Courses

Italian General

ITALGEN 181. Philosophy and Literature—(Same as FRENGEN 181, PHIL 81.) Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought track offered through Philosophy and DLCL. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Issues may include authorship, selfhood, truth and fiction, the importance of literary form to philosophical works, and the ethical significance of literary works. Texts include philosophical analyses of literature, works of imaginative literature, and works of both philosophical and literary significance. Authors may include Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Borges, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas, Pavel, and Pippin. GER:DB-Hum. 4 units, Win (Anderson; Landy)

ITALGEN 201E. New Methods and Sources in French and Italian Studies—(Same as FRENGEN 201E.) Based on student interest. Changes in research methods: the use of digitized texts, resources, and databases available through Stanford Library’s gateways. Emphasis is on strategies for exploration of broad and specialized topics through new and traditional methods. Using a flexible schedule based on enrollment and the level of students’ knowledge, may be offered in forms including a shortened version on the basics, independent study, or a syllabus split over two quarters. Unit levels adjusted accordingly. 1-4 units, not given this year

ITALGEN 221. The History of the Book in Europe—(Same as FRENGEN 221.) From 1450 to present. The printed book from its invention to the 20th century; focus is on France, Italy, and England. Topics include: the manuscript tradition; printing and typography; the scholar-printers of the Renaissance; illustration; readers and reading; marginalia; newspapers, pamphlets, and ephemera; the emergence of the novel; Modernism; and Futurism. Course held in Stanford Libraries’ Special Collections. 3-5 units, Win (Mustain, J; Sussman, S)

ITALGEN 247. Petrarch and Boccaccio—Their respective roles as founders of European Petrarchism and modern Italian prose. Petrarch’s Canzoniere and My Secret Life and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Readings in Italian and translation. 3-5 units, not given this year

ITALGEN 254. Renaissance Epistolarity: Text and Document—A study of letter writing as it arose from classical and medieval models through the Renaissance and into modernity, with attention both to literary qualities of the letter and to its important place in our understanding of the history of literacy. Authors include Cicero, Paul, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Margherita Datini, Alessandra Strozzi, Isabella d'Este, Ludovico Ariosto, Veronica Franco, and others. Readings in Italian and translation. 3-5 units, Win (Shemek, D)

ITALGEN 260. The Fantastic Mode—Narratives of the haunted house in exemplary texts from the European tradition of the 19th century including Hoffmann, Gautier, Maupassant, Arrigo Boito, Dickens, and James). More recent implementations of the mode in the texts of Cortázar, Tabucchi, and Byatt. In English. 3-5 units, Spr (Ceserani, R)

ITALGEN 263. Love Books of the Middle Ages—(Same as FRENGEN 263.) Love as a central theme in the Middle Ages of literature, natural philosophy, theology, and psychology. Literary works that probe the nature of love. Abelard and Heloise, History of His Calamities and Personal Letters; Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love; Christine de Pizan, The Book of the Duke of True Lovers; Dante, Vita Nuova; Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde; Boccaccio, The Decameron; and Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra. 3-5 units, not given this year

ITALGEN 288. Decadence and Modernism from Mallarmé to Marinetti—(Same as FRENGEN 288.) How the notion of decadence, initially a term of derision, shapes and underlies the positive terms of Symbolism and Modernism. Readings include theories of decadence and examples of Symbolist and Modernist texts that attempt to exorcise decadent demons, such as lust, mysticism, and the retreat into artificiality. Authors include Huysmans, Poe, Mallarmé, Nietzsche, Nordau, d’Annunzio, Valry, Ungaretti, Marinetti, and Breton. 3-5 units, not given this year

ITALGEN 395. Philosophical Reading Group—(Same as COMPLIT 359A, FRENGEN 395.) Discussion of one contemporary or historical text from the Western philosophical tradition per quarter in a group of faculty and graduate students. For admission of new participants, a conversation with H. U. Gumbrecht or R. Harrison is required. May be repeated for credit. 1 unit, Aut, Win, Spr (Gumbrecht, H; Harrison, R)

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