English 4950

Americans in Italy: Culture, Romance, and Personal Re-invention

MW 9-11:30am (morning)

Dr. Mary Magoulick        Office Hours: TBA & by appointment

Assignments:
Essay #1 -- Due July 6

Course Description:

Americans have been traveling to Italy for over two hundred years, for business, education, and pleasure. In addition to offering romance, adventure, and cultural education, Italy has often provided American travelers the opportunity to create an entirely new self, as recent films (Under the Tuscan Sun or The Talented Mr. Ripley) illustrate. In this course, we’ll view these films and read travel accounts and novels by American writers (such as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, and many more recent writers), looking at how characters or narrators might view and use Italy in their search for personal meaning, wisdom, and love.

Field Trips:

The texts we’ll read in this course often describe in great detail sites in Italy of significant cultural or historical importance. Often written when the writers themselves viewed these sites, the descriptions will offer us intriguing bases against which to compare our own impressions. We’ll visit many of the same places Hawthorne, for instance, visited when he lived in Rome, but we’ll also try to use what we’ve discovered in the texts to approach new sights and sites not described in the travel accounts and novels.

Texts:

Powers, Alice Leccese (Editor). Italy in Mind: An Anthology. New York: Vintage, 1997.  ISBN-13: 978-0679770237 ($14.95)

James, Henry. Daisy Miller. Dover Thrift Edition, New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1995 (1878). ISBN: 9780-486-28773-7

Origo, Iris. War in Val D’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944. Boston, David R. Godine, Publisher, 1947 (1984) ISBN: 978-0-87923-476-8

We will also focus on film studies critically, including

o   Portrait of a Lady, with Nicole Kidman John Malkovich, 1996, dir. by Jane Campion

o   Summertime, with Katherine Hepburn, 1955, dir. by David Lean – set in Venice

o   The Talented Mr. Ripley, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, 1999 dir. Anthony Minghella

o   Under the Tuscan Sun, with Diane Lane, 2003, dir. by Audrey Wells

Grading:

Final exam – 20%                               Two short papers – 30% (15% each)

Long paper – 30%                               Participation/Quizzes/etc. – 20%

Requirements

Ø  Two short critical response to assigned readings (2-3 pages). These will involve focused, detailed, textual analysis in answer to a specific question (or questions) to be distributed in class.

Ø  A longer, more developed essay (5-7 pages) in which you explore in depth one or more works from class in light of class discussion and what you have learned in Italy. You must discuss this final essay with the instructor.

Ø  A final exam in which you answer specific objective & essay questions about our readings and discussions. You should demonstrate familiarity with all the texts as well as awareness of class issues, strong ability to analyze readings, and synthesis of your original insights.

Ø  Various in class writings, quizzes, or assignments that will count toward your participation grade.

Ø  Regular, active attendance. Be prepared to ask and answer questions, and to raise and discuss issues of significance to this class. This will also count toward your participation grade.

Ø  Timely completion of all assignments. Readings are to be completed before the lecture on the day on which they are to be discussed.

Participation and Attendance:

Because this is a discussion class, regular, active participation is required. Participation is extremely difficult if you are unprepared or absent. Thus, absences are allowed only under the most extreme conditions.

Special Needs:

Any special needs will be accommodated when they are properly documented. Students with learning disabilities or special needs are urged to contact me early in the semester in order to secure the best possible learning environment.

Tentative Schedule:

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