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

Language Programs

Because few high schools offer courses in Italian, most Northwestern students begin to study Italian with the introductory course sequence that begins in the Fall Quarter. Those with some background in Italian should take the Italian Placement Test offered at the beginning of the Fall Quarter, which may allow them to jump part or all of the introductory sequence. For Placement Test information contact Tom Simpson (ths907@northwestern.edu)

Beginning Italian students have two options:
1) The 101-1,2,3 Beginning Italian sequence starts in the Fall and continues throughout the school year. The class meets for four 50-minute sections each week, every class day except Thursday. No class section may have more than 18 students. At the end of full-year A01 sequence, the student will be able to ask and answer simple questions in Italian, to write a grammatically correct sentence, and to follow the drift of a simple conversation. Students will gain knowledge of fundamental aspects of Italian culture, history, and geography.

Having successfully completed the Beginning Italian sequence, students move on to the 102-1,2,3 Intermediate Italian sequence, which begins in the Fall and continues throughout the academic year. This course meets for four 50-minute sessions per week. At the end of the 102 sequence, students will be able to ask and answer detailed questions, understand brief articles and stories in modern written Italian, and compose a grammatically correct paragraph in Italian. Students will significantly increase their knowledge of Italy's history and culture. Having completed 102, students will be eligible to apply to the BCSP year-abroad program at the University of Bologna.

The second-year Italian course sequence completes the two-year language requirement for Weinberg College. While speaking and listening continue as the center of class activity, students will begin to focus on written Italian, composing stories, persuasive essays, and reviews. Increasing use will be made of Italian-language net resources and Italian films.

Students who complete the two-year WCAS Language Requirement may proceed on to 200-level courses which allow participants a high degree of participation in directing the further development of their language skills: Italian 201:
Italian Through Media is offered in the Fall Quarter and meets three times a week. The course aims to guide students to an advanced level of oral and reading proficiency through exploration of Italian media including the internet, television, and news and cultural magazines. Students use media resources to explore selected cultural topics such as the changing roles of women, immigration, and doing business in Italy. Individual research will contribute to group projects. Students may construct a website devoted to one of the selected topics.

Italian 202: Italian through Performance is offered in the Winter Quarter and meets three times a week. The Italian Performance Class conceives, creates, performs, and directs an Italian telenovela, a soap opera. After watching and analyzing a selection of episodes of Italian telenovelas, each participant will develop a character with a hidden past and forbidden desires. The characters will then be brought together in a series of highly charged dramatic situations. Participant will write, memorize and perform scenes that will be taped on video. We will create several puntate and make them available to the public through the Italian web site.

Italian 203: Creative Writing in Italian is offered in the Spring Quarter and meets three times a week. The course is an exploration of various genres in Italian poetry and prose, and a workshop in creative writing in Italian. We start by looking at the formal features and historical development of the most influential form in Italian poetry: the sonnet, then study experiments with poetic language and structure that characterize the avant-garde poetry of our century, and try our hand at different techniques of poetic writing. As far as prose is concerned, we will focus on the short forms, and in particular on the genre of the aphorism, which is gaining status in contemporary writing, and has a very illustrious tradition in Italian literature, from the Renaissance to the 20th-century. We will read aphorisms by various Italian writers, and will also try our hand at this challenging kind of writing. By the end of the class, we will have produced our own canzoniere, or personal anthology, of poems, and our own collection, or zibaldone, of aphorisms in Italian.

Italian 204: Intro to Italian Lit: Pinoccchio and His Children. Children’s literature aims to entertain and edify young readers. Reading Italian children’s literature, beginning with Pinocchio (1880), allows us to discover the values, expectations and self image of the culture. Considering the historical context, the course will analyze the way texts embody political, moral, religious and economic agendas. We will examine imagery, metaphor and other structures authors use to create fantasy worlds for children and adults. Reading and exercises will be complemented with movies and discussions to develop linguistic capacity.

The 300 level Literature and Culture courses, 301 through 304, are conducted entirely in Italian and include the following:

301: Italian Through Cinema (has included monographic courses on Pasolini, Fellini)
302: Italian through Translation
303: Reading Italian Cities
304: Modern Italian Cultural Studies (has included "Italy Saved by the Kids: The Cinema and Literature of Infancy", "Italian Popular Music from Tarantella to Rap")

Contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Marco Ruffini, for more information (ruffini@northwestern.edu)