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Academic Year 2004/2005


Crossing Oceans: "Italian Americana" in Fict/Film
FIST 255 SP

How might a course like this be relevant for a student who has heretofore not considered the question of ethnicity? And what does Spike Lee have in common with Madonna, Sinatra, and the Mafia? All four, in one way or another, as do many of the texts and films in this course, deal with the representations of "Italian Americana". Our object is a "minority" culture, with a focus on ethnicity, gender, class, family, and race. This semester we will consider issues of gender, identity, immigration, assimilation, and stereotyping, as we attempt to determine the "place" of Italian Americans--at the margins of mainstream American culture (as outsider); as the passive recipient of Anglo culture; as interrogation of mainstream culture (and this means OTHER than making mafia movies, and pizza, even though both have tended to characterize--and limit--representations of Italian Americans). For example, students will look at how the "American Dream" has been depicted and theorized by writers and film-makers. Students will also transcribe an oral history from someone in the community, as they consider their own ethnic identification.

Through multidisciplinary approaches and interactive work, readings, and films (documentary and fiction), and writing, the class will also consider the pertinent questions that most border cultures of America face as they draw from their own experiences and to "rethink" their own subject position, alongside such topics as "ghettoizing" or stereotyping, and reductive representation.

Some of the topics will focus on: the first wave of the marginalized and oppressed groups that fed the mass waves of migrations from the economically depressed Italian South to New York's Lower East Side and Little Italy; the Mafia; questions of gender and generation concerning both immigrant men and women (and their children); sociological questions concerning immigrant life and work; and the role of education, and reading and writing, in the early Italian Americans, in comparison to other migrant groups, and in comparison to the more recent manifestations of cultural activity by subsequent generations. The final goal of the course will be for the class to come up to an understanding of the terms "italianita", "American", and ethnicity, within a multicultural and changing context. Students will also take a class trip to Ellis Island during the semester.

MAJOR READINGS

texts:
Barolini, Helen, UMBERTINA (novel)
Di Donato, Pietro, CHRIST IN CONCRETE (novel)
Ewen, Elizabeth, IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN THE LAND OF DOLLARS (history, sociology)
Gambino, Richard, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD (history, sociology)
Monardo, Anna, THE COURTYARD OF DREAMS (novel)
Patriarca, Gianna, ITALIAN WOMEN AND OTHER TRAGEDIES (poetry)
Puzo, Mario, THE GODFATHER (novel)
Riis, Jacob, HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES (sociology, photography)
Tamburri, Anthony Julian, Paolo Giordano, Fred Gardaphe, FROM THE MARGIN: WRITINGS IN ITALIAN AMERICANA (creative works, critical essays that focus on history, society, politics, and literature; i.e. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane De Prima)
FUORI: GAY AND LESBIAN ITALIAN AMERICAN WRITERS
HEY PAESA N! (gay and lesbian Italian American writings)
UNDERSTANDING MOVIES, Louis Gianetti

Films:
TARANTELLA
ITALIAN AMERICAN, Martin Scorsese (documentary)
THE GODFATHER I and II, Francis Ford Coppola
DO THE RIGHT THING, Spike Lee
BIG N IGHT, Stanley Tucci
LITTLE ITALY, documentary
KISS ME GUIDO
MAC, John Turturro
STEALING BEAUTY, Bernardo Bertolucci
SOPRANOS, video
OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE
LIKE A PRAYER, Madonna video
RAGING BULL, Scorsese

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Multiple writing formats: a mid-term and a final; autobiographical 'politics of location,' discussion questions, close reading (explication de texte), oral history, film critiques, presentations.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

There will be a movie screening every week or every other week, outside of class time. Time and place TBA.

COURSE FORMAT: Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: NONE    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005


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