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Bulletin Archive

This archived information is dated to the 2008-09 academic year only and may no longer be current.

For currently applicable policies and information, see the current Stanford Bulletin.

Graduate courses in Italian General

Primarily for graduate students; undergraduates may enroll with consent of instructor.

ITALGEN 204. Love Songs

(Same as FRENGEN 204.) Medieval love lyric in the old Occitan, Italian, middle high German, and Galician-Portuguese traditions, focusing on deictic address, corporeal and metaphysical subjectivity, the female voice, dialogue songs of ambivalent gender, and the modern translation and reception of the troubadour tradition. Poets include Sappho, Bernart de Ventadorn, La Comtessa de Dia, Walther von der Vogelweide, Dante, Petrarch, Pound, Larkin, and Neruda.

3-5 units, Aut (Galvez, M)

ITALGEN 232. Time of Latency: Western Cultures in the Decade After 1945

(Same as COMPLIT 232A, FRENGEN 232.) Retrospective accounts and contemporary experience converge in the description of the decade following 1945 as a period of quietude that seemed to repress an unknown trauma. Goal is to reconstruct the mood of this historical moment and its relationship to the early 21st century. Sources include canonical texts and everyday documents from different national and cultural contexts. Advanced undergrads require consent of instructor.

3-5 units, Aut (Gumbrecht, H)

ITALGEN 238. Futurisms

(Same as ARTHIST 248, COMPLIT 238.) From its foundation in 1909 through WW II, futurism developed into the first truly international cultural-political avant garde. Its aim was the revolutionary transformation of all spheres of life. The movement's manifestations in Italy, Russia, France, Spain, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Topics: machines and culture; visual poetics and war; futurism's complex ties to bolshevism and fascism. Media: poetry, performance, music, painting, photography, radio, and film. Writers include: Marinetti, Mayakovsky. Visual artists include: Boccioni, Bragaglia, Russolo, Malevich, Lissitzky.

5 units, Win (Schnapp, J; Gough, M)

ITALGEN 264E. Petrarch and Petrarchism

(Same as COMPLIT 216.) The works of Petrarch (1304-1374), acknowledged as the founder of Renaissance humanism, and a bibliophile, collector of manuscripts, and devotee of erudition. How he dedicated his life to harmonizing the Christian faith with classical learning. Sources include his Latin moral works, epistles, epics, and treatises on illustrious men, and the Triumphs and Canzoniere .

5 units, Aut (Schnapp, J)

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, Spr (Wittman, L)

ITALGEN 369. Introduction to Graduate Studies: Criticism as Profession

(Same as COMPLIT 369, FRENGEN 369, GERLIT 369.) Major texts of modern literary criticism in the context of professional scholarship today. Readings of critics such as Lukács, Auerbach, Frye, Ong, Benjamin, Adorno, Szondi, de Man, Abrams, Bourdieu, Vendler, and Said. Contemporary professional issues including scholarly associations, journals, national and comparative literatures, university structures, and career paths.

5 units, Aut (Berman, R)

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 is required. May be repeated for credit.

1 unit, Aut (Gumbrecht, H), Win (Gumbrecht, H), Spr (Gumbrecht, H)

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