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.
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