Same course as ITAL V1101-V1102.
Introduction to the basic structures of the Hungarian language. With the instructors permission the second term of this course may be taken without the first. Students with a schedule conflict should consult the instructor about the possibility of adjusting hours.
Prerequisites: ITAL V1101 or the equivalent. Introduction to Italian grammar, with emphasis on reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.
An intensive course that covers two semesters of elementary Italian in one, and prepares students to move into Intermediate Italian. Students will develop their Italian communicative competence through listening, (interactive) speaking, reading and (interactive) writing. The Italian language will be used for real-world purposes and in meaningful contexts to promote intercultural understanding. This course is especially recommended for students who already know another Romance language. May be used toward fulfillment of the language requirement.
Prerequisites: ITAL W1221 or sufficient fluency to satisfy the instructor. Corequisites: Recommended: ITAL V1201-V/W1202 or ITAL W1201-W1202. Conversation courses may not be used to satisfy the language requirement or fulfill major or concentration requirements. Intensive practice in the spoken language, assigned topics for class discussions, and oral reports.
Prerequisites: ITAL V1102 or W1102, or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester.
Prerequisites: HNGR UN1101-UN1102 or the equivalent. Further develops a students knowledge of the Hungarian language. With the instructors permission the second term of this course may be taken without the first. Students with a schedule conflict should consult the instructor about the possibility of adjusting hours.
Prerequisites: ITAL V1201 or W1201, or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. A review of grammar, intensive reading, composition, and practice in conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural material. Lab: hours to be arranged. ITAL V1202 fulfils the basic foreign language requirement and prepares students for advanced study in Italian language and literature.
Prerequisites: ITAL UN1102 or the equivalent, with a grade of B+ or higher. An intensive course that covers two semesters of intermediate Italian in one, and prepares students for advanced language and literature study. Grammar, reading, writing, and conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural materials. This course may be used to fulfill the language requirement.
Prerequisites: ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334-UN3333 is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3334: Authors and works from the Cinquecento to the present. Taught in Italian.
Prerequisites: ITALUN2102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Intermediate Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. Written and oral self-expression in compositions and oral reports on a variety of topics; grammar review. Required for majors and concentrators.
Prerequisites: (ITAL UN2102) or (ITAL UN2121) Students must have completed Intermediate level Italian language proficiency. The course, designed for students who have mastered the grammatical structure of the language, will give the students the opportunity to improve their language skills and discover Italian art from Middle Ages to the second half of twentieth century. The works of the artists will be studied and discussed with the intent of developing knowledge of the main features of artistic and cultural movements and of the appropriate vocabulary and terminology to describe and talk about them. A particular emphasis will be put to oral and written productions: various kinds of texts and genres will be practiced (description, narration, critical analysis). Students will learn how to describe and interpret a work of art, examine the main characteristics and the techniques used by the artists and will be able to look for themes recurring in the artistic productions. The artists covered during the course will be introduced along the lines of their unique artistic, historical and socio-cultural relevance through different sources: images, scholarly essays, literature, video and music. Two visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to CIMA (Center for Modern Italian Art) will be organized. In Italian.
This course is designed for those curious about the structure of Hungarian - an unusual language with a complex grammar quite different from English, or, indeed, any Indo -European language. The study of Hungarian, a language of the Finno-Ugric family, offers the opportunity to learn about the phonology of vowel harmony, the syntax of topic-comment discourse, verb agreement with subjects and objects, highly developed case systems and possessive nominal paradigms. In addition to its inflectional profile, Hungarian derivation possibilities are vast, combinatory, and playful. During the semester we will touch upon all the important grammatical aspects of Hungarian and discuss them in relation to general linguistic principles and discourse, and finally, through some text analysis, see them in action. Although the primary discussion will center on Hungarian, we will draw on comparisons to other Finno-Ugric languages, most notably Finnish and Komi; students are encouraged to draw on comparisons with their own languages of interest. No prerequisite. Counts as Core Linguistics.
Future brides in novels present the common trait of insipidity. Amelia Sedley is said to be "insipid" multiple times in
Vanity Fair
; in
Anna Karenina
, Kitty is initially indistinguishable from her sisters; May in
The Mill on the Floss
is unremarkable; Pansy in
Portrait of a Lady
is "a blank page"; May in
The Age of Innocence
is "so lacking in imagination, so incapable of growth"… Counter-examples verify this rule: Natasha in
War and Peace
fulfills her destiny despite, not because of the extreme vividness of her soul: she can finally find peace when she gives up her beauty and her personality to become a full-time mother and a devoted wife. Unordinary female protagonists impede the traditional novel’s happy ending. Too complex and spirited figures such as Anna Karenina, or Becky Sharp in
Vanity Fair
, are denied a destiny. Insipidity, if not a feature since the beginning of the story, is the final achievement of the perfect woman of the novel.
Female insipidity is nonetheless enigmatic, and often goes along with great ideological and formal complexity. We will delve into this aspect by taking Lucia Mondella, the protagonist of Italy’s great historical novel
The Betrothed
, as a point of reference for a comparison with other 2 famous maidens: Sophy Western, Pamela Andrews, Amelia Sedley, Elizabeth Bennet… We will read Alessandro Manzoni’s masterpiece which, in its magnificent prose, tells a story made of impeded love, escapes, abductions, famine, plague, murderous nuns and pious peasants in 1628 Italy. Our reading will be focused on themes such as the female protagonist’s use of speech, her wisdom, her devotion, her virtue, standards of beauty. We will compare Manzoni’s invention with models from the early English novel (in particular Henry Fielding’s
Tom Jones
and Samuel Richardson’s
Pamela
) and from the novel contemporary to him (Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
, Thackeray’s
Vanity Fair
, Flaubert’s
Madame Bovary
, Brontë’s
Jane Eyre
). Readings include classical and medieval sources as well (in particular some novellas from Boccaccio’s
Decameron
), and the libertine literature that constituted Manzoni’s contemporary cultural background. In addition to the readings, the syllabus takes into account two movies: Tony Richardson’s
Tom Jones
, an adaptatio
Prerequisites: the faculty advisers permission. Senior thesis or tutorial project consisting of independent scholarly work in an area of study of the student’s choosing, under the supervision of a member of the faculty.
This seminar will examine the concept of cultural heritage as a body of goods, tangible and intangible, that come to us from the past - sometimes from antiquity, sometimes from more recent historical periods - and for which we are responsible for the present and future generations. The environment is an important part of cultural heritage too, with nature and its peculiar beauties. Similarly, practices, traditions, crafts and customs are a crucial component of cultural heritage. Over time, cultural heritage has become an increasingly broad and complex category: experts, scientists and professionals involved continue to multiply, and the disciplines continue to specialize. Even the very concept of cultural heritage is quite dynamic and frequently modified and reinterpreted. Based on an anthropological perspective and within the framework of a cultural heritage considered among the most valuable in the arts, both visual and literary, Italy’s artistic, archaeological, library and archival treasures will be a regular source of analysis and discussion. This course will examine ways in which we can understand cultural heritage through the intersections of several components: identity, nationalism, colonialism, ethnicity, gender, and religion, just to mention a few. Students will take into account several elements: how regional and international agencies and policies operate and interact with each other, the many threats to cultural heritage (wars and conflicts, natural disasters, climate change, illicit trafficking, and some forms of tourism), and the role of sustainability. The course will encourage students to acquire analytical reasoning and critical thinking, through a combination of textual and visual interpretation and class discussion. There are no pre-requisites for this course.
In English
While focusing on the Decameron, this course follows the arc of Boccaccios career from the Ninfale Fiesolano, through the Decameron, and concluding with the Corbaccio, using the treatment of women as the connective thread. The Decameron is read in the light of its cultural density and contextualized in terms of its antecedents, both classical and vernacular, and of its intertexts, especially Dantes Commedia, with particular attention to Boccaccios masterful exploitation of narrative as a means for undercutting all absolute certainty. Lectures in English; text in Italian, although comparative literature students who can follow with the help of translations are welcome.
While focusing on the Decameron, this course follows the arc of Boccaccios career from the Ninfale Fiesolano, through the Decameron, and concluding with the Corbaccio, using the treatment of women as the connective thread. The Decameron is read in the light of its cultural density and contextualized in terms of its antecedents, both classical and vernacular, and of its intertexts, especially Dantes Commedia, with particular attention to Boccaccios masterful exploitation of narrative as a means for undercutting all absolute certainty. Lectures in English; text in Italian, although comparative literature students who can follow with the help of translations are welcome.
What is the Mediterranean and how was it constructed and canonized as a space of civilization? A highly multicultural, multilingual area whose people represent a broad array of religious, ethnic, social and political difference, the Mediterranean has been seen as the cradle of western civilization, but also as a dividing border and a unifying confluence zone, as a sea of pleasure and a sea of death. The course aims to enhance students’ understanding of the multiple ways this body of water has been imagined by the people who lived or traveled across its shores. By exploring major works of theory, literature and cinema since 1800, it encourages students to engage critically with a number of questions (nationalism vs cosmopolitanism, South/North and East/West divides, tourism, exile and migration, colonialism and orientalism, borders and divided societies) and to ‘read’ the sea through different viewpoints: through the eyes of a German Romantic thinker, a Sephardic Ottoman family, an Algerian feminist, a French historian, a Syrian refugee, an Italian anti-fascist, a Moroccan writer, an Egyptian exile, a Bosnian-Croat scholar, a Lebanese-French author, a Cypriot filmmaker, an Algerian-Italian journalist, and others. In the final analysis,
Med Hum II
is meant to arouse the question of what it means to stand on watery grounds and to view the world through a constantly shifting lens.
Examines representations of the mafia in American and Italian film and literature. Special attention to questions of ethnic identity and immigration. Comparison of the different histories and myths of the mafia in the U.S. and Italy. Readings includes novels, historical studies, and film criticism. (NOTE: This is the graduate section of CLIA GU3660 which meets W 6:10p-10:00p)
Guided reading and research on a topic or in a field chosen by the student in consultation with a member of the faculty. Required for Ph.D candidates, ideally during the semester when they prepare the dissertation proposal (prospectus) under the supervision of a potential sponsor.