Courses
Why Italian courses?
Learner-led discussions are central to our courses. We strive to create a friendly and welcoming environment where students can reflect collectively about social issues through the course content while contributing to shaping the class itself.
Our courses
First-year
ITAL 10100 Beginning Elementary Italian I
This course is the first of a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It is designed to help students obtain functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
ITAL 10200 Beginning Elementary Italian II
This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language presented in ITAL 10100 and further explores the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It is designed to help students obtain functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening with a focus on present and past time frames. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
ITAL 10300 Beginning Elementary Italian III
ITAL 12200 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages
Second-year
ITAL 20100 Language History Culture I
In this course, students practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and further develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. This class reviews basic patterns of the language and presents new grammatical structures and communicative functions. Students explore aspects of Italian society – with a focus on cultural practices and perspectives – through a variety of literary and non-literary texts and audio-visual materials, which raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
ITAL 20200 Language History Culture II
In this second part of the intermediate sequence, Students explore aspects of Italian society – with a focus on social issues and socioeconomic changes – cultural practices, and perspectives through a variety of literary and non-literary texts and audio-visual materials. The course raises cultural awareness and encourages intercultural reflection, while offering students several opportunities to practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. This class presents new grammatical structures and lexical items, while reviewing patterns from ITAL20100.
ITAL 20300 Language History Culture III
ITAL 20222 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages II
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages who have completed ITAL 12200 “Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages.” In this intermediate-level course, students will further develop their proficiency in Italian, by focusing on the similarities and differences between Romance languages. This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the Italian language and expands on the material presented in ITAL 12200.
Third-year
ITAL 20400 Corso di perfezionamento (Autumn)
How can we better understand the complexities of 21st-century Italian society and culture? This Corso di perfezionamento aims to immerse you in today’s Italian linguistic, social, and cultural environment, focusing on various issues of relevance, such as multiculturality, immigration, non-normative sexual and gender identities, youth and the labor market, sexism, and inclusive language. By reading, analyzing, and discussing a variety of multimodal texts (a graphic novel, excerpts of works of fiction, short stories, poems, essays, articles, songs, social media posts, statistical reports, etc.), you will be able to expand your vocabulary and grammar competence, employ it in your work, and perfect your public writing skills. You will be able to apply various forms of written discourse in which you narrate, describe, interpret, compare, argue, and make hypotheses about products, practices, and perspectives in current Italian society. In addition, by interpreting multiple authentic narratives, you will be able to question your cultural and ethical assumptions and develop a nuanced understanding of today’s Italian society. Taught in Italian.
Sara Dallavalle; Leonardo Cabrini
ITAL 20600 Cinema italiano: lingua e cultura (Winter 2024)
This course examines aspects of Italian language and culture through the study of a variety of Italian films. While acquiring the necessary vocabulary and conceptual tools to identify formal filmic elements, students will improve their language proficiency and broaden their knowledge of Italian culture, with a particular attention to historical and sociolinguistic features. Film analysis will also help foster intercultural reflection and awareness of selected past and current social issues in Italy. Taught in Italian.
Veronica Vegna
ITAL 20660 Italian Comics: a Century-long (Hi)story (Spring 2023)
This course offers an introduction to Italian comics and aims to explore their interaction with the historical and social contexts in which they are published. Italian comics have a history of power exchange among consumers, industry, and products, and thus, are particularly suitable for investigating how the Italian people reacted to significant 20th- and 21st-century historical events. This course will provide students with fundamental coordinates to read, interpret, and argue about comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels contextually as social commentary and products of the entertainment industry. Students will have the chance to develop critical thinking skills and multimodal literacy with activities such as visual analyses of digitized comics pages, evaluations of physical copies of magazines and books, discussions on the role of comics artists, and broader considerations on the change and development of Italian society and culture. This course will utilize the vast selection of Italian comics held at the Regenstein Library. Taught in Italian.
Sara Dallavalle
ITAL 22440 Women in Italian Organized Crime Through Cinema (Winter 2025)
In this course, we will study filmic representations of women in Italian organized crime, and the implications these portrayals have on the understanding of gender and the mafias through Italian cinema. Sociological and psychological studies have underscored the importance of female roles in relation to mafia organizations, notwithstanding the rigid patriarchal structure that allows only male affiliation. One of the main goals of this class is for students to gain an understanding of different Italian mafias and to get a deeper comprehension of the construction of gender in a selection of films centered around these organizations. We will also discuss how movies contribute to the perception of organized crime. This class will draw on a variety of fields, including sociology, gender studies, and film studies. Taught in English. Students seeking credit for the Italian major/minor must complete a substantial part of the course work (e.g., readings, writing) in Italian.
Veronica Vegna
What students say
I learned a lot about Italian festivals, traditions, values, and foods. The units we discussed during this quarter were particularly helpful to help me learn this because they centered around traditions/holidays/foods, which provided lots of insights into Italian culture. The Italian dept. cultural events were also a valuable way to learn about Italian culture and were also very fun.
I did not speak any italian before taking this course and now I can almost say I am conversational. I also feel very confident about my ability to extend my Italian skills further based on what I learned in this course.
We were exposed to materials that helped us engage with authentic elements of italian culture, from transportation to the country’s history of immigration. Through readings and various other media, including commercials, we explored the ways different uses of language play a role in shaping different cultures within Italy.
I learned how to speak italian with more confidence and how to use different tenses as well as read italian literature.
I significantly strengthened my grasp on the Italian language, to the point that I was able to write full, multi–page essays and reports for the first time this quarter. I also learned more about the social issues currently affecting Italy which I have been wanting to learn since I’ve started the Italian track.