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