Rome’s ancient glorious heritage, impressive monuments, tasty cuisine and lively streets have always attracted tourists. This class looks at “another” Rome, a chaotic modern city in whose peripheries echo poor, violent and restless voices that shaped how Italians viewed urban identity, contemporary society and their nation. Masterpieces of Italian neorealist cinema (by Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio de Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini) and Pasolini’s hyper-realist novel, Ragazzi di vita are our first guides through Rome’s back alleys. The second half of the course examines various “margins” of today’s Rome. We will watch movies by Ettore Scala, Gianfranco Rosi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Isotta Toso, Simone Brioni, among others. We will also read Afro-Roman memoirs, like Igiaba Scego’s la mia casa è dove sono, and novels like Ubah Cristina Ali Farah’s Il comandante del fiume. This class expands students’ knowledge of Italian literature, cinema and society, as well as enhancing their reading, listening, writing and speaking skills. This course is taught in Italian.

See the Italian 270 course flyer here!