Requirements
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Course requirements for the B.A. degree in Italian Studies: 30 credits, 10 courses. For information on and to declare the Italian Studies Major, please contact Linda Newman at lgn3e@virginia.edu.
No prerequisite to enroll in program. Students may begin taking approved courses in English before completing the language sequence (ITAL 1010-2020). ITAL 2020 or equivalent required before enrolling in Group A Core Courses.
10 courses required, constituted as follows:
Group A: Core Courses
2 courses out of 4 are required
- ITAL 3010 Advanced Italian I
- ITAL 3020 Advanced Italian II
- ITAL 3040 Advanced Italian III (Siena only)
- ITAL 3050 Advanced Italian IV (Siena only)
Group B: Italian Literary, Film, and Cultural Studies
Required: 6 courses, divided between ITAL (taught in Italian) and ITTR (taught in English); enrollment in ITAL courses requires previous or concurrent enrollment in ITAL 3010 or ITAL 3020.
Taught in Italian – minimum of 3, maximum of 6 courses in this group; courses include:
ITAL 3110 Medieval and Renaissance Masterpieces
ITAL 3120 Contemporary Literature
ITAL 3250 Italian Love Poetry in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Siena only)
ITAL 3300 Fine Young Cannibals and Other Stories … (Siena only)
ITAL 3559 New Course in Italian
ITAL 3720 Novella (Italian Short Narrative)
ITAL 3730 Romanzo (Italian Novel)
ITAL 3740 Teatro (Italian Theater)
ITAL 3760 Italian Travel Literature
ITAL 3770 Culture of Italian Comedy
ITAL 3040 Advanced Italian Language III (Siena only)
ITAL 3050 Advanced Italian Language IV (Siena only)
ITAL 4350 Representations of Women in Italian Literature
ITAL 4450 Lights and Shadows: Italian 18th Century Literature
ITAL 4810 Italian Pop Culture: 1960’s to 1990’s
ITAL 4993 Independent Study
ITAL 5250 Dante: The Divine Comedy
**Also: literature/film/culture courses taken in Italian at UVa in Siena (direct credit) or UVa in Florence (transfer credit), or other approved relevant transfer credit
Taught in English – minimum of 0, maximum of 3 courses in this group; No pre-requisites, courses may be taken at any time; courses include:
ITTR 2260 Dante in Translation (on-grounds and Siena)
ITTR 2559 New Course in Italian in Translation
ITTR 2630 Italian History and Culture through Film (on-grounds and Siena)
ITTR 2710 Italian Cultural History (Siena only)
ITTR 3215 Dante’s Italy (cross-listed with History)
ITTR 3580 Sister Arts: Literary-Artistic Relations in the Italian Renaissance
ITTR 3710 From Fiction to Film
ITTR 3758 Love Affair with Tuscany (J-term 2011)
ITTR 3770 The Culture of Italian Comedy
ITTR 3775 Acting Italian: Benigni, Goldoni, Fo
ITTR 4559 New Course in Italian in Translation
ITTR 4820 Italian Pop Culture from the 1960s to the Present
ITTR 5250 Dante’s Purgatory in Translation
**Also: literature/film/culture courses taken in English in UVa in Siena (direct credit) or UVa in Florence (transfer credit), or other approved relevant transfer credit
Group C: Italian Studies in Wider Context
Required: 2 courses at 2000-, 3000- or 4000-level, taken in disciplines/depts. outside ITAL and ITTR, provided course has a strong Italian component.
No pre-requisites other than those imposed by particular dept.
** includes a variety of courses in topics such as Architecture, Art History, History, Music, Politics, Music, and most courses offered at UVa in Siena and UVa in Florence; students are invited to propose courses that have a strong Italian component and may not be on the list below.
Potential acceptable courses:
Architectural History
- ARH 3201 Italian Renaissance Architecture
- ARH 3202 Renaissance Architecture 16th Century
- ARH 3204 Italy, Spain & the Ottoman Empire
- ARH 3205 Rome, Istanbul, Venice
Classics
- CLAS 2020 Roman Civilization
- CLAS 3559 (Special Topics, Fall 2012) The City of Rome in Antiquity
Drama
- DRAM 3050 Theatre History
- History of Theater (transfer credit, UVa in Florence)
History of Art
- ARTH 2054 Etruscan and Roman Art (on-grounds and Siena)
- ARTH 2251 Italian Renaissance Art
- ARTH 2281 Baroque Art in Europe
- ARTH 2252 High Renaissance and Mannerist Art
- ARTH 2472 Modern Art in Italy
- ARTH 2525 Topics in Renaissance Art History
- ARTH 2559 Early Italian Renaissance (1300-1492) (and possibly other relevant topics)
- ARTH 3251 Gender and Art in Renaissance Italy
- ARTH 3253 Renaissance Art and Literature
- ARTH 3254 Leonardo da Vinci
- ARTH 3255 Renaissance Art on Site
- ARTH 3257 Michelangelo and His Time
- ARTH 3320 Imagery and Public Space in Early Modern Europe (Siena only)
- ARTH 3525 Topics in Renaissance Art History (on-grounds and Siena)
- ARTH 3559 Mediterranean Visual Culture (and possibly other relevant topics)
History
- HIEU 2041 Roman Republic and Empire
- HIEU 3041 Fall of Roman Republic
- HIEU 3211 Medieval and Renaissance Italy
- HIEU 3215 Dante’s Italy (cross-listed with Italian)
- HIEU 3221 The Culture of the Renaissance
- HIEU 4501 Machiavelli and the Renaissance
- HIEU 4501 Machiavelli and the Reform
Linguistics
- LING 5250 Romance Linguistics
- LING 5260 Romance Linguistics
Music
- MUSI 2020 Opera
- MUSI 3010 Studies in Early Modern Music (1500-1700)
- MUSI 3020 Studies in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Music
Politics
- PLCP 2110 Italy and European Politics
- PLCP 3110 The Politics of Western Europe (on-grounds and Siena)
- PLCP 4020 Southern European Politics
- PLIR 2500 European Banking (on-grounds topic and Siena)
- PLIR 3610 European Union in World Affairs
Distinguished Major Program in Italian Studies (DMP)
Prerequisites and curricular requirements are the same as for the major. In addition, students must have, at graduation, a GPA of 3.500 in all major courses, and must take 3 credits (thus reaching a total of 33) in connection with the senior thesis, to be written in Italian, of a length and nature accepted by the sponsor (selected by the student), and evaluated by a committee of two faculty.
For information about the Italian Studies DMP, please click here.
Awards & Recognitions
The Italian Studies program recognizes outstanding students of Italian. Each spring semester the program awards the Lola Pelliccia Prize, the Sonia Raiziss Prize, and the Giuliano Prize.
Additional Information
For more information about the major, please contact the Director of the Undergraduate Program in Italian Studies.