This course is designed for students of Italian to concentrate on one period of literature or a particular topic in Italian literature. Topics vary. Taught in Italian.

We are accustomed to thinking that Italy possesses a distinct and unmistakable identity, but doing so overlooks the elementary consideration that Italy has only existed as a single, united country for a little over 150 years. And for most of its history it was actually a melting pot of diverse peoples, traditions, religions, and languages. In fact, the recent history of Italy demonstrates a progressive change in the identity of the Italian population, due to the strong flux of migration into the country. These days Italy boasts a healthy crop of decorated “hyphenated” writers, the offspring of the last three decades or so of immigration: Senegalese-Italians, Albanian-Italians, Algerian-Italians, Somali-Italians, Indo-Italians, etc. This course offers students the opportunity to study this new field of Italian Literature. By analyzing the language and experience of these authors, students will appreciate the path to integration among many different cultures within one country, discovering that in literary fiction, language and experience, otherness and identity, tolerance and intolerance coexist. They will study how the “other” meet the Italian experience and translate it into its own experience. Students will discover authors such as Pap Khouma, Amara Lakhous, Ornela Vorpsi, Igiaba Scego, Laila Waida and many others and will visit the publishing company Sinnos, formed to promote multicultural education.