85115 - Introduction to Italian Culture (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the seminar students will have acquired awareness of peculiar dimensions of Italian culture. Students will be able to understand the relevance of research problems in a wide series of topic concerning italian culture such as italian Renaissance and the modern world, the birth of italian Nation, landscapes studies,. Students will demonstrate a sound theoretical framework within which specific research interests could be developed in a interdisciplinary perspective.

Course contents

The course intends to provide a framework of Calvino’s extensive and multiform literary activity through the analysis of selected works, written over almost 40 years. Calvino was driven by a manifest interest that, in a broad sense, was in the world, its laws, man, and history. By analysing his fiction, we can follow the complexity and multiplicity of those interests, that moved from the engagement and realism to the relations between language and reality encompassing mathematics, physics, biology, anthropology, comics, and visual arts, approaching an experimentalism focused on literary construction. At the same time, Calvino is fully integrated in Italian literary tradition to which he belonged, and that is visible in all his work. During the course, we will point out and discuss, in addition to the text under analysis, all those questions.

Readings/Bibliography

Works of fiction:

- Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947) /The Path to the Spiders’ Nests (Revised Edition) translated by Archibald Colquhoun, revised by Martin McLaughlin

- I nostri antenati 1960 (Il visconte dimezzato 1952, Il barone rampante 1957, Il cavaliere inesistente 1959) / Our Ancestors (The Cloven Viscount, The baron in the trees, The Nonexistent Knight ) translated by Archibald Colquhoun

- Marcovaldo ovvero Le stagioni in città (1963) / Marcovaldo: Or, The Seasons in the City, translated by William Weaver

- Tutte le cosmicomiche (Le cosmicomiche, 1965; Ti con zero 1968) / The complete Cosmicomics (Cosmicomics, t zero), various translators

- Le città invisibili (1972) /Invisible Cities, translated by William Weaver

- Se una notte di inverno un viaggiatore (1979) / If on a winter’s night a traveller translated by William Weaver

May be read in Mondadori’s Meridiani Edition or Mondadori’s paperback in Italian.

Calvino’s essays:

- Per chi si scrive? (Lo scaffale ipotetico)/Whom do we write for? Or The Hypotetical Bookshelf

- Ciberbetica e fantasmi (Note sulla narrativa come processo combinatorio)/ Cybernetics and Ghosts

- Usi politici giusti o sbagliati della letteratura/ Right and Wrong Political Uses of Literature

- Livelli di realtà in letteratura/ Levels of Reality in Literature

(da Italo Calvino, Una pietra sopra. Discorsi di letteratura e società (1980) / You can find them in The uses of Literature. Essays, translated by Patrick Creagh

- Prefazione al Sentiero dei nidi di ragno / Preface to The Path to the Spiders Nests

- Prefazione (1960) a I nostri antenati /as far as I know not translated in English but partially

As an introduction to the author, you may read

Giulio Ferroni – Letteratura italiana contemporanea 1945-2007. Milano, Mondadori, 2007, pp. 141-152

Or

Alberto Casadei e Marco Santagata, Manuale di letteratura italiana contemporanea, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, pp. 279-287.

 

All these texts are recommended. Students will be given more information on the mandatory ones during the lessons.

Teaching methods

Most of the lessons are going to be in lecture format, and students will be encouraged to participate. Students will also be invited to participate in defining some specific issues and to present their reading of the texts

Assessment methods

The oral test consists of an oral interview which has the aim of evaluating the critical and methodological ability of the students, who will be invited to discuss the texts that are part of the course program. Students must demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of the indicated bibliography.

Students who demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the lessons and the ability to use them critically and to master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence.

Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject, a more superficial analytical or synthetical ability, and a correct, but not always appropriate, command of the language will be given a ‘fair’ mark.

A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce and not always appropriate analytical and expressive ability will be rewarded with a pass mark or just above it.

Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use and lack of familiarity with the literature in the program will not be given a pass mark.

Teaching tools

In addition to lectures, audiovisual tools may be used to support teaching. Students will also be invited to bring a significant contribution to expand the issues upon which the course focuses.

Office hours

See the website of Roberta Barni