BA Italian Studies / Course details

Year of entry: 2023

Course unit details:
Reading Italy: Medieval to Modern

Course unit fact file
Unit code ITAL10500
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 1
Teaching period(s) Full year
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

This course unit seeks to furnish students studying Italian language and culture with the intellectual and analytical tools needed to understand the processes of cultural production, circulation and reception as a necessary prequel to ‘making sense’ of the history of Italian cultural production.. In Semester 1 we will explore what we understand by ‘the Arts’ and the ‘humanities’ and their roots in the classical tradition of the Academy before moving on to consider how symbols work within urban and spatial contexts to generate identities and subjectivities through cultural translation and multiple forms of media, including film.  In semester 2, the focus shifts to the analysis of specific forms of cultural production including the analysis of prose, poetic, and still and moving visual forms.Seminars focus on Italian language-specific and area-specific material that relate to the themes covered in lectures, allowing students to develop further linguistic and cultural competence in their language of study. 

 

 

Pre/co-requisites

Unit title Unit code Requirement type Description
Italian Cultural Studies ITAL10300 Co-Requisite Compulsory

Please note that if you  take ITAL10500 at Level 1, you cannot take ITAL20500 at Level 2.

Available on which programme(s)? 

Single Honours Italian Studies and all joint honours programmes with Italian Studies 

Aims

The principal aims of the course unit are as follows:

  • To develop knowledge and understanding of specific aspects of Italian culture and society from the medieval period to the present day
  • To develop critical thinking and higher-order conceptual reasoning and analytical skills
  • To equip students with working definitions for key concepts in the Italian context such as periodization, identity, ‘nation’, ‘ideology’, ‘multiculturalism’, etc.
  • To enable students to analyse and interrogate a variety of forms of written and visual cultural production in their contexts.
  • Students on this course will hone their skills of analysis, academic writing and independent research.

 

Learning outcomes

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Syllabus

Semester 1 

Week Lecture Seminar  
1 Unit introduction: lectures, seminars and assessment     
2 Italian Cultures: the process of making  Seminar 1: Thinking about making    
3 Italian Cultures: the process of reading     
4 Reading Space and Culture 1  Seminar 2: Moving through the City  
5 Reading Space and Culture 2 

Formative Assessment Deadline 

12pm, Thursday Week 5  

  
       
7 Italian Cultural Translation and Reception 1   Seminar 3: Translating Italy to Manchester   
8 Italian Cultural Translation and Reception 2     
9

Making and Reading Italian Culture 

Film form 

 Seminar 4: Film form terminology   
10 A Case Study: Federico Fellini’s Cinema    
11 Federico Fellini’s I vitelloni 

Seminar 5: I vitelloni Sequence analysis 

  
12 Revision class  Q and A session. Summative assessment deadline, Thursday Week 12   


Semester 2

Week  Lecture Seminar
1 Reading Italy: Introduction to the S2 Course. Renaissance Aesthetics 1   
2 Renaissance Aesthetics 2   
3 Futurist Aesthetics   Renaissance Visual Culture seminar
4 Fascism: Visual Propaganda    
5 Caro Michele: an Epistolary Novel (Natalia Ginzburg, 1975)  

Futurism/Fascism  

 
6 Caro Michele/prose Lecture 2 (Natalia Ginzburg, 1975)    
7

Poetry Lecture 1: 

How to read a poem  

 The romanzo epistolare 
8

Poetry Lecture 2,  

Ungaretti and Quasimodo 

  
9 Women’s writing in the Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna and women poets   
10 Italian Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Ital

Knowledge and understanding

By the end of this course students will be able to: 

• Demonstrate their ability to analyse the formal qualities of a range of different kinds of Italian cultural production, which may include visual artworks, political propaganda, poetry, films, novels and/or children’s literature.  

• Apply their analytical skills to render Italian texts, films, and other forms of cultural representation meaningful in their historic contexts 

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of some of the major aspects of national and cultural identity in Italy in the modern period. 

Intellectual skills

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Engage in independent reflection and enquiry.
  • Engage in the discussion and critical evaluation of Italian cultural production
  • Use empirical evidence to support synthetic conclusions and interpretations
  • Analyse a body of data and provide a synthesis of the most relevant findings.

Practical skills

On successful completion of this course unit, students will be able to:

  • Use library, electronic, and on-line research resources
  • Follow correct citation procedure for the professional presentation of academic writing
  • Build argumentative frameworks for the analysis of cultural artefacts
  • Carry out individual research and select material judiciously

Transferable skills and personal qualities

On successful completion of the course unit, students will be able to:

  • present information, ideas and arguments, orally and in writing, with due regard to the target audience;
  • participate constructively in group activities (e.g. class discussions);
  • assess the relevance and importance of the ideas of others;
  • demonstrate powers of analysis.

 

Employability skills

Other
The course will have particular benefits for any student interested in pursuing a career in teaching and learning, diversity and identity management. The course enhances skills of analysis, synthesis, oral presentation, and written reporting. The course content also encourages students to reflect upon the world outside the University, thereby providing confidence in the use of academic research in a variety of non-academic environments.

Assessment methods

Assessment task  

Formative or Summative 

Weighting within unit (if summative) 

Semester 1 summative spatial practice presentation OR film sequence analysis.  

To be submitted Week 12 (semester 1) 

Summative 

40% 

Portfolio of three 150-word summaries in Italian of selected secondary critical literature from readings in Semester 1. In English for foreign Exchange students not taking language. 

To be submitted Week 5 (semester 1) 

Formative 

0% 

Semester 2 summative essay on the themes covered in Semesters 1 and 2. 

To be submitted  Week 12 (semester 2) 

Summative 

60% 

Resit Assessment

Assessment task  

Summative essay on the themes covered in Semester 1 and Semester 2. 

Feedback methods

Feedback method

Formative or Summative

Comments made during class discussion regarding the relevance and coherence of student responses/participation in discussion.

Formative

Individual written comments on all submitted work within 15 working days of submission, plus additional face-to-face discussion available during consultation hours or by appointment.

Formative and Summative

Global feedback on all submitted work (delivered orally in classes and via Blackboard).

Formative and Summative

 

Recommended reading

Weekly readings and visual texts will be supplied in seminars and on Blackboard. Secondary readings will be provided via Blackboard.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 165

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Stephen Milner Unit coordinator

Additional notes

 

 

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