University of Wisconsin–Madison

Category: Italian Courses

Italian Lit Trans 260 : Italy and the Invention of America

This 3-credit course will explore the central role played by Italy in the Western European vision of the Americas from Columbus’ voyages to World War II. Students will have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of a broad variety of works from the late 1500s through the 1950s. Lit Trans 260 provides students with or …

Italian Lit Trans 255: Boccaccio's Decameron – "Black Death and Medieval Life"

This is a COMM-B course. Have you ever wondered how it was to live during the Black Death? What was society like in the Middle Ages? How did these people lay foundation of today’s society we live in? Were they really very different from us, or do we share common everyday challenges? What can we learn …

Italian Lit Trans 254: Literature of Modern Italy

This 3-credit course will offer a general introduction to the modern Italian novel (in translation) in philosophical, artistic, and historical context.  Students will be introduced to several of the most significant literary authors and movements in Italy during the 20th – 21st Century, and they will gain a broad understanding of modern Italian culture, history …

Italian 951: Seminar in Italian Literature

Tasso and the Late Renaissance. Within the context of the late-16th-century ‘age of criticism’ Tasso’s epic poem celebrates the First Crusade, the rise of the new imperial vision of the West, and its discontents.  This seminar focuses primarily on a close reading of Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered but will include other works. Students will bring to …

Italian 741: Il Seicento: Ribelli, libertini e ortodossi

This course offers a survey of seventeenth-century Italian literature and examines the development of specific literary genres in the contexts of cultural and intellectual history. It provides methodologies and philological instruments necessary to the critical reading of a variety of narrative and poetic texts in the perspective of literary and cultural cross-currents of this time …

Italian 631: Lineamenti Di Letteratura Italiana

The course will focus on the discussion of major literary texts of Verismo, the Italian literary trend loosely corresponding to what in French is called Naturalism in a period (the second half of the nineteenth century) that may be epistemologically called the era of Positivism. Topics that will be discussed are: the poetics and ideology of Verismo; relationships with …

Italian 321: Introduction to Italian Literature

This course will focus on the theme of love in Medieval and Early Modern Italy, and on the ways in which this period laid a foundation of the way in which we today understand and live love. We will concentrate on the earliest masterpieces of Italian literature and culture, and examine Medieval and Early Modern …

Italian 311: Advanced Italian Language

Advanced Italian Language is a 3-credit course conducted in Italian that focuses on the development of accurate and nuanced capacity for expression in Italian and for understanding the spoken and written language.  The course will also address Italian phonetics to develop accurate pronunciation. Prerequisites:  Italian 204 or consent of instructor. 

Italian 301: Italian for Reading Knowledge

For students with language proficiency and graduate students who wish to acquire a reading knowledge of Italian. Intensive grammar; readings from appropriate texts in the humanities, sciences and social sciences. Gives no language credit.

Italian 230: Modern Italian Culture

Conducted in Italian, Italian 230 is a survey of Italian history, literature, cinema, art, politics, and general culture from the Risorgimento to the present.  Prerequisites: Italian 204 or consent of instructor.