European Languages and Societies Commons^™

Prendersi Cura: Taking Care Of Nature In Perugia, Italy, Katharine Kurtz

Other student scholarship

Cities need more green spaces to adapt to climate change and facilitate community resilience. However, successfully managing green spaces is challenging. City governments consistently employ top-down management practices that limit the benefits, usage, and perception of such spaces as Nature. Further, current management practices overlook socio-cultural factors important to residents. Using the existing categories of urban green spaces (UGS) and informal green spaces (IGS), this article situates the cultural practice prendersi cura as a way to conceptualize successful, bottom-up green space management. The term prendersi cura, meaning “to take care of” in Italian, emerged through interviews in Perugia, Italy, and …

Pasta And Politics: A Taste Of Culinary Xenophobia In Italy, Rachel Berns

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Italy has become a common “landing country” for many European and Asian immigrants, creating a perception of invasion that has led to cultural reactionism masked in the reinforcement of “traditional cuisine.” For so-called traditional foods to endure, they must continually be reinvented, bearing different meanings and social values throughout time and space while accumulating rich, cultural baggage that serves as a powerful marker of identity in a given society. This project explores the role of traditional cuisine in Italian national identity and pride, and the subsequent historical culinary antagonism maintained in widespread attitudes toward ethnic cuisine in Italy. Through an …

Creatività Diasporiche Dialoghi Transnazionali Tra Teoria E Arti, Simone Brioni Dr., Loredana Polezzi Dr., Franca Sinopoli

Department of English Faculty Publications

Creatività diasporiche è un volume bilingue costituito da tredici conversazioni tra studiosi/studiose di materie umanistiche e artisti/artiste il cui lavoro si concentra sul tema della migrazione e dell’identità. I contributi nella raccolta abbracciano forme di produzione che vanno dalla letteratura alle arti visive, dal cinema alla performance teatrale, dai podcast alla musica rap, mentre tra le tematiche ricorrenti emergono dibattiti su identità, lingua, migrazione, memoria e cittadinanza. Questo volume è anche un invito a ripensare il lavoro creativo e quello accademico, in area umanistica, come intrinsecamente legati al dialogo e alla collaborazione. Ciascuna conversazione si concentra sull’Italia intesa come un …

Stolperstein/Stumbling Stone For Holocaust Survivor Otto Heimann/Bob Hymann, Bochum/German, Toronto/Kanada Und New York, Ny, Usa, Courtney Conte, Mona Eikel-Pohen

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

The documentation tries to capture the life of Holocaust survivor Otto Heimann/Bob Hyman who spent his youth in Bochum-Langendreer, Germany, and was forced by the National Socialists to leave parents, home, and country. The documentation does not claim to give a full picture, just an insight into Otto Heimann's/Bob Hyman's life.

It will be read out on June 6, 2023 in Bochum, Germany when a Stolperstein, a stumbling stone, will be place near Alte Bahnhstraße 6 in Bochum-Langendreer, Germany, to commemorate Otto Heimann/Bob Hyman, so that we and future generations may learn from history.

Diese Dokumentation versucht, das Leben Bob …

L’Italia, L’Altrove Luoghi, Spazi E Attraversamenti Nel Cinema E Nella Letteratura Sulla Migrazione, Simone Brioni Dr.

Department of English Faculty Publications

This monograph is a meditation on how transnational migrations have influenced how the sense of place and the politics of space are represented in literature and film about migration to, from and within Italy. It examines work produced in Italian and English, and it emphasizes how culture and national identity can be reconsidered in a more inclusive way within a world marked by increased mobility. The text is divided into three main sections – “Places”, “Spaces” and “Crossings” – each of which contains two chapters. Chapter 1 argues that bridges, as they are represented in literature, movies and paintings about …

Performing Confession In Dante And Boccaccio, Anne C. Leone

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

With the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the Church sought to implement changes to confessional practice, requiring (among other things) private confession to one's own priest once a year before Easter communion. I argue that both Dante and Boccaccio show an awareness of the decree, yet neither shows an uncritical acceptance of the intercessory role that the Church was trying to fashion for itself with recourse to the practice. Dante locates the source of authority for confession in biblical precedents, and in the Comedy itself, downplaying the role of the Church in administering it. Boccaccio pokes fun at …

A Tale Of Two Biennales: How Contemporary Art In Italy Reflects Current European Politics, Hannah Rosabel Capucilli-Shatan

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

No abstract provided.

Zoomprov. Improvisation Exercises For Language Learning In Online Classes With Zoom Or Similar Tech For Beginning And Intermediate Learners And Beyond, Mona Eikel-Pohen

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

The improv language exercises in this compilation are chosen from the experience I gathered 20 years ago, but also from the amazing work of Lauren Esposito and Scranton Improv & Comedy that have been more real than anything else to me this past summer, and from Jim Ansaldo, who taught me how to structure improv exercises online. They are organized by level, referring to the Common European Framework of References for Languages. That means, A1 exercises can be conducted at the beginners level but also at all other higher levels, but B2 exercises should not be imposed upon beginners or …

The Cool Medium. The Global Pedagogy Of Eportfolio In The Foreign Language Classroom, Giulia Guarnieri

Publications and Research

The student-centered and integrative pedagogy of ePortfolio finds perfect applicability in the foreign language classroom. In contrast, textbooks for Italian language elementary courses, for the most part, implement a traditional and grammatical based methodological approach which hiders the process of ePortfolio integration which instead places greater emphasis on global and integrative pedagogy. The study discusses the implications these factors hold in preparing foreign languages instructors to use ePortfolio technology underlining its role as a cool medium which provides meaningful impact on student learning and participation

Memory And The Realization Of The Nothingness. On A Letter Of Vittorio Sereni To Giuseppe Ungaretti, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

The problematic relationship of Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) with Alexandria of Egypt – his city of birth – sheds light on the interplay between memory and oblivion in his poetry and prose. The shuttling back and forth between these poles marks the nature of his unfulfilled desire to recreate a lost Alexandrian atmosphere. In Ungaretti’s works, language opacity is coupled with his attempts to represent a city—as he writes—that is suffocated by the sun and whose hidden ancient port is submerged in the depth of the sea. Blinding light and the darkness of the deep waters make the understanding of Ungaretti’s …

Pirandello And Satire. The Imaginary Journey Of Four Authors In Search Of A Character According To Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930), Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Drawing on a little-known work by Scott-Moncrieff, this article investigates Luigi Pirandello’s intellectual and literary reach across genres and space, from theater to pamphlets, from Italy to the English-speaking world. A talented writer and translator, Charles K. Scott-Moncrieff published “The Strange & Striking Adventures of Four Authors in Search of a Character” by P. G. Lear & L. O in 1926. The title of the pamphlet, and the acronym of the fictional author are references to Pirandello and to his Six Characters in Search of an Author. Scott-Moncrieff had all the documents in order to write about, or in …

Review: 'Unfinished Business: Screening The Italian Mafia In The New Millennium', Renato Ventura

Global Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book review on Unfinished Business: Screening the Italian Mafia in the New Millenium by Dana Renga. University of Toronto Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781442615588.

Beating The Odds: Teaching Italian Online In The Community College Environment, Giulia Guarnieri

Publications and Research

This study analyzes data collected from Italian language online classes during the course of four consecutive semesters at Bronx Community College in order to measure the impact that distance learning has on students’ retention and success rates in elementary courses. The results reveal that reconfiguring the online meetings to a lower percentage and implementing social pedagogies reduce course abandonment and favor the creation of strong learning communities. Furthermore, the data relative to the grade distribution shows no substantial difference between online courses and face-to-face instruction.

Africa, Asia, And The History Of Philosophy: Racism In The Formation Of The Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830 By Peter K.J. Park (Review), Joseph D. O'Neil

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Modernism And The Cult Of Mountains: Music, Opera, Cinema By Christopher Morris (Review), Harald Höbusch

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fantahistorical Vs. Fantafascist Epic: “Contemporary” Alternative Italian Colonial Histories, Simone Brioni Dr.

Department of English Faculty Publications

This article focuses on Enrico Brizzi’s L’inattesa piega degli eventi [The Unexpected Turn of Events, 2008], La nostra guerra [Our War, 2009], and Lorenzo Pellegrini e le donne [Lorenzo Pellegrini and the Women, 2012], a trilogy of alternative history novels that imagines what would have happened to the Italian empire if Italy had not allied with Germany during the Second World War. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s reflections on contemporaneity (2009), I analyze how this trilogy represents Fascism and its colonial legacy in relation to the history of politics and soccer in Italy. I also compare Brizzi’s trilogy to Mario Farneti’s …

The Final Pagan Generation By Edward J. Watts (Review), James A. Francis

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Autotraduction, Traduction Interculturelle Et Intersémiotique Dans La Quarta Via De Kaha Mohamed Aden, Simone Brioni

Department of English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Intersections In Immanence: Spinoza, Deleuze, Negri, Abigail Lowe

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The connection between French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and Italian political theorist Antonio Negri has drawn attention in academic publications over the last decade. For both thinkers, the philosophical concept of immanence is central to how both respectively conceptualize the world. However, in order to consider their work with regard to a metaphysical grounding, one may benefit from turning to each thinker’s engagement with Jewish Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza whose immanent ontology, or monism, was indeed his Ethics. This essay concentrates on drawing out an ontological distinction between the philosophical projects of Deleuze and Negri by way of a close reading …

Migrant Stories And Italian Colonialism: A Report On Two Documentaries, Simone Brioni Dr.

Department of English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Amnesia: Tondelli's Un Weekend Postmoderno, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Tondelli opens his Un weekend postmoderno. Cronache dagli anni Ottanta declaring an intention opposite to the display of amnesia. In the long table of contents of his book, he writes down everything, in an excruciating streaming of details, so that the table of content becomes an exhaustive index of names and ideas. Yet, hidden within the hundreds of analytical snapshots, one of its many characters mentions the importance of dissimulation. Dissimulation, according to Tondelli, hides what is known, to protect the dissimulator and to mask the truth. Also, amnesia is a voluntary practice that can be enacted in order to …

The Strange Career Of The Biblia Rabbinica Among Christian Hebraists, 1517–1620, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The Rabbinic Bible became a standard reference tool, above all for Protestant Hebraists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It contained not only the Hebrew Bible text, but also Aramaic-language Targums (periphrastic translations of the biblical text, mostly dating from before 500) and Jewish biblical commentaries written between ca. 1100 and 1500. To use these works required that a Christian Hebraist know not only the language of the Bible, but also Targumic Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, which was rather different from biblical or mishnaic Hebrew. For Christian scholars who mastered these languages and were able to read these different texts, …

The Partisan And His Doppelganger: The Case Of Primo Levi, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

Published in 1982, Se non ora, quando? (If Not Now, When?) is Primo Levi's first novel proper. Perhaps Primo Levi is regretted not fully living life as an Italian Jewish partisan that he re-created his lost dream through its pages, and had his partisan brigade not been captured, perhaps Levi's underground fighting might have continued until the end of the war. If Not Now, When? thus might reflect Levi's need to explore that sought-after life as a partisan, which he had been denied after only three months of activity. Did Live write If Not Now, When? as a …

Reconciling The Controversy Of Animal Cruelty And The Shoah: A Look At Primo Levi's Compassionate Writings, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

Is it ethically admissible to compare the suffering of Jews during World War II to the general suffering of animals in the Western world? Who considers this parallel to be morally obscene, and who supports the comparison? Based on the historical evidence of Nazis insulting Jews with animal verbiage and herding them into the gas chambers of concentration camps, this study looks at a few textual examples by the Italian Jewish author Primo Levi, finding a conciliatory position in his poetry and prose.

Walters Ms W720: Chapters To Be Observed By The Singers Of The Cappella Giulia (1574), Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

The manuscript W720 that bears the title Capitoli che hanno da osseruare gli Cantori della Cappella di San Pietro is an unstudied and unpublished document held in the archives of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. As one of the earliest surviving written texts of its kind, W720 documents in detail the rules that the singers of the Julian Chapel had to obey during the year 1574. The following critical edition of the manuscript and the accompanying English translation are intended to provide materials that will assist Renaissance specialists in a number of areas (art history, philology, history, musicology, …

Text As Resistance In Holocaust Literature: Struggles For Personhood In Wiesel, Levi, And Delbo, Gillian M. Mozer

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis is an examination of the memoirs of three core Holocaust writers, Elie Wiesel (Night and Day), Primo Levi (If This is A Man), and Charlotte Delbo (Auschwitz and After), exploring the ways in which each of the three authors uses his or her memoir to simultaneously document and resist the dehumanizing influence of the concentration camp experience.

"Life Is Beautiful, Or Is It?" Asked Jakob The Liar, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

In 1999 the 71st Academy Awards ceremony awarded to the film The Last Days the prize for Best Documentary Feature. Underwritten by Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, this documentary depicts in a compelling, historically objective fashion what the Nazi regime called the "Endlösung" ["Final Solution"]: the effort to annihilate all of European Jewry. In the film, five Hungarian survivors are interviews with honesty and compassion. Their answers record history as it unwound. Clearly, the intent of the interviews is to assure that historical facts are not falsified, nor taken for granted. Documentaries of this kind can …

Luciano Bianciardi’S Aprire Il Fuoco: On The Function Of Literature In Society, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This is the first article to assess the importance of Luciano Bianciardi’s last novel, Aprire il fuoco [Open Fire!](1969), a work often overlooked, that offers crucial insights into Bianciardi’s commitments to social causes. A so-called “irregular” of 20th-century Italian literary panorama, Luciano Bianciardi (1922-1971) in his Aprire il fuoco discusses his idea of literature as an activity that must aim at assuming the role of ethical guide in societies. In my article, I gloss the often obscure historical and literary references of the novel, and provide a critical assessment of its impact.

Hidden Sentiments, Unfinished Project: Pirandello’S Film La Nuova Colonia, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This article investigates the notion of the unfinished work. In Pirandello studies the word unfinished holds particular importance. Luigi Pirandello's last, and one of his major works, I giganti della montagna [The Mountain Giants] was not completed. The many years devoted to its making weaken the assumption that Pirandello was not capable of completing it in favor of his decision not to complete his work. I considered the overlapping of the writing of I giganti della montagna and of the attempts to produce the film La nuova colonia [The New Colony] an important, and insofar unnoticed, key element for understanding …

Un Nuovo Dato Per La Cronologia Della Versione Cinematografica Della Nuova Colonia Di Luigi Pirandello, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) wrote numerous film-treatments inspired by his short-stories and plays that were not completed as films. Among the never completed films there is La Nuova Colonia. The history of the film-project La Nuova Colonia [The New Colony] is important for the further understanding of Pirandello’s poetics. Nestled in the plot of Pirandello’s novel Suo marito [Her Husband], La Nuova Colonia took on independent life in 1926 as the play of the same name that premiered in Rome in March 1928. The two dates indicated for the play are not the chronological limits for the La Nuova Colonia …