Italian Studies 241 - Colloquium: Dreaming Venice: Myth, Decay, and Modern Desire

Offered as ITL 241 and WLT 241. For over a millennium, the Republic of Venice cultivated a powerful political and cultural image — a city rising miraculously from the lagoon, a serene maritime empire, the “Queen of the Adriatic.” From Wordsworth and Byron to Mann, D’Annunzio, Calvino, and Brodsky, the course examines how Venice became a privileged site for reflecting on ruin, spectacle, memory, and the fragility of cultural heritage. Moving beyond literary representation, the course also explores Venice as crime scene, global art capital, tourist spectacle, ecological warning, and endlessly replicated simulacrum. Through literature, film, philosophy, and contemporary cultural criticism, students analyze how Venice exists simultaneously as a living city, a global exhibition space, and one of the most enduring — and contested — myths of Western culture. Enrollment limited to 20.