RLL Italian Program brochure

College of Literature, Science, and the Arts I University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Italian Program

Programma in italiano

Learn the language that inspired Shakespeare, Swift, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, and Dan Brown The University of Michigan (UM) is considered one of the top universities in the country and is ranked among the top 20 best universities in the world. Almost two centuries old, UM is the oldest university in the state of Michigan and has a long history of diversity, excellent academic programs, outstanding sports teams, and student activism. It has produced seven Nobel Prize winners, 18 Pulitzer Prize winners, 116 Olympic medalists, and many prominent company founders, including one of the founders of Google.

Romance languages at UM shares a history almost as old as the university itself. The first course in Romance languages was taught in spring 1847, with the first degree awarded between 1887 and 1889. The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL) draws students and faculty from Italy, Spain, Latin America, France and Francophone countries, as well as the United States and other countries around the world. Its Italian program is very well-respected, drawing national attention for the first time in the 1940s, with the faculty written Conversation Grammar for Italian, a widely used book on Italian grammar, which received a special commendation from the U.S. government.

Venice

Today, over 60 million people are native speakers of Italian, over 100 million speak it as a second language, and in the global economy many more use Italian words and phrases every day. In addition to Italy, Italian is spoken in Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Monaco, Malta, France, Albania, Greece, Ukraine, United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Germany, Venezuela, Australia, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Eritrea, South Africa, and Egypt. Since Italian shares a common origin in Latin with the other Romance languages (for example Catalan, French, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish), knowledge of Italian is an excellent gateway into a wide Mediterranean and Latin American linguistic universe.

The RLL undergraduate program in Italian opens a world of opportunities in a wide variety of fields Italian is a beautiful language, one in which deeply influential works of Western literature have been composed since Dante made it possible to imagine reality in the vernacular of medieval Tuscany. Whether it is the poems of Petrarch, the westerns of Sergio Leone, the voice of Luciano Pavarotti, the love of Romeo and Juliet, Pinocchio’s nose, a creamy gelato, the table lamps by Artemide or Gae Aulenti, or the frescoes of Leonardo da Vinci that bring you to Italian, you will find that Italian culture has unparalleled richness and that it offers a lifetime of interest. Studying Italian opens a world of opportunities in the arts, music, medicine, law, design, film, sports, culinary arts, architecture, business, hospitality, engineering, and international relations.

The first course in Italian taught at UM was in 1848, but it would not continuously be listed in the course catalog until the 1880s. Since then the offerings and interest in Italian has steadily increased. Italy is one of the top 10 world economies and knowing Italian is beneficial in several career fields. Over 7,000 American companies do business with Italy and more than 1,000 U.S. firms have offices there.

Graduates with a concentration in Italian have gone on to work in fields such as art and design, business and finance, education, travel and tourism, and government. Minors in Italian add practical value and depth to their concentration.

A reporter with the ability to speak Italian is not only able to apply for jobs domestically, but also abroad. A person in the medical field can better serve Italian-speaking communities.

For more detailed information on the requirements in an Italian concentration or minor, please visit the RLL Italian program on the web at www. lsa.umich.edu/rll/italian/index.html.

Rome

The RLL graduate program in Italian is an excellent choice for students interested in cross-comparative Romance Studies UM is ranked third in the nation for the quality of its graduate programs. RLL offers the Ph.D. in French, Spanish, and Italian. Our program also coordinates with the Department of Linguistics to offer a joint Ph.D. program in Romance Linguistics.

One of the goals of the RLL graduate program in Italian, like our programs in French and Spanish, is to provide students with a rigorous critical and cultural foundation in Romance languages and literatures. Our program is characterized by its flexibility and emphasis on a student’s individual interests and goals. Students in our program assume a high degree of responsibility in shaping their individual courses of study. The elasticity of our program allows and encourages students to do interdisciplinary work in their specific field of study and provides many opportunities for such work. Our students are very successful at winning awards sponsored by UM Rackham Graduate School and by other UM units. They have also been successful in attaining Fulbright scholarships, FLAS Fellowships, and Lurcy Fellowships.

The national reputation and success of our program can be partly measured by our placement record, with recent graduates teaching at such institutions as Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, The State University of New York (SUNY), UC San Diego, and the College of William & Mary.

The French, Italian, and Spanish Ph.D. programs begin in the fall term only. Application materials must be received by January 1. For more information on the graduate program, including application requirements, please visit www.lsa.umich.edu/rll/gradprogram/index.html.

Sample Graduate Courses for Italian

Florence

Fall 2009 Italian 461 – Italian through Opera Italian 468 – New Italian Media Italian 510 – Italian Cities

Winter 2010 Italian 470 – Il romanzo della resistenza Italian 475 – Petrarch Italian 633 – Dante’s Divine Comedy

For more sample schedules please visit http://www.lsa.umich.edu/rll/ gradprogram/sampleschedules. html.

One of America’s 50 “Greenest Cities,” Ann Arbor has much to enjoy year-round The city of Ann Arbor, founded in 1824, is located in Washtenaw County, 25 miles west of Detroit Metro Airport. It is the sixth largest city in the state of Michigan, approximately 28 square miles, with over 114,000 residents. The University of Michigan central campus is located in the heart of the city.

Ranked by Popular Science as one of America’s 50 “Greenest Cities,” Ann Arbor is served by a reliable bus system called “The Ride” and the UM bus system makes stops throughout campus. Downtown Ann Arbor is notable for being very walkable and features bicycle lanes throughout the city.

A wide variety of excellent restaurants, bars, and cafes can be found in Ann Arbor. In Midwest Living’s 2009 and 2010 “Best of the Midwest” issues, Ann Arbor ranked third as the “Best Midwest Food Town.” From authentic Taiwanese cuisine to regional Indian to Cuban to organic Sicilianstyle pizza, Ann Arbor has something to suit every taste. It also boasts a thriving Farmer’s Market, located in historic Kerrytown.

Beautiful year-round, there are a number of festivals and activities to enjoy. In summer, there is the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, started in 1984 and considered one of the leading performing arts festivals in the country. The Ann Arbor Street Art Fair draws over 500,000 people from around the country each year. Winter brings the annual Ann Arbor Film Festival, the longest running avant-garde film festival in the nation.

Ann Arbor

In addition, downtown Ann Arbor has great boutique shopping yearround. Briarwood Mall is conveniently located next to Interstate-94. There is also a thriving music scene. UM offers many free concerts during the year and artists from every genre can be found almost every weekend playing on campus and off. There are also a number of museums, free and open to the public, as well as numerous city parks to enjoy.

RLL Italian faculty Giorgio Bertellini. Associate Professor. Silent Cinema History; Transnational Visual Culture; Italian Cinema.

Vincenzo Binetti. Professor. 19th-20th Century Italian Literature; Cultural Studies; Film; the radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s; relations between Literature, Philosophy, and Political Theory.

Alison Cornish. Professor. Italian Literature; Medieval and Renaissance; Dante, Translation; Vernacularity; Science and Literature; Music and Literature; Renaissance Drama.

Romana Habekovic. Director of Elementary Italian. Foreign Language Methodology; Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture.

Karla Mallette. Associate Professor. Medieval Mediterranean Literature in Italian, Arabic, Latin; Translation between Greek, Arabic and Latin during the Middle Ages.

Amaryllis Rodriguez. Lecturer III. Italian Language Elementary Course Coordinator.

Adelaide Smith. Lecturer IV. Italian Language Elementary Course Coordinator.

Paolo Squatriti. Associate Professor. Italian History and Culture; Medieval European History; Landscape and Power; Technology and Resource Use; Environment.

Faculty Publications

department of romance languages and literatures www.lsa.umich.edu/rll/concminors/italian 734.764.5344 rll.mailbox@umich.edu

Š 2011 Regents of the University of Michigan Regents of the University of Michigan: Julia Donovan Darlow, Laurence B. Deitch, Denise Ilitch, Olivia P. Maynard, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andrew C. Richner, S. Martin Taylor, Katherine E. White, Mary Sue Coleman ex officio.