The director of Italian studies at Bard College, Professor Joseph Luzzi leads
a comprehensive overview of Italian culture. Beginning in the fabled realm of
Renaissance art and concluding with the sweeping transformations of present-
day Italy, Professor Luzzi examines the Italian mystique and answers a number
of intriguing questions: Is there a distinctly "Italian" way of looking at
the world? To whom do Italian Renaissance treasures truly belong? Could the
United States as known today exist without the contributions of Italian culture?

Course Syllabus

Lecture 1 Chiaroscuro Nation
Lecture 2 The Lives of Dante
Lecture 3 Petrarch's Dead Letter: Birth of Modern Italian Poetry
Lecture 4 Junior Year Abroad: The Grand Tour
Lecture 5 One Great Society: The Living and the Dead
Lecture 6 Florence After Florence
Lecture 7 Better Beautiful than Good (Italian 101)
Lecture 8 The Fig Tree and the Impala
Lecture 9 Money Talks: Language and the Lira in Post-Unification Italy
Lecture 10 End of the Affair in Italian Cinema
Lecture 11 Slow Food, Italian Style
Lecture 12 Mamma's Boys
Lecture 13 The Southern Question
Lecture 14 The Fine Art of Being Italian

Professor Joseph Luzzi
Bard College

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