Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences: Course Proposal Narrative
General Education Advisory Committee
Queens College, City University of New York
Course Title: ITALIAN 250 Italian Cinema. Reading Italy Through Film
Primary Contact Name and Email: Eugenia Paulicelli (eugenia.paulicelli@qc.cuny.edu)
Date course was approved by department: May 3rd, 2010
Justification
Please describe how the course will address criteria for Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences courses.
Be sure to include an explanation of the course’s specific learning goals for students to make a connection between these
and the general criteria for Perspectives courses.
This course will satisfy the Appreciating and Participating in the Arts (AP) and European Traditions (ET) requirements of
the PLAS. This course will focus on the study of the contributions made by Italian filmmakers to the art form of cinema
from early experimentation in neorealism in the 1940s till the present. Each time the course will focus on a specific topic
and historical period. Students will learn the history of cinema in Italy, and will study the innovations in form, narrative and
aesthetics introduced by Italian filmmakers. In particular, students will be trained to look at Italian cinema in a global
perspective on account of its international breadth and the impact their technological innovations had on the history of
global cinema. In addition, students will learn to make aesthetic judgments, and will train their critical faculties in a way
that will help them to better understand all forms of visual media--including plastic arts, television, advertising, and the
internet. This will help them in their approach to such media in their daily lives, as well as give them the critical thinking
skills to bring to bear on other disciplines at Queens College. Cinema is by nature interdisciplinary and calls on fields as
disparate as history, art history, literature, media studies, psychology, sociology etc. for a deeper understanding of the
implications contained in each film. As Italian cinema is an integral part of Italian culture, we will analyze how the
traditions of Western European thought manifest themselves in twentieth-century Italian culture, and in Italian cinema in
particular. This course meets the aims of the Appreciating and Participating in the Arts section of the PLAS by training
students in the “skills of observing and listening to […] and appreciating and understanding the creative arts,” thereby
helping students to “develop awareness of the role of these arts in human life.”
Criteria Checklist
Please be sure that your justification Addresses all three criteria 1-3, below. For criteria 4-8, please check all that apply
and discuss these in your justification.
A Perspectives course must:
1. Be designed to introduce students
to how a particular discipline creates
knowledge and understanding. YES
2. Position the discipline(s) within
the liberal arts and the larger society.
YES
3. Address the goals defined for the
particular Area(s) of Knowledge the
course is designed to fulfill. YES
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In addition, a Perspectives course will, where appropriate to its
discipline(s) and subject matter:
4. Be global or comparative in approach.
5. Consider diversity and the nature and construction of forms
of difference.
6. Engage students in active inquiry. YES
7. Reveal the existence and importance of change over time.
YES
8. Use primary documents and materials. YES
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Course Materials, Assignments, and Activities
For a typical course
Assignments:
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A bi-monthly reaction sheet in which the student writes about the ways in which a particular film has changed
his/her perception of cinema and representation of issues pertaining to Italian history and culture;
A paper focusing on the aesthetic elements of a given film, and a second paper focusing on differences in the
genres of fiction and documentary film;
A third paper describing how this course has helped the student to sharpen his/her critical faculties, and how it
might have altered his/her approach other visual media;
Midterm Examination.
Sample syllabus (see also attached):
Textbooks: Peter Bondanella, Italian Film. Available at the Queens College Bookstore.; Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli;
Anthology of articles on film, historiography and cinematic theory ; chapters from Tim Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about
Film, and from L. Giannetti, Understanding Movies will be included. The material is available for purchase at Queens Copy
Center, 65-01 Kissena Boulevard and put on ereserve at the queens College Library.
Part I. Framing History: Representing the Risorgimento (Italy’s process of unification) in Fascist Italy
Week 1: 1860 (1937) by Alessandro Blasetti. Introduction to the course.
Towards the End of Fascism: Italian Neorealism
Week 2: Rome, Open City (1945) by Roberto Rossellini.
The Manifesto of Italian Neorealism : Paisan (1946) by Roberto Rossellini
Part II. The Post-war: The Economic Boom
Week 3: The White Sheik (1952) by Federico Fellini.
Week 4: Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) by Mario Monicelli Short paper I due
Week 5: L’Avventura (1960) by Michelangelo Antonioni
Part III. Re-Framing Italy’s Past. The Risorgimento Revisited.
Week 6: The Leopard (1963) by Luchino Visconti.
Week 7: Midterm Examination.
The Nature of Fascism
Week 8: Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979) by Francesco Rosi. Short paper II due
Memory of Fascism
Week 9: The Conformist (1970) by Bernardo Bertolucci
The Holocaust
Week 10: The Garden of the Finzi-Contini (1970) by Vittorio De Sica
Fascism and Antifascism Revisited: A Civil War
Week 11: The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982) by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.
Part IV. Contemporary Italy on the Screen: From 1968 to Terrorism, via Naples
Week 12: L’amore molesto (1995) by Mario Martone
Week 13: I cento Passi (One Hundreds Steps, 2000) by Marco Tullio Giordana
Week 14: My Brother is an only Child (2007) by Daniele Lucchetti.
Final Examination: Date TBA. Final paper due
Description of How Films Relate to Course Goals.
The film 1860 will give the opportunity to introduce the period of Italian fascism so crucial for understanding not only the history of Italy but of
Europe as well and the impact of this totalitarian regime on world history. The students will also learn how fascism reinterpreted the period of
the Risorgimento and the phases of the unification of the Italian nation, an issue this that will be treated later in the course through other films
produced in the post-war Italy. In addition, 1860, although made in 1937, is an important film to know in order to locate the first seeds of the
aesthetic of neo-realism that will become known to the world through Roberto Rossellini, an author who will be studied in depth in the course.
Through
May
2008the analysis of narrative style, students will learn to identity the neo-realist aesthetic and the shift that took place in the experimental
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cinema of the 1950s and 1960s with directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini who have
been very influential not only in Italy but to world cinema. The themes of alienation, consumerism, and the anthropological revolution that took
place in Italy during the so-called “economic miracle” will be explained and addressed through film. The insurgence of violence and terrorism in
the 1970s and 1980s will also be part of the films analyzed in the course.
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Assessment
Perspectives courses must be recertified every five years, and we are seeking ideas for how to best carry out this
assessment. What forms of evidence that the course is meeting its goals as a Perspectives course would be appropriate to
collect for this course during the next five years? How would you prefer assessment to be conducted? How might
evidence of effective teaching and student learning be collected and evaluated?
The primary tool for assessment of how the course meets the PLAS criteria would be bi-monthly
reaction sheets and the three papers the students will write for the class. In particular, the final paper
will show what the students have learned from the class; how they have improved or changed the
way they approach films and other visual media. Examples of the reaction sheets and papers could
be kept to assist in evaluation of whether the course is meeting its stated goals.
Administration
What process will your department develop to oversee this course, suggest and approve changes, and conduct assessment?
Who will be in charge of this process? Also indicate whether the course will be primarily taught by full-time or adjunct
faculty, or by a combination of the two types of instructor.
This course is offered once a year by the Department of European Languages and Literatures. The
course is taught by a full-time faculty member, who is responsible for its content. All PLAS courses
offered by the Department of European Languages and Literatures are overseen by a PLAS
committee, which is responsible for review of the course to assure that it meets the goals of the
PLAS.
May 2008
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