This course analyzes Italian culture and cultural changes through popular products, such as comic books, music, film, food, and visual artifacts in connection with Italian history and society. Italian 107 is intended to provide students with tools for communicating effectively in Italian in an informal and formal context, to move students along the proficiency spectrum toward a more advanced language level, and to promote a global awareness and cross-cultural understanding of contemporary Italian life and culture. Classes are conducted entirely in Italian.

This course explores crucial topics - such as landscapes, beauty, migration, and travel - that define Italian literature. Through the analysis of materials from different sources and genres (literature, cinema, art, design, journalism) students will acquire a deeper understanding of Italian cultural history, and its present and future trajectory. Particular emphasis will be given to the refinement of the writing process. On the Intercultural level, students will conduct task-based activity to compare, contrast and challenge the main ideas acquired in the course vis à vis their own cultural identity.

Boccaccio's "Decameron" is the preeminent masterwork of early Italian prose. A complex set of stories, linked by the author's convictions about literature and love, the "Decameron" offers both a panorama of fourteenth-century European society and a point of entry into some great traditions of European literature. This seminar will concentrate on a close reading of selected novellas from the "Decameron" in the original language.