Eilis Kierans

This course (4 credits) is designed for students who have successfully completed Italian 001 and 002 at Penn State, or the equivalent level at another university, or who have taken four or more years of high school Italian. The purpose of the course is to continue the development of communication skills in written and spoken Italian at the intermediate level. The course offers students the opportunity to expand their vocabulary and to use more complex sentence structures in a variety of contexts to express more sophisticated concepts and opinions. Information is also presented regarding current issues in Italian society with the goal of developing intercultural competencies. Topics may include both traditional themes (e.g. cuisine, family and the arts) and contemporary themes (e.g. immigration, environmental issues and civil rights). The course will be conducted in Italian.

Italian women have often been stereotyped as the "Mamma" or the "Nonna" who cooks, prays, and idolizes her sons. Such images do not accommodate the wide variety of experiences and contributions of Italian women throughout history. This seminar explores texts written by women during the nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-centuries in Italy, including autobiography, historical novels, short stories, poetry, children's books, and theater. We consider the political and cultural developments in Italy in these centuries with attention to differences among the various geographic regions and an emphasis on issues of special relevance to women and their changing legal status and social roles. As we approach each creative work, we analyze such issues as: the role of form and genre; the author's use of language and rhetoric; the political, philosophical, and theological questions posed by the text; the ways in which the text responds to the established Italian literary canon; and the text's depictions and uses of history. The course is conducted in English.