aCademiC Catalog 2013-2014 - Lorenzo de Medici

FLORENCE
School of Arts & Sciences
image are only two of the aspects students will learn that
are vital to keeping their brand in the news. The course will
further discuss: private, store and national brand labels, core
benefit proposition, luxury and global brand management,
development, and extension, as well as franchising, licensing,
patents, trademarks and copyright. Although focused on
fashion the course has applicability to many other product and
service sectors.
Prerequisites: BUS 282 Global Business and Society, or BUS
370 Global Marketing Management, or equivalents
Literature
Survey of Western Literature
LIT 150 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
This course is an exploration of major texts from antiquity to
the present that have shaped and expressed Western cultural
traditions (all readings are in English translation). Emphasis
will be placed on the nature of genre, period, and style. The
course also offers the opportunity to develop an awareness of
literature and the skills required to approach and understand it.
Italian Crime Fiction
LIT 220 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
From the middle of the twentieth century, Italian writers such
as Gadda and Sciascia began to integrate into their novels and
short stories certain aspects of the crime genre, in such a way
that the mystery element became an instrument for analyzing
contemporary Italian realities. By the 1990’s a new generation of
writers such as Camilleri, Ammaniti and Lucarelli had developed
a specifically Italian approach to an international literary genre,
the “Italian noir”, which aims at revealing unpleasant truths to
a vast audience in an entertaining way. The goal of this course
is to explore some of the most representative works of the
crime fiction genre in contemporary Italian literature, from its
early forms to the present. The study of these works will also
involve an analysis of the strong socio-cultural dimensions
of contemporary Italy, which are the result of a complex
combination of geographical, historical, political and linguistic
factors. These in turn affect different forms of organized and
unorganized crime, and differences in the relationship between
citizens and the law. During the course students will also study
the relationship between Italian crime fiction and its foreign
counterpart, including the works of authors such as Dibdin,
Highsmith and Harris.
Contemporary Italian Novel
LIT 255 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
The course covers the Italian contemporary novel concentrating
on the period from 1900 to 1960. It focuses on works in
translation by the main authors (G. D’Annunzio, L. Pirandello,
I. Svevo, F. Tozzi, A. Moravia, C.E. Gadda, C. Pavese, E. Vittorini,
I. Calvino, V. Pratolini, C. Cassola, N. Ginzburg). The professor
will introduce a topic for each class and will select readings
for the students. Students will be invited to discuss those
readings in class. Each student will also be required to develop
an individual project based on the analysis of a complete novel
by one of the authors included in the course program. At the
end of the term, each student will submit a written paper and
an oral presentation in class about his/her own work.
Female Characters in Poetry and Literature
LIT 265 F; Dual listed: GND 265 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
The course spans Dante Alighieri’s Beatrice to Madame Bovary.
Comparative analysis of Italian and European literature from
the Middle Ages to the Romantic period will be made, as well
as love and suffering in female destinies as imagined by male
authors. We will also study the literary roles of women of
different periods.
Prerequisites: LIT 150 Survey of Western Literature, or
equivalent
Florence in the Literary Imagination
LIT 275 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
Florence and Tuscany have long occupied a special place in the
Anglo-American literary imagination. Since the Renaissance,
English literature and culture have been permeated by Italian
influences and specifically Tuscan ones. This course will take
the student through the early Tuscan influences on English
literature to then focus, through the study of travel notes,
journals, novels and poems, on the works of those authors,
both British and American, who were inspired by the Tuscan
and Florentine environment. The course will focus on a range
of novelists and poets such as P.B. Shelley, George Eliot,
Elizabeth Browning, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, Thomas Harris,
Magdalena Nabb, John Mortimer, Sarah Dunant and Salman
Rushdie. Particular attention will also be given to films drawn
from novels with Florentine settings - such as Romola (George
Eliot) and A Room with a View (E.M. Forster).
Many Italies, Other Italies: Modern Literary
Representations
LIT 285 F; Dual listed: CLT 285 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
Focusing on Italian and Anglo-American literature and some
films, this course will explore the multiple representations of
Italy in the twentieth and twenty-first Century. Far from being
the homogeneous culture that is often perceived from abroad,
Italian culture is a very complex text where many different, and
sometimes conflicting voices and images encounter. This course
aims to look beyond what may be seen as mainstream Italy
to discover peoples often marginalized by dominant cultural
norms and stereotypes. Starting with the critical examination
of the idealized image of Italy propagated by many famous
foreigners throughout the ages, the course will then focus
on the representation of Italy offered by its own writers and
filmmakers. The texts that we will look into encompass many
different peripheral voices that are nonetheless very powerful
and fundamental to a true understanding of the Italian culture:
southern Italians, Jewish Italians, emigrants (and Italian
Americans), political dissidents, women, and more recently,
immigrants from the global East and South are the voices
that have contributed to create a country of intrinsically great
and complex ethnic, religious, linguistic and political diversity;
voices that often remain unheard.
Contemporary European Literature
LIT 300 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
The course will focus on European contemporary literature
surveying some of the most important authors of the last
fifty years. Students will become familiar with Italian, English,
Spanish, German and French authors. The course will deal with
Nobel Prize winners such as Samuel Beckett (France/Ireland),
Heinrich Böll (Germany), William Golding (England) and with
other important novelists such as Martín Gaite (Spain), Italo
Calvino, Antonio Tabucchi, Alessandro Baricco (Italy), Angela
Carter (England). The course will also take into consideration
non-European authors who, living in Europe, have had a huge
impact on European literature, among others Jorge Luis Borges
and the Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez.
Prerequisites: LIT 150 Survey of Western Literature, or
equivalent
Shakespeare’s Italy
LIT 302 F; Dual listed: MCT 302 F
Cr: 3; Contact hrs: 45
Shakespeare, the greatest English-language dramatist of all
time, set approximately one-fourth of his plays in Italian cities
such as ancient Rome, Verona and Venice. In this course, we
will focus on a small selection of his “Italian plays”, including
“Romeo and Juliet” and “The Merchant of Venice”, in order to
see how Shakespeare combined historical evidence and fiction,
past and present, for dramatic effect and social commentary.
Students will work with primary sources; for the same purpose
they may also perform selected scenes. This course allows
students to learn more about Shakespeare’s works and
personality, and about relations between Elizabethan literary
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LdM Academic Catalog 2013-2014