Italian Language & Literature 343 - SENIOR SEM: RESTLESS SEA

Topics Course In this age of globalization, how do contemporary Italians relate to the Mediterranean: the sea that the Romans called mare nostrum (our sea) and that the Maritime Republics of Genoa, Venice, Amalfi and Pisa dominated for centuries? Even today ancient watchtowers built against the Moors or Saracens still dot the Italian coastlines. How does the past affect the way Italians today view the wave of recent immigrants who arrive by sea? From Homeric times to modern philosophers, the sea has been associated with travel and freedom, while the land has been associated with sedentariness and duty. How does Italy experience this fundamental opposition, given its peculiar geographical configuration (its overextended coastlines and multiplicity of islands)? In contemporary Italy, what new forms has the old opposition between North and South taken? Why has the Mediterranean become the trade name of an alternative life style? We?ll read both literary works (Homer, Calvino, Consolo, De Luca, Magris, Montale, Morante, Ortese, Pasolini, Sbarbaro) and critical analyses (Braudel, Cacciari, Cassano, Chambers, Matvejevic, Schmitt); we will also analyze films (Crialese, Marra, Moretti, Rossellini). Conducted in Italian.

Instructor Permission. Limited to seniors