Specialization Seminar: Italian Studies

Recommended Prerequisites

Students are recommended to have a panoramic overview of the Italian Culture and Literature, obtained during their 1st cycle studies, in the disciplines of Italian Culture and Literature, as well a perfect command of the Italian Language, so that they can easily read and understand the mandatory readings, and undertake a close analysis and commentary on texts. 

Teaching Methods

Classes follow a theoretical-practical format, resorting whenever necessary to the reading, analysis and comment of travel reports or other titles considered relevant to the program. Some sessions will also provide students with directions to writing essays, to discuss the theme, structure and, of course, the development of these elements in an essay. Further monitoring is provided individually during the teacher’s weekly reception hours.

Learning Outcomes

As an academic seminary, the main goal of this discipline is to provide the students with the required information concerning a panoramic view regarding the production of  literary and paraliterary texts that convey images of Italy, the Italian culture and people along the centuries, as well to familiarize them with composition techniques, so that they can better organize the colected data regarding the preparation of their future dissertation, selecting a period, an author, or intersecting data from different works.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Images of Italy in the Portuguese Culture/Literature

The attraction Italy has always exercised on Portuguese culture afforded the diffusion of images that writers and artists composed in such a way that they conditioned the perspective on Italian culture and the way it became known in Portugal. Images since then subscribed by privileged interlocutors exercised a decisive influence upon readers and spectators in general, leading them to admire the country and its culture through the activation of extra-literary concepts and prejudices, as well as resources regarding aesthetic, sociological, political and ethnological strategies. A corpus of authors and works will be provided, which may enlighten the relations between the two countries and the exchange of regards promoted by those relations. The aim will be to analyze the images on Italian culture built by the Portuguese, identifying at the same time clichés, stereotypes or images eventually juggled that always may have constituted them

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Project: 20.0%
Active participation in theoretical and practical classes including the presentation of short extension oral works: 30.0%
Research work: 50.0%

Bibliography

AA VV (1940). Relazioni storiche fra l’Italia e il portogallo. Memorie e documenti. Roma: Reale Accademia d'Italia

Alma (2012). Cultura e gastronomia. Loreto: Academia Universa Press

Estudos Italianos em Portugal (2008). Lisboa: Instituto Italiano de Cultura de Lisboa, Nova Série, Nº 3

Isenburg, T.; Pasta, R. (A cura di) (2004). Immagini d’Italia e d’Europa nella letteratura e nella documentazione di viaggio nel XVIII e nel XIX secolo. Firenze: Firenze University Press

De’ Medici, L. (1991). La cucina italiana. Cultura e tradizione. Reggio Emilia: Magnus

Proietti, Paolo (2008). Specchi del letterario: l’imagologia. Percorsi di letteratura comparata. Palermo: Sellerio Editore

Radulet, Carmen M. (A cura di) (2008). Italia-Portogallo. Viaggi nella storia e nella cultura. Roma: Sette Città

Salomão, S. Netto; De Marchis, G. (A cura di) (2012). Italia, Portogallo, Brasile. Un encontro di storia, língua e letteratura attraverso i secoli. Roma: Nuova Cultura.