Italian

This course is for true beginners to Italian language. It runs at the pre-A1 level according to the CEFR level. This communicative course develops oral skills in Italian.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. Students acquire the fundamental knowledge in history of Medieval art and develop the necessary skills to familiarize themselves with the artistic production of the period. Students analyze some of the main works of the history of Medieval art using specific methodologies and compare these appropriately. The first part of the course focuses on the study of artistic phenomena and their development with particular attention to the mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians). Attention is paid to the material aspects, techniques, form, and function of the works of art (architecture, paintings, frescoes, illuminated books) in relation to the liturgy, architecture, accesses, and pilgrimage routes. The second part of the course focuses on monographic terms of the spatial and decorative restitution of one of the most significant European monuments: the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course covers basics concepts in the history of Italian cinematography. In particular, the course tackles a number of common focal points that link cinema with the history of Italian culture (method of representation, cultural industry, relationships with other expressive forms). The class starts with an analysis of the concept of “national cinema” for better understanding both the focus and the approach adopted by the lecturer in presenting the Italian case study. After this methodological introduction, the class investigates the history of Italian cinema from the silent era to nowadays. In doing that, Italian films are analyzed both as art form and as economic good. The aim of the class is twofold. On the one hand it investigates an historical path in order to retrace the evolution of Italian films in terms of style, aesthetics, themes, etc. On the other hand, it detects relationships between Italian films, Italian history, Italian art forms and Italian cultural industry. The investigation of Italian film history is supported by the analysis of some films which are particularly important for understanding key-periods and key-genres of Italian film history. The films are: MA L'AMOR MIO NON MUORE (1913) by Mario Caserini, CABIRIA (2014) by Giovanni Pastrone, OSSESSIONE (1943) by Luchino Visconti, LADRI DI BICICLETTE (1948) by Vittorio De Sica, RISO AMARO (1949) by Giuseppe De Santis, LA STRADA (1954) by Federico Fellini, DIVORZIO ALL'ITALIANA (1961) by Pietro Germi, PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI (1964) by Sergio Leone, BLOW-UP (1966) by Michelangelo Antonioni, PROFONDO ROSSO (1975) by Dario Argento, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (2017) by Luca Guadagnino, DOGMAN (2018) by Matteo Garrone. The course is structured in lecture/seminars led by the teacher. Sessions are accompanied with power point presentations, video clips, and film screenings. All students are required to attend the class, the screenings and to actively participate in class discussion.

This is an intensive intermediate Italian language course designed for students with a minimum of 3 quarters/2 semesters of previous Italian language (the equivalent of Italian 1B). Grammar is applied through exercises, games, communicative activities, written texts and oral monologues, role play and use of various media. Students express basic and more complex needs which enable them to communicate regarding a variety of topics. Students read texts and write descriptive and narrative texts. Grammar topics covered include: regular and irregular verbs in present, past, past perfect, imperfect, future simple and past and conditional tenses and learning to recognize the remote past tense; adjectives and indefinite pronouns; direct and indirect pronouns; simple and complex prepositions. Student performance is evaluated based on quizzes and a final exam. Texts include a reader provided by Bocconi.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program and is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course analyzes mass culture in Italy, including the creation, production, circulation processes, and use of the social meanings. Students learn to analyze the phenomena and processes of contemporary life such as its means of communication (new and old media), consumption and production of cultural heritage (music, paintings, newspapers, books, etc.), connections between cultural processes, and social inequalities and the organizational bases of media and artistic communication, the wide range of different forms of consumption, production, organization, financing, and evaluation of cultural heritage and objects. The course teaches how to recognize various phenomena linked to communication and analyze these from an interdisciplinary perspective. The first section of the course focuses on the theoretical state of the art. It reconstructs and defines core concepts from the academic fields of cultural sociology as well as media and cultural studies. It builds a conceptual tool-kit to analyze the socially constructed and historically rooted – yet contested and changeable – meanings of the notions of “Italian”, “Popular”, and, especially, “Culture(s)”. The second section presents the results of various empirical research projects on Italian popular cultures carried out over the last two decades. In particular, it focuses on Italian cultural icons, visual culture, and popular music. It applies the conceptual tool-kit outlined in the first section to a variety of cultural objects and case studies, in order to explore, among others, such issues as the crucial role of increasingly digital media in the process of production, circulation and consumption of popular culture; the role of popular culture and media rituals in the construction of (trans-)national identity; the relationship between popular culture and national politics in Italy.

This intensive language course is conducted in Italian and is designed to provide students with basic knowledge of Italian. The course follows the language proficiency guidelines set up by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).  Students in this course generally have an entrance exam that places them between the AB and A.1 levels. At the end of the four-week intensive program, students are expected to be able to express themselves in a simple, fluid, and clear manner and to be able to describe events that have taken place in the past and express personal preferences. The course covers the present tense (regular and irregular verbs as well as the past tense (regular and irregular) and the use of the correct auxiliary verb and the concordance. The course is designed to cover the first semester of Italian, roughly akin to Italian 1 and a portion of Italian 2 in the quarter system. All four abilities including speaking, listening, reading, and writing are emphasized with the support of authentic materials (videos) and real-life situations such as visits to local venues and cultural sites. The course follows a communicative approach to language acquisition and involves opportunities for role playing, group activities, games, class discussions, and exchanges with local University of Bologna students. Activities outside the classroom are organized in order to reinforce observation and communication skills that facilitate immersion in Italian culture. The course includes a major field trip. Students select the number of quarter units from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 6. The course is organized by Inlingua with supervision from the Study Center. Course materials are provided by Inlingua. The basic text for the course is: NUOVO CONTATTO A1 (Loescher, 2018).

This course provides students with a sound basis for communicating effectively and accurately in oral and written Italian. In this course, students continue to practice recognizing and using complex Italian grammatical and syntactic structures, such as verbs in all tenses and moods, connective words, and all uses of the subjunctive mood in hypothetical sentences, conjunctions, or indirect speech. Authentic materials (songs, videos, advertisements, and film clips) are used in a communicative-based approach, and emphasis is placed on the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students participate in several sessions of language exchange with Italian university students, and field trips take them outside the classroom to engage with the city and Romans to reinforce the grammatical skills learned in class. The course is conducted entirely in Italian.

This course offers an introductory study of Italian. Topics include: phonetics and spelling of contemporary Italian; gender and language in contemporary Italian; forms and syntax of the definite article; possessive adjectives and pronouns; demonstrative adjectives and pronouns; indefinite article; present indicative and subject pronouns; past tense; direct object pronouns; pronominal verbs in present and past tense; imperfect indicative.

The course focuses on 20th century Italian literature with special attention to sociological, anthropological, and philosophical questions. The course highlights general notions in critical theory and textual analysis including formal, structural, and compositional elements as well as the question of reception. Special attention is placed on a selection of modern and contemporary literary texts related to Italian and European traditions. The course topics varies each term, review the University of Bologna Course Catalog for the specific topic for each term.