RMST347

Gender and Sexuality in Italian Cinema

The connection between Italy and romantic love has been immortalized in American movies such as the wildly popular romantic comedies Roman Holiday (William Wyler 1953) and Summertime (David Lean 1955). The coupling of North American women and Italian Latin Lovers is a recurring narrative pattern in contemporary popular culture. How did Italian cinema react to this cinematic trope? What gender and sexuality-related discussions did Italian cinema offer?

The course’s three units—“Masculinities,” “Femininities,” and “Stardom”—provides in-depth discussions of a range of tropes of gender and sexuality and their contestations in Italian cinema. The period we focus on is the 1960s and 1970s, when gender and sexual mores in Italian society underwent the decisive transformation under pressure from capitalist consumerism. We also cover a variety of film genres in this course, ranging from neorealist films to spaghetti Westerns, from art house movies to popular cinema, and more.

Students are encouraged to use both gender studies and socio-historical contextualization to enrich their film analysis. All films have English subtitles.

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Gaoheng Zhang 

Prerequisites: No prerequisites