ITAL 301 - Senior Seminar

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

An examination of selected topics in recent Italian culture or of a single topic across several centuries. May be taken more than once for credit when topic changes. Required of all senior majors.

Topic for 2014/15b: Italophone African Narratives, from Colonialism to Post-Colonialism. From Italy’s Fascist colonial aspirations of the 1930s, through the “un-thinking eurocentrism” of the post-war generation, to the contemporary migritudine, we trace the engendering of Africa as concept and as reality in the Italian sociolect and society. Films may include Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, Pasolini’s The African Orestes, Bertolucci’s Besieged, and Michele Placido’s Pummarò. Texts by African and African-Italian women writers may include works by Igiaba Scego, Cristina Ubax Ali farah, Ribka Sibhatu, and Ramzanali Fazel. Ms. Blumenfeld.

Prerequisite: ITAL 220 , ITAL 222 or ITAL 218 with permission of the instructor.

One 2-hour period, and one film screening.