Italian, Undergraduate, Department of French and Italian, Northwestern University

Courses Taught in Italian

Prerequisites for all 300-level courses taught in Italian: Two 200-level courses in Italian or equivalent.

ITALIAN 101-1,2,3 Elementary Italian
Pronunciation, grammar, composition, reading, and conversation. Drill in language laboratory. Five class meetings a week.

ITALIAN 102-1,2,3 Intermediate Italian
Grammar review, conversation, composition, and readings in modern prose and drama. Four class meetings a week. Prerequisite: 101-1,2,3 or equivalent.

ITALIAN 103-1 Italian for Musicians
Second-year language course for musicians, to develop comprehension and pronunciation skills needed in operatic performance. Grammar, reading, analysis of historical texts, study and attendance of Italian operas, listening comprehension with a focus on improving diction and inflection in opera arias and recitatives. Prerequisite: 101-3 or equivalent.

ITALIAN 133/134-1,2,3 Intensive Italian
Beginning course designed to complete the work of 101 and 102 in one year. Students must enroll concurrently in 133 and 134, for which they receive two credits per quarter. Five class meetings a week.

ITALIAN 201-0 Italian through Media
Issues from Italian media; frequent oral and written reports: for instance, America in Italian media, advertising, immigration, youth culture. Students produce a newspaper or newscast at the end of the quarter. Prerequisite: 102-3 or 133/134-3 or equivalent.

ITALIAN 202-0 Italian through Performance
Practice in spoken Italian through a survey of various performance arts in Italian culture. Content may vary: for example, Italian theater, Italian opera, commedia dell’arte. Prerequisite: 102-3 or 133/134-3 or equivalent.

ITALIAN 203-0 Creative Writing in Italian
A course meant to improve written Italian through exercises and experiments in a variety of genres and styles. Prerequisite: 102-3 or 133/134-3 or equivalent.

ITALIAN 301-0 Italian through Cinema
An analytic approach to the language of cinema through a detailed reading of selected films and their scripts. Emphasis on colloquial and dialectal Italian. Students produce script or film treatment at the end of the quarter.

ITALIAN 302-0 Italian through Translation
An intensive workshop meant to improve spoken and written Italian through the practice of translation.

ITALIAN 303-0 Reading Italian Cities
An approach to Italian culture and civilization through an exploration of representative Italian cities.

ITALIAN 304-0 Modern Italian Cultural Studies
Culture of Italy from World War II to the present. Novels, films, popular culture.

ITALIAN 305-0 The Future of Tradition
Italian cultural traditions as seen in major works from the Middle Ages to the present. Content varies — for example, a study of genius in three exemplary figures: Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Galileo Galilei.

ITALIAN 399-0 Independent Study
Independent reading under supervision. Consult the director of undergraduate studies.

Courses with Reading and Discussion in English
No prerequisites in Italian.

ITALIAN 265-0 Body and Soul from Rome to the Renaissance
Comprehension of the human body and soul in Italy from Augustan Rome to the Renaissance.

ITALIAN 270-0 The Arts in Early Renaissance Italian Culture
A multidisciplinary survey exploring the development of a wide variety of artistic traditions in Italian culture, including painting, sculpture, architecture, music, opera, fashion, and design.

ITALIAN 275-0 Dante’s Divine Comedy
Introduction to the Divine Comedy, its artistic and intellectual achievement, and its cultural and historical context.

ITALIAN 290-0 Memory,Exile,and the Italian Diaspora
The theme of exile in Italian culture; the memory of Italy as it survives in the Italian diaspora, inside and outside Italy.

ITALIAN 360-0 From the Avant-Garde to the Postmodern
Major authors and movements animating the modern and contemporary literary scene. Content varies: for example, futurism, intellectuals and politics from D’Annunzio to Pasolini, feminist Italian fiction, Calvino, Eco, and the postmodern.

ITALIAN 370-0 Mapping Italian Literature
Major texts of Italian literature read in the context of European and world literature. Content varies: for example, Leopardi and European romanticism; Calvino, Borges, and Pynchon; the Theater of Memory; Svevo and Joyce; futurism.

ITALIAN 375-0 Topics in Italian Culture
Content varies: for example, perspectives in the Renaissance, Leonardo’s method, the Baroque imagination, body and sexuality in Italian culture, Italian women writers, fascism and culture, philosophy and literature.

ITALIAN 380-0 Topics in Italian Cinema
Introduction to major Italian filmmakers and cinematic trends.