Italian 260C (with IT 121): Studies in Film and Literature from Elena Ferrante to Pasolini

The communicative powers of word, image, thought and feeling will be the issues at stake in this course on transtextualities.  It is taught in English and conducted within the sphere of Italian film and literature.  Open to all graduate students and advanced undergraduates, this seminar will attempt to get a handle on how imagistic and verbal expression grips readers and spectators in related but differing ways.  Our primary texts—supplemented by critical theoretical essays—will consist of four films and brief works of narrative fiction selected from the following:  The Lost Daughter, film by Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021, novel by Elena Ferrante, 2006 / Oedipus Rex, film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1967, play by Sophocles, 429 BCE / Blow-Up, film by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966, story by Julio Cortázar, 1959 / General Della Rovere, film by Roberto Rossellini, 1959, novella by Indro Montanelli, 1959 / Henry IV, film by Mario Bellocchio, 1984, play by Luigi Pirandello, 1921 / Decameron, film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, stories by Giovanni Boccaccio, 1353 / Death in Venice, film by Luchino Visconti, 1971, novella by Thomas Mann, 1912 / The Girlfriends, film by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1955, novella by Cesare Pavese, 1949. Taught in English.