Narrating Italy: Practice and Theory

Catalog description

Students will practice writing in Italian by engaging with a variety of genres of narrative fiction and non-fiction–short stories, personal essays and short reportages. Studied texts will include selections from Dino Buzzati, Italo Calvino, Goffredo Parise, Umberto Eco, Natalia Ginzburg, Giuseppe Pontiggia and Andrea Bajani. The readings will be organized according to four thematic areas (narrating the city; narrating memory; narrating emotions; narrating the imaginary). Students will experiment with aspects of narrative and storytelling techniques through hands-on exercises, detailed reading responses, and by workshopping their own writing. As part of their craft, students will write both creative and analytical responses in Italian, culminating in a class anthology as their final project for the semester.