Princeton in Pisa

The Princeton in Pisa Summer Intensive Program offers students the opportunity to take a four-week Princeton course, ITA-207I, while in residence on the campus of the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) in Pisa, Italy. Located in one of the richest historical and intellectual environments of Italy, the SNS is a premier university with a long and distinguished tradition. The program offers a full immersion experience that will allow students to interact with the territory on a linguistic, cultural, and social level.

Princeton students enrolled in the program will live in the college Timpano. Located along the Arno River, Timpano was the first building donated to the Scuola, in 1932. Princeton students will have lunch and dinner at the cafeteria of the Scuola and are provided access to the Scuola’s library, computer clusters, dedicated Wi-Fi and all services provided to internal students.

Students who have completed the language sequence and are motivated to deepen their engagement with Italian language and its cultural history are encouraged to apply. The course offered in Pisa is ITA-207I. The successful completion of the program will allow students the ability to enroll in upper-division Italian courses. The 2023 program will take place from June 12th to July 7th, and the resident faculty member will be Dr. Anna Cellinese.

^{Application Process}

Prerequisites: Students who have completed the language sequence (with 1027, 107 or 108) are encouraged to apply. Applicants need a letter of intent written in Italian and approval from the instructor of their most recent Italian language course.

Application Process:  Applications for the Summer Intensive Course must be completed in the Global Program System (GPS) by Sunday, February 12, 2023. Letter of intent must be sent via email to Leslie Champouillon at [email protected]. The selection of participants will be announced by Monday, February 20, 2023.

*Early application begins Saturday, November 12th, 2022, and is strongly encouraged. Interviews will start Monday, January 30th, 2023, until shortly after the deadline.

Letter of intent and unofficial transcripts must be submitted via GPS and by hand to Leslie Savadge, Program Coordinator, in 303 East Pyne.

*After you have completed your application, through GPS, and have hand-delivered your application to Leslie Savadge, you will be contacted to schedule an interview.

The selection of participants will be announced Monday, February 20th, 2023. Those selected must attend a pre-departure meeting, where they will be provided with information to prepare them for the program.

Program Fee

The fee per student includes the course, accommodations, meals, breaks, and cultural activities.

*Students are responsible for the cost of airfare (round-trip travel) and any personal expenses.

Students on financial aid may apply to the Dean's Fund for Study Abroad to help cover costs. They may also request a loan from Financial Aid or directly from the French and Italian Department to cover a part of the program budget that may remain unmet.

*Application deadlines for these funding sources may be earlier than departmental decisions on admission to the course.

ITA 207I

ITA-207I is an intensive, four-week, language immersion program, held at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) in Pisa. The course will meet five days a week and provides 90 hours of overall classroom instruction: 3 hours of daily instruction in the morning with the Princeton faculty member and 1.5 hours in the afternoon with the SNS faculty member. Every Friday, students will have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of Italian culture through interaction with the surrounding environment in the city of Pisa and during field trips to other historic, art-filled cities like Florence, Siena, and Lucca.

The core objective of ITA-207I is to present students with a wide variety of writing situations and styles in Italian and to elevate their language proficiency level while interacting with the territory of the host city. The course is also a journey into four crucial topics: Landscapes, Beauty, Migration, and Subversion. These four themes are analyzed through a transitional lens that gives particular emphasis to the concepts of alterity, diversity, language and identity, art, multiculturalism, race, and Afro-Italian issues. Students acquire a better and deeper understanding of Italian literary and cultural trajectory across the centuries through a global perspective on society.

*The final syllabus and course materials will be made available to students prior to departure from Princeton.

Studying and living abroad with access to the instructional resources of the Scuola, provides students with unique formative experiences while enabling progress in thestudy of Italian and otherdisciplines at Princeton.

Pisa: City of the Leaning Tower and More…

The province of Pisa is in central-western Tuscany. Its landscape includes beaches, broad plains, and rolling hills. Lying on the banks of the Arno, Pisa is the depositary of a glorious past as Maritime Republic, but it is also a modern city. The old town encompasses Renaissance architecture and churches: the Campo dei Miracoli complex, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the most representative structure of the city. The Piazza del Duomo, renowned for being Galileo’s scientific laboratory, is the ideal starting point to retrace the footsteps of this revolutionary Italian scientist through the city. The central Piazza dei Cavalieri (Knights' Square) is a magnificent sight, home to intricate 16th- Century architecture such as the Palazzo della Carovana, and the house of the distinguished Scuola Normale Superiore, commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to be based on the model of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Many of the most celebrated Italian writers and professors studied here, like Antonio Pacinotti (Astronomy), Giosuè Carducci and Giovanni Pascoli (Literature), and Enrico Fermi and Carlo Rubbia (Physics).

The city of Pisa is surrounded by little towns, like San Miniato and Volterra, overlooking the picturesque Valle dell’Arno. San Gimigniano, the wine territory of Chianti, and the beautiful Tuscan countryside and beaches are nearby. From Pisa, it is easy to travel to cities such as Florence, Lucca, and Siena to spend the day admiring the richness of Italian art and culture. Pisa international airport, “Galileo Galilei,” connects the city to the major European capitals. The train is a convenient way to reach Italian cities like Bologna (1.45 hrs.), Rome (2.30 hrs.) Venice (3.15 hrs.) and Cinque Terre (1.30 hrs.).