Italian Undergraduate Courses Spring 2020

Please check SIS for sections, dates, times, locations, and instructors.

Elementary Italian II is the second class in the four-course sequence that is necessary to complete the foreign language requirement. In this course, students will learn to narrate in all tenses of the indicative, express opinions, make hypotheses, and give orders. They will improve their writing skills by producing a number of original texts, including blog posts, essays, and articles. Students will also develop their ability to understand spoken Italian by listening to songs, commercials, and movie clips, and they will read and study song lyrics, newspaper headlines, poems, and some short stories. Students of Elementary Italian II will also have many occasions to learn more about life in contemporary Italy as they study the country’s language.

60% of this course will take place face to face during regularly scheduled class meetings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while 40% of the work must be completed online both through the Connect website and the students’ personal e-Portfolios.

Much like learning to play a sport or a musical instrument, studying a foreign language requires constant practice. Therefore, all course activities will be conducted in Italian.

Please check SIS for sections, dates, times, locations, and instructors.

ITAL 2020 Intermediate Italian II is the fourth class in the four-course sequence which fulfills the language requirement. In this course, students will further develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills as well as deepen their cultural literacy in Italian. You will accomplish these goals with the guidance of your instructor, through review of grammar, short readings, compositions, and listening and speaking activities. Students will also have the opportunity to listen to songs, comment on works of art, watch commercials and short films, read and write newspaper articles, analyze how the Italian language reflects the movement towards gender parity, and meet natives of Italy in your quest to become more confident and competent users of the Italian language.

Much like learning to play a sport or a musical instrument, studying a foreign language requires constant practice. Therefore, all course activities will be conducted in Italian.

MoWeFr 1:00-1:50AM in New Cabell Hall 383

Italian society is changing and Italian language dynamically reflects these fluctuations and vice versa. This is the fourth class in the four-course sequence that fulfills the language requirement with special modules on issues of diversity and inclusion applicable to the work context. Especially designed for students interested in Italian Studies and Communication, Politics, International Relationships, Women, Gender and Sexuality as well as Psychology, but not limited to these disciplines, this class offers the opportunity to learn how to use Italian language in work environments where interculturalism, crossculturalism and multiculturalism are required. Present-day films, TV series episodes and articles from Italian newspapers will help students to learn more about the Italian society of the new millennium and strengthen their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills at upper intermediate level. 

MoWeFr 2:00PM-2:50 in Gibson 141

Prerequisite: ITAL 2020

Italian 2030 For Professional” is a 2020 Italian course designed especially for students who would like to learn the vocabulary, the grammar and the cultural and legislative notions that are fundamental to live and work in Italy (or with Italian companies).

The idea for this course stems from the fact that different Italian students at UVa, over the years, have started working for Italian culinary and wine companies; of for American food companies with strong ties to Italy.

Students in this course will follow the program of Italian 2020, but with a special focus on food and culinary culture. In order to enroll, you need to have passed Italian 2010.

TuH 2:00PM-3:15PM  in Nau Hall 242

ITAL3020 is a 300-level class aimed at advancing students’ language skills. Emphasis is placed on conversation, as well as composition and vocabulary. Students attending this class will deepen their knowledge of Italian culture and society, with a special focus on socio-cultural debates concerning politics, migration and gender issues. This course is designed with a series of activities focused on experiential learning to achieve fluency in Italian through real-life situations. The activities include (but are not limited to):sport days at UVa facilities; teaching a class for the community and for the lower level students of other languages; grocery shopping/eating at an Italian business in Charlottesville; tour guiding the Lawnand UVa in Italian; guiding a cineforum; tutoring clinic for lower class students and more.Italian women’s writing, LGBTQ cinema and globally acclaimed TVseries, such as My Brilliant Friend (Rai-HBO)will be read/watched over the course of the semester.

MoWeFr 12:0012:50pm

Following World War II, Italian filmmakers developed a new style of story-telling that focused on marginalized people, drew attention to social ills, and emphasized stark realism. Later film critics would refer to this as Neorealism.  The movement’s roots stretched back into 19th-century Italian literature, and would eventually spread into cinematic traditions around the world.

 Students of this course will begin by studying Verismo, the literary movement that gave rise to Neorealism, and then learn how this earlier development eventually inspired a new style of filmmaking in the mid-twentieth century. You will also examine the characteristics of Neorealism, and then explore the vast influence it wielded, and continues to wield, over successive generations of filmmakers from around the world.

 Films to include: È piccerella, Ossessione, Roma, Città Aperta, Sciuscià, Ladri di biciclette, Riso Amaro, Miracolo a Milano, Les quatre cent coups, Raging Bull, 3-Iron, La noire de, Moonlight, and Roma.