ITA 1051H            Italian Semantics (Staff)
For information on this course, please consult the Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Italian Studies.

ITA 1170H            Textual Criticism and the Editing of Texts (M. Lettieri)
This course will consider both the philological problems facing editors of early Italian texts (1200‑1600) ‑ criteria of transcription, relations between manuscripts, or printed editions; the role of the copyist/printer and their audience ‑ as well as the language of these texts. Emphasis will also be placed on the central concerns and history of textual criticism, and the different types of critical editions. A variety of manuscripts, early printed editions and critical editions will be discussed and analyzed.

ITA 1729H            Contemporary Literary Criticism in Italy (R. Capozzi)
An examination of Marxist and psychoanalytical approaches to literary criticism.  Although the course focuses mainly on theoretical aspects, time will be dedicated to the application of Marxism and psychoanalysis to specific literary works.

ITA 1730Y            Aspects of Semiotic Theory and Practice in Italy (Staff)
Intended to introduce semiotic theory and its applications to literary criticism in Italy. The first part will focus on fundamental concepts in semiotic analysis, discussion on the contributions of such scholars as Peirce, Hjelmslev, De Saussure, Eco, and others. This part will also deal with aspects of the semiotic analysis of the Italian lexicon. The second part will focus on the applications of semiotic concepts and analytical techniques to Italian literary texts. Contributions of Italian scholars Caprettini, Bettefini, Avalle, and others, will be discussed and applied to critical analysis.

ITA 1810H            Studies in Italian Film and Literature (M. Gieri)
The course will investigate the complex and rich relationship between film and literature in 20th-century Italy, and will address the numerous historical, theoretical and cultural questions: a. rising in Italy by the early borrowings of writers from literature to cinema; b. generated by what was to become a consolidated practice in the history and development of Italian cinema, that is the cinematic adaptation of a literary text; c. engendered by the meeting of the two media when one or more literary texts become a source for a cinematic text, and/or one or more cinematic text becomes a source for a literary text; d. rising whenever one "reads film" and/or "sees literature." As processes of exchange and borrowing, as well as those of translation, metamorphosis and contamination between literature and film are central to the development of post-war cultural discourse in Italy, students will be confronted with a selection of literary and cinematic texts which will provide a platform for profitable discussion of the historical and theoretical issues central to the development of contemporary Italian literature and film.

JIC 5000L            Narrative and Intertextuality in Italian Fiction (R. Capozzi)
Notions of embedded narratives, narrative frames, cornice, repetition and difference, intertextual echoes, polyphony, and dialogical discourse will be traced in Boccaccio’s Decameron.  The works of Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco will demonstrate how these notions are further developed and illustrated in contemporary encyclopedic fictions (with references to J.L.Borges, J.Barth, T. Pynchon etc.). Selected pages from the works of Propp, Bakhtin, Todorov, Kristeva, Barthes, Riffaterre, Lottman, Segre, Corti, and Eco will provide the theoretical background for the lectures and class discussions.

JIL 1140H            Semiotics (M. Danesi)
This course will deal with the major theories of the sign, both verbal and nonverbal, focusing primarily on the ideas of Saussure and Peirce. It will start by looking at the research evidence on the origin of verbal and nonverbal sign and communication systems, discussing critically the main theories to explain semiosis and communication in the human species, from those of the Ancients to the most contemporary.