Summer Courses Inventory Page

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Extensive Interm I

Students will gain understanding of oral and written material on various topics, ranging from general routine and leisure time activities, to more complex topics such as politics, environmental issues, and work environment. Students will be able to read and appreciate pertinent authentic texts with a clear structure, and will also be able to some extent to infer and extract from the material information which at first is only implicit. The understanding of material focusing on the expression of personal thoughts and feelings will progress to include increasingly sophisticated nuances.

Students will be able to handle most uncomplicated conversation tasks and standard social situations. Students will be able to: debate and argue for opposite viewpoints on a range of topics and make comparisons and hypotheses. Presentation skills will solidify; skills in narrating in paragraphs will emerge and develop in a creative direction. Students will be able to write letters and short stories and demonstrate limited command of sentence syntax.

Extensive Intermediate Italian II - Sample syllabus

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Extensive Elem I & II or Intensive Elementary Italian

Students will gain understanding of oral and written communication on various topics, ranging from basic routine tasks to travel, shopping, cultural customs and events in the past, present and future. They will appreciate the increasingly elaborate expression of personal wishes, feelings and hopes. Students will recognize key information in the reading and listening of authentic material, provided it is clearly presented and structured, and will begin to understand advanced texts featuring narration and description of events.

Students will be able to handle a large range of conversation tasks and standard
social situations. They will be able to interact beyond their mere immediate needs, discussing in some depth topics such as leisure activities, professional goals and personal taste; skills in oral presentation will begin to solidify, as students will sustain a general conversation and be understood. Narrative skills are limited but begin to emerge. Students will be able to write short letter

Extensive Intermediate Italian I - Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Extensive Elem I

Students will gain understanding of oral and written communication on a variety of topics, ranging from personal routine, taste and hobbies to include family, fashion and food. They will be able to acquire key information from listening and reading brief, simple, authentic material, and have a fair understanding of the meaning of standard Italian conversations on a variety of familiar topics, including present and past events, presented in a clearly audible speech.

Students will be able to engage in conversations on a variety of real-life situations regarding familiar subjects, to respond to open-ended questions and to initiate communication on these topics, despite not having the skills to continue the conversation in an autonomous way. They will be able to give and follow directions, instructions and commands. Stronger emphasis will be on communicative situations involving first and second person, while skills in mono-directional oral presentation will begin to emerge. Writing activities will include narration of present and past events, personal experiences, school and work situations, as well as brief messages to family and friends.

Extensive Elementary Italian II - Sample syllabus

Students will gain understanding of basic messages in simple oral and written material containing standard phrases (questions, high-frequency commands, and courtesy formulae) and some sentence-length expressions, supported by proper context and presented in a clear and plain language. They will be able to acquire key information in the listening and reading of brief, simple, authentic material (i.e. directions, maps, timetable and advertisements), and have a fair understanding of messages of short standard Italian conversations in a limited number of content areas, presented in a clearly audible (and occasionally slowed) speech. Their understanding will include present events and very simple events in the past, presented clearly and in the context of familiar topics.

Students will be able to engage in basic conversation relying mainly on ready-made expressions and on short phrases and to respond to open-ended questions as well as to initiate communication on familiar topics, even without being able to continue the conversation in an autonomous way. Stronger emphasis will be given on communicative situations involving first and second person; writing activities will include simple autobiographical information, brief messages, simple forms and lists, where pertinent vocabulary and structure are provided.

Extensive Elementary Italian I - Sample Syllabus

Global Fashion Industry: Italy will provide students with a deep understanding of the contemporary fashion industry in Italy, as well as of Italy's position in the global fashion arena. The course will drive students through the entire lifecycle of the fashion business, from forecasting trends to retailing, through design, sourcing, product development and production. Particular attention will be dedicated to different marketing aspects of the process, such as: identity building, brand positioning, merchandising, buying, costing, communication. All levels of retail, from luxury to mass market will be covered. The course will end with an analysis of the new challenges, such as sourcing globalization, emerging markets, sustainability and growing significance of technology.
A strong effort will be put into organizing site visits to studios, showrooms and factories, as well as meeting with professional players.

Each session will be structured to give students an overview of a particular stage of the Industry, through a mix of lectures from the course leader and visiting professionals, studio and showroom visits, walking tours, reading assignments and practical projects.  Conducted in English.

Global Fashion Industry:  Italy - Sample syllabus

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and cultures of Florence under conditions of globalization. How have produce, people and animals interacted to make life possible in modern cities and how have those interactions changed over time in Florence's history? What kinds of systems have been built to provide energy, bring potable water into cities, take sewage out, and provide clean air?

As a course in new sensory urbanism this curriculum seeks to expand the traditional scope and range of the studied senses from sight (e.g. art, architecture) and sound (music), to smell, taste and touch, so as to rethink what it means to be a modern urban subject engaged in the pleasures and powers of consumption. Through lectures, readings, field trips students will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

Food, Culture and Globalization 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].

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.

Renaissance Art - Sample Syllabus

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

The course is an intensive review of Italian grammar. Classes are three times a week. The aim of the course is to develop the knowledge of morphosyntactic structures of the Italian language, and to also reinforce intercultural competence. Class work consists of both written and spoken activities, conversations, and papers and readings related to a wide range of different genres (newspaper articles, magazines, extracts from contemporary Italian literature). All of the activities are primarily aimed to promote the usage of Italian language in real situations. Conducted in Italian. 

Advanced Review of Modern Italian - Sample Syllabus

Enrollment by permission only. Application required. Please see the application here for more information. Application Due on April 30th.

This is the required corequisite course for the Summer European Internship Program. This program provides students the opportunity to receive credit for a course associated with an internship found on your own. This program does not place students, but instead helps students who need an internship course to associate with existing internships. In order to be eligible, you will need to submit this application by Friday, April 30th at 11:59pm EST. You must include the most up to date version of your resume, the offer letter from your internship, and any contracts which need to be signed (i.e. Conventions de Stage, Convenios, etc.). Internships must be for a minimum of 6 weeks, beginning no sooner than May 24 and ending no later than July 31st. For further questions, please contact global.internships@nyu.edu.

Experiential Learning Seminar -  Sample Syllabus

Prerequisite for NYU students: ITAL-UA 30 or assignment by placement test. Conducted in Italian. Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental principles of Italian grammar.

This course is designed to help students gain confidence and to increase their effectiveness in speaking colloquial 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. 

Conversations in Italian - Sample Syllabus

Italian Gardens have been a reference point for garden design from antiquity to the present day. The Roman Empire, which spread from North Africa to the English Isles, divulged a pattern of housing, centered upon the garden, across the Mediterranean and beyond. The Roman archetype of peristyle gardens was preserved in the Middle Ages, when religious orders cultivated gardens for spiritual and medicinal purposes within monastic enclosures, and in the Renaissance, when the grand tradition of the Villa Garden was revived. During their rule over Florence, the Medici family built a chain of lavish Villas around the city. The Villas, supported by their agricultural fields, held refined gardens devoted to the Arts, made for philosophical debate, poetry, sculpture, music and theatre, and for medical and botanical research. In the sixteenth century, grandiose gardens were made by enlightened patrons in other Italian courts, including Rome. Florence and its surrounding form the ideal setting to discover the forms and culture of gardens through time, and the Neo-Renaissance gardens of Villa La Pietra give students a chance to study plants and their ecology close up. Field trips will introduce us to some of the great gardens of other Italian regions.

This class raises the issue of whether features of Italian formal gardens can can be exported to other countries, in which way they are site-specific and inimitable, or if the formal language of historical gardens is still relevant for contemporary gardens. We will consider examples of Italianate gardens overseas, with 19th and 20th century examples from the UK and USA, and examine their qualities - or failures. As an introduction to contemporary garden design, Japanese historical gardens will be mentioned as an example of alternative formal tradition. A definition of formal and informal garden features will provide an additional tool for the analysis of contemporary garden styles. A close look at the two most recent editions of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London, in which international garden designers quote - or challenge - historical precedents, will enliven the debate on what constitutes an Italian garden. 

Gardens and Landscapes - Sample syllabus(PDF)

The course will focus on the development of Italian cinema in the post war period, emphasizing the relationship between literature and film adaptation. The books and the films will offer a unique opportunity to analyze and discuss crucial issues related to the historical, political, and cultural evolution of Italy from its Unification to the present.

Italian Cinema and Literature - Sample Syllabus 

Italy is the country where opera was born. This course offers students the unique chance to study the history of Italian lyric opera with a professional composer and musician and to experience it at some of the major Italian opera seasons: the Arena of Verona season and the Giardino di Boboli season. During the course, students are introduced to the most prominent Italian opera composers (Monteverdi, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, etc.), as well as to the authors of the "libretto" of several of the most significant operas. They will be also introduced to some basic musical knowledge and practice.

Topics in Italian Culture: Italian Opera - Sample Syllabus 

The culture and politics of Italy, from the demographic catastrophe of the Black Death in 1348 to the decline of the Italian states in the first half of the sixteenth century. During this period the Italian cities were the Mediterranean crossroads for economic, political, and cultural exchange. They were also subject to repeated mass mortality events caused by epidemic disease and foreign invasions. The combination of crisis and cultural exchange led writers, artists, and a surprising number of common people search for answers to new questions about their place in the world and their relationship to each other and to God. We call that search the Renaissance. The course will focus on the Italian city-states. We will examine the new forms of political, artistic, religious, and scientific thought that we associate with the Renaissance. Primary sources include literary works, diaries, traveler's accounts, visual art, and political and scientific writings. 

Cultures and Contexts: Renaissance Italy - Sample Syllabus 

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisites: Introduction to Macroeconomics (ECON-UA 1) and Introduction to Microeconomics (ECON-UA 2), or Introduction to Economic Analysis (ECON-UA 5) or equivalents.

This course offer a perspective on the workings of the monetary and financial system within a country and at an international level. The role of money and the tools to conduct monetary policy will be analyzed in detail. The concept of the value of money now and in the future will help us understand the role of interest rates and of risk; various way to store wealth will take us into the structure of financial markets where financial instruments are created and traded to meet diverse needs. Some basic concepts on the role played by commercial banks will introduce the function of the Central Bank and of monetary policy in the overall goal of ensuring financial stability to the system. Current issues, such as the role of the European Central Bank and the instability created by the subprime mortgage crisis, will be discussed.

Money and Banking - Sample Syllabus

This course will introduce students to the study of criminal organizations in Italy and abroad. Analysis of real-world data over the last decades, such as court proceedings and crime statistics, dismisses many of the accepted myths about Italian mafias. We will explore the organization of mafia groups, rules and codes, activities both in legitimate business and illegal markets, and their relationship to politics. This comparative approach will help students identify those factors facilitating the emergence, migration and persistence of organized crime across countries. The course will include a review of the legislative efforts and best-practices designed to prevent and control organized crime in Italy and in the United States.

The Politics of Organized Crime: Italian Mafias in a Comparative Perspective - Sample Syllabus

This course is not open to NYU Stern students except for students in the BPE Program.

Prerequisites: ECON-UA 1: Intro to Macroeconomics (or equivalent course or AP MACROECONOMICS WITH SCORE OF 4 OR 5) and ECON-UA 2: Intro to Microeconomics (or equivalent course or AP MICROECONOMICS WITH SCORE OF 4 OR 5)

The field of International Economics is traditionally divided into two parts. First,“International Trade,” the microeconomic part, attempts to answer questions arising from trade in goods and services. For example: how does trade arise among nations? Which nations will trade with each other, and which goods and services will they trade? How does trade impact different groups within a country, and how does government policy alter these impacts? Second, “International Finance,” the macroeconomic part, attempts to answer questions arising from global financial markets and their impact on macroeconomic activity. For example, how are currency exchange rates determined? How do changes in exchange rates affect economic aggregates, such as a country’s trade deficit? This course will cover both parts and give a broad picture of economic interdependences among nations.

International Economics - Sample syllabus