, written production, and intercultural exchange. Audiovisual materials are used to stimulate reflection and enrich the historical and linguistic context.

By the end of the course, the student: has an in-depth knowledge of the films, the directors, and the main trends of the history of documentary cinema; has an in-depth knowledge of the creative features of documentaries, as well as of their production and distribution process; and is able to identify and analyze the linguistic and expressive characteristics of documentary cinema. The course investigates the history of documentary cinema from its origins to nowadays, taking into consideration the key moments of its historical development. The course considers the international panorama with some focuses on specific areas where, in given historical moments, new movements, styles, and approaches in making documentaries emerged. The course pays particular attention to the following topics: the origins of cinema; the two fathers of documentaries (Robert Flaherty and Dziga Vertov); the British social documentaries; documentaries and propaganda; the relationship between Italian Neorealism and documentary films; Cine Vérité in France and the Direct Cinema in the United States; activist documentaries; mockumentary; interactive documentary; contemporary Italian documentaries. During the course, a constant comparison between fiction films and documentary films is considered in order to achieve a better understanding of their own specific features and a well-designed definition of documentary cinema. The historical and text analysis are integrated by the investigation of documentary production and circulation. In the final part of the course, a special lecture is devoted to documentary financing in Italy. Mandatory filmography: Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922); Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929); Comizi d'amore/Love Meetings (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964); The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, 1999); Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2003).

This is an intermediate level Italian language course for students who have previously completed two or more semesters of Italian. The listening comprehension section covers dialogue (in real or recorded situations) between at least two people, using relatively
elaborate morphosyntactic structures and using a political, social or cultural vocabulary; and the narrative of an anecdote, the summary and commentary of a newspaper article (easy language, medium length), television news (a newsflash, a weather report, an advertising message). The spoken production section includes talking about personal and professional projects; expressing feelings, preferences, tastes, opinions; expressing wish, regret, intention, fear, desire; presenting a plan; explaining the course of an action; presenting a written document (medium length text, newspaper articles); giving an opinion; expressing agreement and disagreement; establishing a comparison; expressing a hypothesis. Reading comprehension focuses on the essential elements of a text (press article, advertisement, fiction text or essay). Written expression includes writing a message to someone, make a request for information, send an email; writing a letter, a curriculum vitae and a cover letter; developing a simple comment from a given medium. The course also covers grammar (adverbs, pronouns, indefinites, prepositions, verbs, etc.), vocabulary, phonetics and spelling.