Italian Language and Culture: 14.45-16.15 Every Tuesday
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This is a course offered through the generous funding by the Italian Ministry for Foreign
Affairs. Every week a guest speaker is invited from both inside and outside Waseda
University and both Italy and Japan to give a lecture on his or her specialty. Unlike the
other course on Italy offered this semester, 'Introduction to Italian History and Culture',
which is mainly about the Italian politics and economy in the past and the present, this
will focus on the long history of the Italian language since the time of classic Latin and a
remarkable variety of dialects now, on the one hand, and its cultural history, on the
other. No other country has more illustrious cultural history and legacies than Italy and
the cultural scene in Italy is now still original and colourful. Throughout this course our
speakers will talk about renaissance and baroque arts, modern arts, music and opera,
literature, cinema, sports, food and drink, and design.
A field trip to Rome and Siena is
being planned during June or July.
COURSE AIMS
Our guest speakers will talk about various aspects of Italian language and culture, but
those lectures will be just a starting point for acquire a better understanding of the
language whichever level you are at. Though you are not expected to speak Italian prior
to this course, we hope that you will start learning the language later, or if you already
speak it, you will further improve their skills and ability. We also hope that all students will
develop better understanding of the history and variety of the Italian language. Many
aspects of the Italian culture in the past and the present are introduced, but we hope that
the lectures will prompt you to experience by yourselves the Italian arts, music, literature,
cinema, sports, and design that are covered and not covered by the lectures.
Furthermore, we hope that you will develop new interest or renew your interest in a
particular cultural form or the Italian culture as a whole.
No.
Date
Lecture Topics
1
8 April
Introduction
2
15 April
Early Film Reviews and Criticism: James
Agee and The Nation
Robert Stevenson, Jane Eyre (1943)
3
23 April
Highbrow Movie Reviews: Pauline Kael and
New Yorker
Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange (1972)
4
29 April
Early Academic Criticism: Sergei Eisenstein
and the Motage Theory
D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
5
13 May
Founder of French Film Criticism: Andre
Bazin and Realism
Vittori de Sica, Bicycle Thieves (1948)
6
20 May
Auteur Theory: François Truffaut and Cahiers
du Cinema
Alfred Hitchcock, The Wrong Man (1956)
7
27 May
No Lecture
8
3 June
The Positif and Cahiers Rivalry
Jerry Lewis, Which Way to the Front (1970)
9
10 June
Liberal Film Criticism: Philip French and The
Observer
Stephen Frears, My Beautiful Laundrette
(1985)
10
17 June
Feminist Film Criticism: Carol J. Clover on
Slasher Film
Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(1974)
11
24 June
Chinese Film Review and Criticism
Film to be announce
Lecturer
N. Morita
12
1 July
Spanish Film Review and Criticism
Jose Montano
Film to be announced
13
8 July
Taiwanese Film Review and Criticism
Film to be announced
14
15 July
Japanese Film Review and Criticism
Azumi Sakamoto
Film to be announced
15
22 July
Thai Film Review and Criticism
Supat
Film to be announced
Thanasuwanditee
James Agee,
Pauline Kael, ‘Stanley Strangelove,’ New Yorker, January 1972.
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0051.html
Sergein Eisenstein, ‘Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today,’ in Film Form, ed. and
trans., Jay Leyda, San Diego, New York, and London: A Harvest Book, Harcourt,
and Helden and Kurt Wolff Book, 1949
http://filmadaptation.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2012/08/Eisenstein-Dickens-Griffi
th-and-the-Film-Today.pdf
André Bazin, ‘Bicycle Thief,’ What Is Cinema?, ed. and trans., Hugh Gray,
Berkley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1971.
François Truffaut, ‘The Wrong Man (Review),’
http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Truffaut_%281957%29_-_
The_Wrong_Man
Robert Benayoun, ‘Jerry Lewis’, Positif 50 Years: Selected Writings from the
French Film Journal, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003.
Philip French, ‘Gay or Asian – or Both,’ Observer,
http://www.theguardian.com/film/interactive/2013/aug/24/philip-french-my-beauti
ful-laundrette-review
Carol J. Clover, ‘Her Body, Himself: Gender in Slasher Film,’ Misogyny, Msandry
and Misanthropy, Berkley: University of California Press
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft809nb586&chunk.id=d0
e4713