Course Offerings - Spring 2012

Required for all Florence Students

Professor TBA
This daily course immerses students in the Italian language. The basic structures and vocabulary of the Italian language are presented. Students are also provided with systematic practice of oral Italian through dialogues, pattern drills, and exercises. Special emphasis is given to correct pronunciation, sound placement, and intonation. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 1 & ITAL-UA 2, Elementary Italian I & II; or ITAL-UA 10, Intensive Elementary Italian

Professor TBA
This course offers students who are at the intermediate level a daily immersion class. The acquisition and practice of more sophisticated structures of Italian are undertaken. Fundamental oral and written skills are developed, and vocabulary enrichment and conversational ability are emphasized. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 11, ITAL-UA 12, Intermediate Italian I & II; or ITAL-UA 20, Intensive Intermediate Italian

Professor TBA
Intensive review of Italian grammar through written and oral exercises, conversations, compositions, translation, and readings from contemporary Italian literature. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 30, Advanced Review of Modern Italian

Professor Reale
Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. The course is designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in speaking present-day Italian. Through discussions, oral reports, and readings, students develop vocabulary in a variety of topics, improve pronunciation, and learn an extensive range of idiomatic expressions. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor TBA

Co-Requisite: Conversations in Italian - ITAL-UA 9101

Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. The course is designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in writing present-day Italian.  Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Caracciolo
An introduction to seeing and using drawing as a medium of expression. The problems surveyed in the studio show how the draftsperson attains knowledge of the visible world through observation, formulation, and articulation in selected drawing media. Individual independent work supports experimentation and imagination. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Lombardi
This course is a hands-on introduction to the translation of visual experience into painting. The interpretative, formal, expressive, and technical aspects of painting are explored through a series of studio situations. Discussions, slide lectures, and gallery visits highlight individual work. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Caracciolo
This course uses the model to focus on problems in drawing. Students are encouraged to explore a wide range of materials and attitudes. Issues of representation and the historic use of the figure as art are covered through slides and discussions. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Prerequisite: ARTH-UA 0002 (History of Western Art II), or ARTH-UA 0005 (Renaissance Art), or AP Art History score of 5, or permission of the instructor. Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Advanced Renaissance/Baroque credit.

Professor B. Edelstein

Painting in Florence and Rome from about 1490 to the later decades of the 16th century. From a study of selected commissions by Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolomeo, and Andrea del Sarto, we go on to investigate new pictorial modes emerging before 1520 in Pontormo, Rosso, Parmigianino, Giulio Romano, and other members of RaphaelÕs school. We consider their younger contemporaries and successors, including Bronzino and Vasari. The course emphasizes the patronage, symbolic tasks, and functions of Renaissance painting and critically examines historical concepts such as "High Renaissance," "Mannerism," and "Maniera." Conducted in English.

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Professor Baldry
The aim of this course is to provide an integrated approach to Museum theory and practice. It is designed for those students who are interested in the history and the nature of Museums, Museum management (including the international art legislation), the methods of research and documentation (file system and photography), conservation methodologies to preserve the collections in a Museum context, and the means of presenting all kinds of art objects to the public (the education role of the museum in the society). Themes such as the change of the artistic taste, the role of the artists, the collectors and the dealers in the creation of the public galleries and the house museums will be discussed. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Urban Design credit, but not Art History credit.

Professor Lombardi

The city of Florence presents important aspects for a visual study of the Renaissance and its messages. This class will stress the ways to visualize the city through the keeping of a sketchbook. There will be walking tours in the city to explore topics and places for the students to draw. No art background necessary. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Cross-listed with CLASS-UA 9295 (Classics)

Art History students: This course counts for advanced Ancient/Medieval credit.

Professor C. Ewell
This course provides students with an awareness of and appreciation for the cultures and civilization of ancient Italy from 1000 B.C. to 200 A.D. The lectures will examine significant examples of sculpture, painting, architecture, city-planning and the minor arts of the period. The course will include local field trips to important sites and exhibits. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students must bring their own camera and use either a digital or a traditional 35mm manual adjust camera for this class.

Students registering for this course must also register for Lab section.

Professor Massimo Agus

The course will provide the students with the appropriate tools for understanding and photographing the architecture of Florence, using different photographic techniques, and aiming to define a personal approach. The students will be able to explore different architecture styles following various photographic assignments. At the end of the course the students will produce a portfolio on the architecture of Florence. Lectures will cover the History of Photography, with a special attention to Italian architecture and urban photography, History of Architecture in Florence, technical aspects related to photography production. Students will pursue digital and traditional photographic techniques in the course. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students must bring their own camera and use either a digital or a traditional 35mm manual adjust camera for this class.

Students registering for this course must also register for the Lecture section. 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Professor G. Gobbi-Sica
Starting from Villa La Pietra, this course explores the connection between the history of the Italian villa and the economy, architecture, art, and landscape. Historical and economic reasons have contributed to the unique typology of the Florentine landscape and the relationship between the villa, the farmer house and the "podere." The course examines the original development of the villa and the ideology of country life in Florentine culture and society. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class

Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Urban Design credit and Art History elective credit.

Professor N. Leszczynski

The city of Florence has long been admired for its combination of buildings and gardens. This course emphasizes the art of garden and landscape design, with tours to sites around the city and the surrounding areas. The starting point of the course is the 57 acres of historically significant landscape surrounding NYU's Villa La Pietra, with Renaissance-style gardens, rolling hills, and olive groves, all located within the city limits of Florence. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Prerequisite: Renaissance Art, or equivalent introductory Art History Course

Cross-listed with: HIST-UA 9091 (History) and RELST-UA 9650 (Religious Studies)

Professor Mussolin

The course will explore the unusually rich artistic and textual record of medieval holy people and places in Tuscany, and one site Umbria, Assisi. The goal of the course is to consider the intersection of popular religious expression, individual extraordinary lives, and the art and architecture produced by the society to celebrate its spiritual heroes. Students will be immersed in Italian medieval texts, art, and architecture as a means of understanding a vivid past which illuminates medieval civic pride and served as a springboard to the Italian Renaissance. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Art History elective credit.

Professor TBA

Students trace the birth, evolution, decline, revival, and most recent developments of Italian fashion from the Late Gothic Age to the present "made in Italy" design. Italian fashion styles are decoded in relation to art history in an international, social and economic context. Fashion and its connections with culture, subculture, gender and communication are emphasized. On-site visits also illustrate the dominating role of Florence in fashion from its origin until now. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

NYU Students who have already taken ARTH-UA 2 will not receive major credit for ARTH-UA 5 [Renaissance Art survey] or ARTH-UA 6 [Modern Art survey].

Professors Zaloga & Giorgi

The city of Florence will be the classroom as students study the masters, explore museums, examine texts, and analyze the historical significance of monuments. With eyes cast simultaneously on painting, the graphic arts, sculpture, and architecture, this class will explore a broad range of art patronage that included religious and civic bodies, princely courts, and a growing number of private clients. The course will focus on points of intersection, transition, and the transformations that lead from one tradition to the next. Above all, our approach will encourage critical thinking and a search for unifying connections in studying the underlying logic of image making. Works will be examined on their native terms: both as physical objects, with sensitivity to their particular function and intended reception, and as visual images active within larger contexts. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Art History students: This course counts for Art History elective credit.

Professor A. Pascuzzi 
Step back in time and study like a Renaissance apprentice using the same materials and techniques that Giotto, Leonardo and Michelangelo used. Working only with those materials used in the Renaissance (no modern art materials permitted), students will follow the same course of artistic instruction common to a Renaissance workshop. You will learn to draw with silverpoint, charcoal, and natural chalks, make your own paper, prepare panels, grind pigments for painting, execute in fresco, egg tempera and oil and learn how to use gold leaf. Lectures and drawing sessions will be held in the various museums and churches where students will be required to copy from masterpieces of the Renaissance. The course is a step back in time to learn techniques that have been lost and to revive the spirit of art creation that has made Florentine art admired for centuries. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

This is course is not open to Stern

Professor G. Liberatore
An introduction to the area of financial accounting. Encompasses accounting concepts from the point of view of the corporate investor and business management. Accounting procedures are discussed to facilitate the comprehension of the recording, summarizing, and reporting of business transactions. The basic principles of asset valuation and revenue and cost recognition are presented. Various asset, liability, and capital accounts are studied in detail with emphasis on an analytical and interpretive approach. The area of financial accounting is further analyzed through a discussion of the concepts and underlying financial statement analysis and the exposition of funds flow. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Donvito
Evaluates, from the management point of view, marketing as a system for the satisfaction of human wants and as a catalyst of business activity. Deals with the subject at all levels from producer to consumer and emphasizes the planning required for the efficient use of marketing tools in the development and expansion of markets. Concentrates on the principles, functions, and tools of marketing, including quantitative methods. Utilizes cases and projects to develop a problem-solving ability in dealing with specific areas.

Sample Syllabus 

Co-requisite: Enrollment in a screening time.

Professor Zagarrio
This course covers Italian film from the beginnings of the neo-realist movement to 1960, concentrating both on the aesthetic, theoretical development of neorealism and on its political, economic, social, and cultural context. Directors studied in detail include Rossellini, Visconti, de Sica, and Antonioni. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Co-requisite: Enrollment in Italian Cinema Lecture

Professor C. Ewell

Crosslisted with ARTH-UA 9150 (Art History)

This course provides students with an awareness of and appreciation for the cultures and civilization of ancient Italy from 1000 B.C. to 200 A.D. The lectures will examine significant examples of sculpture, painting, architecture, city-planning and the minor arts of the period. The course will include local field trips to important sites and exhibits. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Barrett

Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist writers in both Britain and the United States were fascinated by Italy. The "Italy and Italians" of the title refers not only to images and characters in the works of the British and American authors we will be reading but also to their affinities with Italian literature. Recurring themes in the course will be history and its uses in literature, gender and sexuality, democracy and aristocracy, language and power, and religion as an instrument of sexual repression.

Sample Syllabus

This course may be counted towards the Cultural Specialization and Elective requirement for Comp Lit majors, with prior DUGS approval.

Professor Barrett
This course focuses on literary representations of WWI and WWII. The online course pack includes examples of the political and military rhetoric to which Montale and Hemingway objected, historical essays and images (war photographs, recruitment posters, etc.), as well as the shorter texts we are studying. Central themes in the course are the concepts of political literature and historical fiction and the contrasting approaches and theoretical premises of classical realism and modernism. Among the supplementary sources available in the Villa Ulivi library are two good cultural histories on the subject: James Shehan Where Have All the Soldiers Gone and Mark Mazower Dark Continent. Other recurring issues will be gender, sexuality, religion, class politics, kitsch, psychoanalysis, rhetoric, and power.  

Sample Syllabus

Prof. Scott Palmer
In Italy, regional identities have always been strong, while national identity has always been complex, a situation that characterizes even current political debates. Although the Italian peninsula was home to some of the most important ancient civilizations, Italy’s existence as a united country dates only from the nineteenth century, making it younger than the US as a modern nation state. Italy was first unified by the Romans, making Roman antiquity a point of reference throughout history as intellectuals and political leaders dreamed of a unified nation. We examine how Italian identity was formed throughout history, both by Italians and by foreign visitors to Italy, in response to the principal ancient cultures that thrived on the peninsula. The focus is on primary sources, ­literary works, artifacts, art objects, works of architecture,opera and film ­taking advantage of the unique resources of Florence to explore these in their original contexts.

Sample Syllabus

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisites: Pre-calculus or equivalent level of mathematical training

Professor TBA
Introduction to the American economy, elements of supply and demand, and basic macroeconomic principles. Includes national income and employment, money, banking, inflation, business fluctuations, monetary and fiscal policy, the balance of payments, and comparative economic systems. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisites: Pre-calculus or equivalent level of mathematical training

Professor Velucchi
Focuses on individual economic decision makers—households, business firms, and government agencies—and how they are linked together. The emphasis is on decision making by households and firms and how these decisions shape our economic life. Explores the different environments in which businesses sell their products, hire workers, and raise funds to expand their operations; the economic effects of various government policies, such as minimum wage legislation, rent controls, antitrust laws, and more. Conducted in English.

Prerequisites: Intermediate Macroeconomics (ECON-UA 0012) and Statistics (ECON-UA 0018), or equivalents.

Professor G. Gallo
The aim of this course is to offer a perspective on the international financial markets and the transactions which take place in exchanging goods, services and capitals across borders. The balance of payment and the foreign exchange markets will be examined in their interaction with the costs of goods (prices) and capitals (interest rates) in different countries. Current issues such as the recent birth of the new European common currency, the South-East Asian crisis, the Argentina devaluation and the impact of the trade deficit on the US economy will be discussed. Conducted in English.

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisite: ECON-UA 1 (Economic Principals) or ECON-UA 5 (Introduction to Economic Analysis)

Professor G. Gallo
Money supply; banking as an industry; banks as suppliers of money; the Federal Reserve System and monetary control; monetary theory; and contemporary monetary policy issues. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisites: Intermediate Macroeconomics (ECON-UA 12) and International Economics (ECON-UA 238), or equivalents.

Professor Giovannetti
Specific topics, to be announced. General themes of the course include fiscal and monetary policy under alternative exchange rate regimes; international transmission mechanisms; barriers to capital mobility; international policy coordination; optimum currency areas, customs unions and free trade areas; multilateral trade; trade liberalization policies; and the role of the World Bank and of the I.M.F. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor TBA

Course Description coming soon

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Cross-listed with HIST-UA 9168 (History) and ITAL-UA 9868 (Italian Studies)

Professor Travis
Politics and society, war and peace in modern Europe over a fifty-year period in the middle of the last century. The primary goal of this course is to consider how developments since the 1930s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today's Europeans. This course relies heavily on historically-based novels to explore the topics of particular concern: European fascism, the Second World War, the division of Europe and the Cold War, reconstruction and economic "miracle" in western Europe, de-colonization, eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the 1960s, and the collapse of communist states in the 1980s. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Both English and Italian sections of this course will be offered.

Cross-listed with ITAL-UA 9981 (Italian Studies)

Professor L. Tarabusi

An in-depth experience of Italian language and culture through participation in a variety of community service organizations. Entails volunteer placements in agencies working with women, immigrants, and the poor and on issues of health care and the environment. Students are required to attend weekly two-hour seminars, where they may clarify cultural and language issues, share experiences, and participate in discussions with speakers from the various community organizations involved in the program. During the first week of this course, a learning contract will be discussed and then signed by each student in consultation with the professor. With this learning contract the student will commit to follow the requirements of the course in either English or Italian.

Sample Syllabus Italian Section

Sample Syllabus English Section 

This course is for Global Liberal Studies students only.

Course description coming soon.

Professor Simoni
This course is divided in two parts; the first part is a history of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflict which follows a classic approach; it presents the international, historical and political developments which affected the region following a timeline from the origins of the conflict (early 20th century diplomatic settlements and the Mandates system) to its unfolding through the 1948 War and the other armed confrontations that followed, at the pace of one a decade. This first part is intended to provide students with knowledge of the area, of its history, of the influence of Home Diaspora dynamics and of the historiographical debates that orient the production of knowledge on this topic. The first part of this course also aims at preparing students for the second part of the course, which is a history of Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian attempts at building peace (mainly from below) for the same length of time. In this respect, this course wants to show that, in the same way as there has been continuity in fighting wars in the region, there has also been a continuity in trying to build and spread peace. Both in its first and second part, this course will analyze from a historical perspective issues like the bi-national State vs. the two-State solution, secular vs. religious State, conscientious objection and the legitimacy of military order refusal, the strength of civil society vis-à-vis a strong State (Israel) or an absent State (Palestine), the question of the normalization of conflict and that of joint (Israeli and Palestinian) associationism. The course will also introduce the European perspective on both war and peace, focusing on the cultural, political and international aspects of Europe’s involvement. In class we will also “do history” reading and discussing primary sources (governmental papers, international agreements, civil society declarations, etc) and other texts, Israeli and Palestinian songs, movies, cartoons, political leaflets, political stickers etc.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Travis
Politics and society, war and peace in modern Europe over a fifty-year period in the middle of the last century. The primary goal of this course is to consider how developments since the 1930s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today's Europeans. This course relies heavily on historically-based novels to explore the topics of particular concern: European fascism, the Second World War, the division of Europe and the Cold War, reconstruction and economic "miracle" in western Europe, de-colonization, eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the 1960s, and the collapse of communist states in the 1980s. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Cross-listed with MEDI-UA 9270 (Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

Professor R.M. Comanducci

Students in this course will examine the role and status of women in medieval and Renaissance Europe, exploring theological and medieval attitudes toward women as well as economic and social determinants for women's lives. The topics include the development of the institution of marriage; the ideal of romantic love; women's religious experience; and women's economic, literary, and artistic contributions to society. This course balances studying women as a group in history and examining individual women, when possible, through their own words. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Professor TBA

The first part of the course provides a general chronological overview of immigration history on both sides of the Atlantic from World War II to the present, including the legacy of World War II, the rise of the UN minority protection regime, the reform of discriminatory immigration law opening immigration to more diverse countries of origin, and the contribution of European decolonization and the US Civil Rights movement to transforming the political, juridical and cultural framework for immigration. The second part of the course the focus will shift away from macro-trends and meta-narratives to look more closely at the diverse mechanisms of integration of immigrant populations at the local level in selected US and European cities, investigating concrete examples of how the integration of immigrants took place in local education systems (inter cultural education curriculum, religious accommodation in the classroom) and the local labor market (specific attention to textile industry).

In addition to the Seminar, students will attend lectures in preparation for the conference, the conference itself and a special discussion/question and answer session with panelists. By the end of the semester students will have developed a better understanding of the historical factors that have contributed to the contemporary immigration debate and how the similarities and differences in the experience of and response to immigration in Europe and the United States has shaped the transatlantic dialogue on immigration.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Prerequisite: Renaissance Art, or equivalent introductory Art History Course

Cross-listed with: ARTH-UA  9650 ( Art History) and RELST-UA 9650 (Religious Studies)

Professor Mussolin

The course will explore the unusually rich artistic and textual record of medieval holy people and places in Tuscany, and one site Umbria, Assisi. The goal of the course is to consider the intersection of popular religious expression, individual extraordinary lives, and the art and architecture produced by the society to celebrate its spiritual heroes. Students will be immersed in Italian medieval texts, art, and architecture as a means of understanding a vivid past which illuminates medieval civic pride and served as a springboard to the Italian Renaissance. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Cross-listed with MEDI-UA 9123 (Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

Prof. Duni
The Renaissance began and reached maturity in Italy between 1350 and 1500. This course closely examines the political, economic, and social situations in Italy during this period, emphasizing the special conditions that produced Renaissance art and literature. The relationship between culture, society, and politics is studied in the case of Florence, in which the hegemony of the Medici house and its patronage brought the city to cultural leadership in the Western world. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Cross-listed with EURO-UA 9163 (European Studies) and ITAL-UA 9868 (Italian Studies)

Professor Travis
Italy, a major Euro-Mediterranean nation, often appears like a beautiful but bizarre country. It can only be better understood through an analysis of its past. This course will thus provide an overview of Italian history since its path towards unification, and will consequently highlight the most salient political, social and economic events since 1815. In the first half of the course we will look at the liberalism which characterised the pre-WWI period, the rise of Fascism and Italy during WWII including the role of the anti-fascist ‘partisans’. In the second part of the course we will examine post-war developments such as the country's reconstruction, the birth of the neo-fascist right, mass emigration from the South, the so called 'years of lead' and the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and the transition to the so-called Second Republic. We shall also discover some of the dark shadows of contemporary Italian society such as the role of the different mafias and the succession of political scandals and corruption cases that continue to blight the nation. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Vuletic

The Eurovision Song Contest is the world's biggest popular music event: held annually in May, it includes entries from almost every European country and attracts over a hundred million viewers, making it one of the most-watched television events in Europe. Eurovision was established in 1956 in order to promote cultural cooperation among Western European countries that were then pursuing their first steps towards economic and political integration through the European Coal and Steel Community, Euratom and the European Economic Community. This course will use Eurovision to analyse major political issues that have accompanied European integration since 1956. In doing so, it will require students to analyse the cultural, political and social significance of entries through their lyrics, music, costumes and dances, as well as the media commentary that accompanied them. They will look at how countries use the contest to define themselves within a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness or to affirm their "Europeanness."

Professor Wagemann
Next to many archives covering past centuries, Florence also hosts one of the most important archives for the study of contemporary history, namely the archive on the European Union. It is organizationally and academically linked to the European University Institute (EUI), also located in Florence, a top-level interdisciplinary graduate institute and think tank.

An archive on the EU represents a welcome challenge for history students, since it is not completely clear "what the EU is". It is neither a state in the traditional sense, nor is it limited to being an international organization. Whereas most forms of stateness in Europe and in the rest of the democratic world can be considered more or less stable, the EU is still a political actor in the making - and there is evidence that it will remain a moving target for historians, political scientists, law experts and economists for still many years to come. Thus, different from other archives, the archive on the EU does not contain documents and information on a historical process which is already completed, but which is and will still be ongoing.

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Professor Grimaldi
This course analyzes Dante's poetry in itself and as an object of translation and adaptation. The text of the Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line journey through the afterlife, will be studied in terms of its transmission and reception in contemporary culture. Emphasis will be put on Dante's influence on literature, art, music, media and film. The text is read in translation with references to the original Italian facing text. Conducted in English. 

Sample Syllabus

Both English and Italian sections of this course will be offered.

Professor L. Tarabusi

An in-depth experience of Italian language and culture through participation in a variety of community service organizations. Entails volunteer placements in agencies working with women, immigrants, and the poor and on issues of health care and the environment. Students are required to attend weekly two-hour seminars, where they may clarify cultural and language issues, share experiences, and participate in discussions with speakers from the various community organizations involved in the program. During the first week of this course, a learning contract will be discussed and then signed by each student in consultation with the professor. With this learning contract the student will commit to follow the requirements of the course in either English or Italian.

Sample Syllabus Italian Section 

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Cross-listed with POL-UA 9512 (Politics

Professor Chiaramonte
Presents a study of post-World War II Italian politics and society in comparative and historical perspective. Seeks explanations of Italian political development in specific historical factors such as the 19th century patterns of state formation and the experience of fascism. Comparative analysis seeks to show how the social structure, political culture, and party systems have shaped Italy's distinct development. Current and recurrent political issues include the problem of integrating the south into the national economy and state response to social movements, particularly terrorism. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Cross-listed with HIST-UA 9168 (History) and EURO-UA 9163 (European Studies)

Professor Travis
Politics and society, war and peace in modern Europe over a fifty-year period in the middle of the last century. The primary goal of this course is to consider how developments since the 1930s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today's Europeans. This course relies heavily on historically-based novels to explore the topics of particular concern: European fascism, the Second World War, the division of Europe and the Cold War, reconstruction and economic "miracle" in western Europe, de-colonization, eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the 1960s, and the collapse of communist states in the 1980s. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Borgioli

Obiettivo principale del corso è lo studio del panorama letterario dell’Italia del XIX e del  XX secolo con particolare attenzione alla lettura e all’analisi di alcune opere che rivestono un ruolo di particolare rilievo nella storia della letteratura italiana.  Il corso, condotto interamente in lingua italiana, prevede  lo studio dei principali scrittori e poeti della letteratura italiana dell’Ottocento e del Novecento e del contesto storico-culturale in cui sono inseriti.

Sample Syllabus

Professor McGuire

This course explores different symbolic configurations of the Mediterranean in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italian culture. Students will first examine different theoretical approaches (geophysical, historical, anthropological), and then turn to specific textual representations of the Mediterranean, literary and cinematic, and in some instances architectural. We will investigate how representations of the Mediterranean have been critical to the shaping of Italian identity as well as the role of the Mediterranean to separate Europe and its Others. Readings include Fernand Braudel, Iain Chambers, Ernesto de Martino, Elsa Morante, Andrea Camillieri, and Amara Lakhous. Final projects require students to isolate a topic within Italian culture and to develop in situ research that examines how the concept of the Mediterranean may be used to codify, or in some instances justify, certain textual or social practices.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Fallani

Co-requisite:  Must register for screening time

This course we will focus on the presence of women as protagonists, symbolic figures, and filmmakers in Italian cinema. In recent years, Cinema Italiano has generated a new wave of Italian women directors who have made their mark on the national cinematic imagination. Directors such as Francesca Archibugi, Cristina e Francesca Comencini, Wilma Labate, Roberta Torre, and Antonietta De Lillo, among others, have established themselves as important voices of Italy's latest generation of filmmakers.  In addition to considering the aesthetic and formal elements of Italian films by contemporary female directors, we will discuss the range of social issues at play within them.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Fallani

Co-requisite:  Must register for lecture time

Professor TBA
This course provides a thorough introduction to the international system for the protection of human rights and the preconditions under which it functions at international and national levels. The course aims to develop the students' interest in, and knowledge of, international human rights; to explore human rights theory and practice; to introduce various human rights conventions and mechanisms, particularly the United Nations system; and to provide advanced instruction in several key aspects of international human rights, including the effects of globalisation on human rights, the question of the universality / cultural-specificity of human rights, and the so-called 'interdependence' of various human rights.

Sample Syllabus

Prof. Barsotti & Prof. Varano

The course offers students an introduction to legal comparison, to its nature and goals in connection with the contemporary globalization processes, with particular reference to the interaction of law and culture in Europe. Through this course, students will be exposed to the historical evolution and the main features of the civil law tradition in comparison with the common law tradition, with inevitable references to other legal worlds which have emerged as key actors in the global context. The analysis will touch on some issues that show the convergence of legal systems and traditions favored by the globalization process. However, it will also consider those peculiar features of a given legal culture that may resist this homogenization process. Besides the formative period of the civil law and the common law in England, the course will deal with such topics as legal education, legal professions and courts; constitutions and judicial review of legislation; the role of legislation, case law and doctrine as sources of law; the weight of judicial precedents, and some selected key issues such as laws regulating the termination of pregnancy. Reference will also be made to the making of a European law.

Sample Syllabus

Professor TBA
The goal of this course is to present a thorough historical survey of fifty years of television in Italy, with a special emphasis on the relation between television broadcasting and democratic politics. The course will be structured in four parts: the early days of television in Italy, characterized by the monopoly of RAI and the political influence of the Christian Democrats; the political conflicts and policy-making choices of the 70s; the so-called "far west" of commercial broadcasting and the birth of the duopoly during the 80s; the change of political landscape during the 90s and the years 2000, with the increasing competition between RAI and Mediaset, the conflicts of interest of Berlusconi and the advent of pay per view and digital terrestrial television. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Cross-listed with HIST-UA 9123 (History)

Professor Duni
The Renaissance began and reached maturity in Italy between 1350 and 1500. This course closely examines the political, economic, and social situations in Italy during this period, emphasizing the special conditions that produced Renaissance art and literature. The relationship between culture, society, and politics is studied in the case of Florence, in which the hegemony of the Medici house and its patronage brought the city to cultural leadership in the Western world. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Cross-listed with HIST-UA 9270 (History)

Professor R.M. Comanducci

Students in this course will examine the role and status of women in medieval and Renaissance Europe, exploring theological and medieval attitudes toward women as well as economic and social determinants for women's lives. The topics include the development of the institution of marriage; the ideal of romantic love; women's religious experience; and women's economic, literary, and artistic contributions to society. This course balances studying women as a group in history and examining individual women, when possible, through their own words. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Lombardo
Urban culture is complex, fantastic, frightening, and a part of daily life, encompassing everything from the opera to street musicians, the public library to the piazza, the theater to local cafes and social clubs. This course, where cities are considered to be sources of cultural invention, explores through literature, history, social science and student experience, the evolution of high and popular culture, both modernist and post-modern. Emphasis will be placed on how cultures create bonds between specific interest groups, and how culture becomes the arena for acting out or resolving group conflict. This course will focus on Italian cities, including Florence. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisite: E85.0008, Aural Comprehension III, or success in placement exam

Professor TBA
Continued training in intermediate musicianship skills. 

Professor TBA

Open to Steinhardt Music students only. 

Professor TBA

Prerequisite: Keyboard Harmony and Improvisation III, or success in placement exam

Professor TBA
Course description will be added shortly.

Prerequisite: E85.1077, Music History III, or success in placement exam

Professor TBA
Evolution of contemporary compositional techniques traced from impressionism to the latest avant-garde experiments. 

Prerequisite: Music Theory III, or success in placement exam

Professor TBA
Introduction to the materials and organizing principles of 20th-century music, including extended chromaticism, modes, atonality, and jazz. 

Prerequisite: Music History I, or success in placement exam

Professor TBA
The history of musical styles in the baroque and classical periods. 

Professor Fedi

For students specializing in classical voice.

No prerequisite.

Professor TBA

One hour per week. (Includes all woodwind, brass and percussion instruments, classical and jazz styles).

No prerequisite.

Professor TBA

One hour per week. (Includes all string orchestral instruments and guitar, classical and jazz styles).

No prerequisite.

Professor TBA

One hour per week. (Includes classical and jazz styles).

No prerequisite.

Professor TBA

One hour per week. (Includes classical, music theatre and jazz styles).

No prerequisite.

Professor TBA

One hour per week. (Includes traditional, music theatre, film scoring and jazz).

Open to Steinhardt Music students only. 

Professor TBA

Professor M. Sansone

The course covers the evolution of Italian opera from its beginnings in Florence to the early 20th century with special emphasis on Monteverdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. The approach is multidisciplinary and aims at a comprehensive survey of the music theatre in the context of the Italian cultural heritage. Literary sources, musico-dramatic features, vocal styles are studied in connection with major works that best represent trends and genres in the Italian operatic tradition. Students are expected to master the distinctive characteristics of such genres as favola in musica, intermezzo, opera seria, opera buffa, grand opera, dramma lirico, and the basic elements of Italian versification. Students listen to and watch recorded operas and attend performances in Florence or other Italian cities. Conducted in English

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisite: Photo I or equivalent. An analog or a digital camera with manual settings is required. This class meets both for lecture and lab.

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Professor A. Capodacqua
Florence can be considered the historic capital of optics: as the leading center for the production of lenses and spectacles in the Renaissance, it was also a center for extraordinary experimentation regarding the science of vision.  The experiments and writings of such masters as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Giovan Battista della Porta and Galileo, among others, are testimony to the extraordinary contributions made here to the understanding of sight and to the development of devices that aided, altered or controlled vision for artistic purpose.

This course proposes to contextualize historic photographic techniques within this rich context of the history of optics.  An invaluable resource for this exploration will be the Acton Photograph Archive at Villa La Pietra with its rich collection of stereographs, daguerrotypes, ambrotypes, silver prints and albumen prints.  Students will thus be able to learn about these historic techniques by examining firsthand surviving, in some cases extremely rare, examples of them.

Following the inspiration of these historic techniques, from the experiments of the Florentine Renaissance artists to those of the Alinari Brothers, a firm founded in Florence in the nineteenth century and renowned throughout the world as an early innovator in the uses and techniques of photography, students will have the opportunity to explore these techniques themselves hands on.  They will be encouraged to develop their individual expression through their own projects employing one or more of these historic photographic techniques.  This inspiring course on experimental photography explores new possibilities of image making by combining pinhole and toy cameras and other alternative techniques with a theoretical approach to representation.

Sample Syllabus

Professor D'Alimonte
The European Union is a unique and strange entity.  It has 27 states and 500 million people. Its GNP is more or less equal to that of the USA. Many of its members share a common currency and a common monetary policy.  Yet it is a union without a state. The spectacular progress in the area of economic integration has not been matched by the creation of a common government and a common identity.  The economic giant is still a political dwarf as it has been confirmed time and again whenever there is an international crisis,. Yet so far this strange entity has been working. Its achievements in the economic arena have been remarkable. The course will analyze in an interdisciplinary fashion the making of the Union, its institutions, its policies and its prospects in the very challenging environment of today.  Probably more so than in any other period in its history the survival of the Union, as we have known it, will be tested by the impact of the most serious crisis of the post-war period.  Particular attention will be given to the new economic governance established by the Union in responding to the problems posed by the poor economic and financial performance of some of its members, i.e. the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain).. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Wagemann

This course looks at contemporary European politics at the nation-state level. Although European countries share with the US the fact that they are (nearly!) all democracies, there are many differences in how these democracies are organized. We will get to know many varieties of democracies and analyze their specific advantages and disadvantages. This will not only make students familiar with the political environment of Europe, but also draw their attention to the particularities of the American political system.

The course topics include the territorial organization, governance, judicial systems, parliaments, cabinets,heads of state, political parties, mass media, interest groups, social movements, migration and the development of the political left and right in a comparative perspective. The main focus is on the big European democracies (Britain, France,Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland), but occasionally the small countries (Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Slovenia) can also serve as helpful examples.

Sample Syllabus

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Cross-listed with ITAL-UA 9512 (Italian)

Professor Chiaramonte
Presents a study of post-World War II Italian politics and society in comparative and historical perspective. Seeks explanations of Italian political development in specific historical factors such as the 19th century patterns of state formation and the experience of fascism. Comparative analysis seeks to show how the social structure, political culture, and party systems have shaped Italy's distinct development. Current and recurrent political issues include the problem of integrating the south into the national economy and state response to social movements, particularly terrorism. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Biondi
Explores the norms that govern European states in their legal relations and the current development of law among these nations, based on cases and other legal materials relating to the nature and function of the law; recognition of states and governments; continuity of states and state succession; jurisdiction over persons, land, sea, air, and outer space; international responsibility and the law of space; diplomatic privileges and immunities; treaties; regulation of the use of force; and the challenges posed by new states to the established legal order. The course is divided into three parts: sources, natures, and the making of European Community (EC) law; different areas of EC law (single market, social policy and EC citizenship, competition policy, economic and monetary union, and European Union extended relations); and implementation and enforcement of EC law. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor R. D'Alimonte
This course explores the role of the US in Europe from the end of World War II to the present with a particular emphasis on understanding the sources of cooperation and conflict. The topics covered in the first part will include the US vision of the new international order, the end of the old European balance of power, the Cold War and the division of Europe, the building of the Western alliance, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. The second part of the course will concentrate on contemporary issues ranging from the evolution of NATO to trade relations and the role of the dollar and the euro in the international monetary system. Particular attention will also be given to the challenges posed by the ‘war on terror’, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor F. Peressotti
Introduction to theories and research in some major areas of cognitive psychology, including human memory, attention, language production and comprehension, thinking, and reasoning. Conducted in English. 

Sample Syllabus

Professor Kiesner
Introduction and overview of theoretical issues and selected research in developmental psychology. Focus on infancy through adolescence. Lectures interweave theory, methods, and findings about how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Martelli
How do we construct a description of physical reality based on visual sensory information? Survey of basic facts, theories, and methods of studying sensation and perception. The major emphasis is on vision and audition, although other modalities may be covered. Representative topics include receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation, pattern recognition, and the interaction of knowledge and perception. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Cross-listed with MEDI-UA 9995 (Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

Professor M. Duni
Popular cultural themes and theology in the Middle Ages will be explored. We will study the shaping of the concept of witchcraft from the Canon episcopi to the bull "Super illius specula". We will go on to the Inquisition: from the repression of Catholicism to the attack of the "sect of Diana," the bull "Magnis desiderantes" (1484) and the Malleus maleficarum (1486). The foundations of the witch hunt of the 16th Century will be explored, as well as the exercise of political virtues and the divine mission of the individual. We will conclude with the decadence of religious life and of civic liberties in the second half of the century. Conducted in English.

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

 Prerequisite: Renaissance Art, or equivalent introductory Art History Course

Cross-listed with: ARTH-UA  9650 ( Art History) and HIST-UA 9091 (History)

Professor Mussolin

The course will explore the unusually rich artistic and textual record of medieval holy people and places in Tuscany, and one site Umbria, Assisi. The goal of the course is to consider the intersection of popular religious expression, individual extraordinary lives, and the art and architecture produced by the society to celebrate its spiritual heroes. Students will be immersed in Italian medieval texts, art, and architecture as a means of understanding a vivid past which illuminates medieval civic pride and served as a springboard to the Italian Renaissance. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Prof. M. Ciacci
One of the aims of this course is to prompt students to understand the workings of the many cultural rules that keep shaping their own personal identity. It will be a matter of trying to define oneself in a new cultural environment; finding the ordinary in the apparently exotic setting while disembedding its underlying patterns; assessing the extent to which being a “foreigner” may (or may not) help as an interpretive tool for cultural experience. The topic of food, its different meanings and varying relationships to the human body, is going to be used as a case-study through which cultural processes may be nicely seen at work. By the end of the semester, students are expected to develop an individual research project that should prove their skills at decoding some of the cultural phenomena to which they have been exposed during their stay abroad.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor Ciacci
One of the aims of the course is to try and understand the accomplishments that Western civilization considers literary and artistic (plastic, visual) products from the vantage point of modern sociology. Each historical period has developed its own "ways of seeing." Attention will be devoted to specific instances in the 19th and 20th centuries. This should allow us to discuss and evaluate the processes involved, in a) the production and dissemination of literary and artistic products, and in b) the consumption patterns affecting those same products in contemporary societies. The purpose is to discover the creative strategies by which such works are generated, the social and economic contexts in which they are produced, and the different ways in which they have been circulated and received. This will allow us to account for changes in taste and social priorities. The city of Florence, viewed in itself as a cultural product, will provide various opportunities (with its museums, libraries, temporary exhibits, etc.) for testing such theoretical statements. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 11, ITAL-UA 12, Intermediate Italian I & II; or ITAL-UA 20, Intensive Intermediate Italian

Professor TBA
Intensive review of Italian grammar through written and oral exercises, conversations, compositions, translation, and readings from contemporary Italian literature. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 30, Advanced Review of Modern Italian

Professor Reale

Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. The course is designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in speaking present-day Italian. Through discussions, oral reports, and readings, students develop vocabulary in a variety of topics, improve pronunciation, and learn an extensive range of idiomatic expressions. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor TBA

Co-Requisite: Conversations in Italian - ITAL-UA 9101

Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. The course is designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in writing present-day Italian.  Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus 

Both English and Italian sections of this course will be offered.

Professor L. Tarabusi

An in-depth experience of Italian language and culture through participation in a variety of community service organizations. Entails volunteer placements in agencies working with women, immigrants, and the poor and on issues of health care and the environment. Students are required to attend weekly two-hour seminars, where they may clarify cultural and language issues, share experiences, and participate in discussions with speakers from the various community organizations involved in the program. During the first week of this course, a learning contract will be discussed and then signed by each student in consultation with the professor. With this learning contract the student will commit to follow the requirements of the course in either English or Italian.

Sample Syllabus Italian Section 

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Cross-listed with POL-UA 9512 (Politics)

Professor Chiaramonte
Presents a study of post-World War II Italian politics and society in comparative and historical perspective. Seeks explanations of Italian political development in specific historical factors such as the 19th century patterns of state formation and the experience of fascism. Comparative analysis seeks to show how the social structure, political culture, and party systems have shaped Italy's distinct development. Current and recurrent political issues include the problem of integrating the south into the national economy and state response to social movements, particularly terrorism. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Professor McGuire

This course explores different symbolic configurations of the Mediterranean in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italian culture. Students will first examine different theoretical approaches (geophysical, historical, anthropological), and then turn to specific textual representations of the Mediterranean, literary and cinematic, and in some instances architectural. We will investigate how representations of the Mediterranean have been critical to the shaping of Italian identity as well as the role of the Mediterranean to separate Europe and its Others. Readings include Fernand Braudel, Iain Chambers, Ernesto de Martino, Elsa Morante, Andrea Camillieri, and Amara Lakhous. Final projects require students to isolate a topic within Italian culture and to develop in situ research that examines how the concept of the Mediterranean may be used to codify, or in some instances justify, certain textual or social practices.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Fallani

Co-requisite:  Must register for screening time

This course we will focus on the presence of women as protagonists, symbolic figures, and filmmakers in Italian cinema. In recent years, Cinema Italiano has generated a new wave of Italian women directors who have made their mark on the national cinematic imagination. Directors such as Francesca Archibugi, Cristina e Francesca Comencini, Wilma Labate, Roberta Torre, and Antonietta De Lillo, among others, have established themselves as important voices of Italy's latest generation of filmmakers.  In addition to considering the aesthetic and formal elements of Italian films by contemporary female directors, we will discuss the range of social issues at play within them.

Sample Syllabus

Professor Fallani

Co-requisite:  Must register for lecture time

Professor Borgioli

Obiettivo principale del corso è lo studio del panorama letterario dell’Italia del XIX e del  XX secolo con particolare attenzione alla lettura e all’analisi di alcune opere che rivestono un ruolo di particolare rilievo nella storia della letteratura italiana.  Il corso, condotto interamente in lingua italiana, prevede  lo studio dei principali scrittori e poeti della letteratura italiana dell’Ottocento e del Novecento e del contesto storico-culturale in cui sono inseriti.

Sample Syllabus

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Professor Grimaldi
This course analyzes Dante's poetry in itself and as an object of translation and adaptation. The text of the Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line journey through the afterlife, will be studied in terms of its transmission and reception in contemporary culture. Emphasis will be put on Dante's influence on literature, art, music, media and film. The text is read in translation with references to the original Italian facing text. Conducted in English. 

Sample Syllabus