20 undergraduate courses in the 2026–27 Undergraduate Calendar.
This course examines Italy's transformation from Unification in 1861 to present day. Students will explore its paradoxes and challenges through films and readings on topics such as the World Wars, the rise of fascism, internal terrorism, and migration in order to gain an understanding of contemporary Italian society and culture.
This course explores the contributions of Italian women artists, writers, and intellectuals from the Medieval through the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Students will learn about sexual culture, the institution of marriage, the role of the family, and gender roles as portrayed in the works of Italian women from these periods. Students will also assess and compare ideas across these time periods and become aware of the implications of studying these topics in the context of nationality.
This course explores the contributions of Italian women artists, writers, and intellectuals from the Enlightenment until contemporary times. Students will assess critically key themes in Italian women’s expression of sexual identities, the nature of relationships, and the influence of family ties as portrayed in Italian literature, art, and philosophy from these periods. Students will become familiar with concepts that mark the development of the Italian female imagery from the 18th to the 21st century.
This is a survey of the most representative works of Italian cinema, from the early 20th century to the present day. Students will gain an understanding of and appreciation for one of the most influential world cinemas. Movie screenings and exposure to the vocabulary, the history and the techniques of cinema will inform students' subsequent film analyses, delivered through class presentations and/or discussions. Special attention will be given to key Italian cinematic movements, the role of directors, and the making of Italian cult movies.
This course examines race in postcolonial Italy. Through literature, film, and postcolonial theory, students will assess the development of the Italian colonial mindset (1880s-1940s) in order to dismantle post-WWII narratives that attempted to subvert and deny Italian colonialism and its legacy. Students will critically evaluate the connections between Italy's colonial past, the Mediterranean migration crisis in the 1990s, and the contemporary Italian response to migrations. Students will listen to music, read novels, and engage with web content created by contemporary Afro-Italians whose artistic responses to racial discrimination invite a consideration of the crucial values that define Black Italy, and the underlying link between Italian colonialism and Mediterranean migrations.
Students will explore how ideas by Italian designers in the last 150 years have developed into innovative products. Through an analysis of a range of media and advertisements, students will gain insight into the history of Italian design and assess the role of designers as storytellers in Italy's industrial aesthetics.
This course will focus on representations of contagion and illness in Italian literature and film. Covering such topics as the portrayal of the Bubonic Plague in 14th-century novelle, Renaissance descriptions of syphilis, Verist and Neo-realist stories about contagion and poverty, and the projection of social malaise in art films, students will assess the ways in which disease is depicted in primary texts. Students will gain familiarity with contemporary contagion theories, as well as historicization and cultural criticism of literary and cinematic accounts of disease. In this course students will consider the psycho-social impact of contagion and disease from multiple perspectives - near and far, past, and present.
This course analyzes the visual media representation of the Mafia in North America and the manner in which it often glorifies the Italian Mafiosi's lifestyle. The goal is to deconstruct the romanticized portrayal of the Italian and Italian-American gangster created in visual media by analyzing atrocities committed by organized crime.
An examination of Canada's sixth largest ethno-cultural group. Emphasis will be placed on the changing nature of immigration and the evolution of the Italian community since the late 19th century.
A survey of some of the principal novels of 20th century Italy as they have been adapted in film by Italian directors. Students will study literary and cinematic representations of themes such as the rise of the Italian bourgeoisie, the economic boom of the 1960s, domestic violence, and organized crime.
A survey of developments in Italian late Medieval and Renaissance culture and civilization. Students will critically assess the emerging Italian short story (novella), paintings, sculptures, architectural styles, theatrical performances and opera in its nascent form. Students will be able to distinguish artistic styles of various genres pertaining to the late Medieval and Renaissance eras and understand how these reflect the cultural zeitgeist of these periods.
A survey of developments in Italian culture - history, literature, painting, and music - in the post-Renaissance period, with emphasis on modern Italy.
This course gives students an opportunity to study aspects of contemporary Italian society not covered in other courses.
An introduction to the Italian literature of the Middle Ages, with special reference to selections from the major works by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
An introduction to the Italian literary production of the 15th and 16th centuries, focusing on selections from the major works by writers of the period.
This course, offered in Rome, examines works of writers, artists, architects, and thinkers in the Western European tradition for whom all of reality participates in the larger mystery of God. The course focuses on figures who, from the early Italian Renaissance onward, gave expression to that mystical imagination.
This course examines the various strands of what is one of the greatest works in Western literature, Dante's Divine Comedy. The course will engage students in a critical reading of the text's various layers of meaning, which emphasize perennial issues of our human condition.
This course studies the works of major Italian poets and playwrights, modern and contemporary, paying special attention to works by women authors.
Italian literature, art, culture, and history studied abroad in Italy.
This course gives the student an opportunity to study authors and works of special interest which are not covered in other courses.