Gender and Sexuality, Italian Style

Catalog description

This course explores the multiple aspects and contradictions of expressions of gender and sexuality in Italian culture. It aims to challenge assumptions of an omnipresent, culturally Catholic heterosexuality by uncovering the various, complex workings of desire in texts from the Middle Ages to the present. We will read excerpts from works by Dante, Boccaccio, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Chiarelli, and study films by Liliana Cavani, Pietro Germi, and Ferzan Ozpetek.