RMST302

Theatre and Poetry of the Romance World

Renaissance and Baroque Love: Contacts between Plays, Art and Poetry

Commedia dell'arte troupe, probably depicting Isabella Andreini and the Compagnia dei Gelosi, oil painting by unknown artist, c. 1580; in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Featuring plays, poems and art from the early modern period (1400-1700), centered on the theme of love and ranging from the Italian Renaissance to the French Great Century, the Spanish and Portuguese Golden Age and Elizabethan England, students will explore texts by authors such as Corneille, Molière, Racine, Cervantes, Sor Juana, Calderón, Gil Vicente, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Aretino and l’ Accademia degli Intronati (in English translation). The readings will also include renowned and less well-known poems from varied authors and traditions. The course will focus on the intersection between drama, poetry and the visual arts, in particular, paintings and their shared concepts and aesthetics.

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Lagresa-González

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Introduction to Romance Language Cinema: Film Adaptation

The history of cinema entails countless literary adaptations. This course will offer a study of films that have been adapted from literary works in French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. We will explore cinematic productions based on visuality, sound, and text/context. We will have the opportunity to survey contexts for the development of Western Cinema, and to examine the variety of Romance World Cinema in diverse contexts. We will study general techniques of adaptation and film analyses in relation to global and social issues, identity, class, and gender. Questions to be examined: How does adaptation change genre? How does adaptation influence filmic form and language? How does cinema engage with canonical and obscure literature? What remains and what changes across artistic media?

Credit will be granted for only one of RMST 234 or RMST 305.

Primary film selection to be examined: 

• Federico Fellini – Nights of Cabiria (1957) – based on a short story by Fellini [1hr 49min]
• Luis Buñuel – Belle de Jour (1967) – based on Joseph Kessel’s novel [1hr 41min]
• Bernardo Bertolucci – The Conformist (1970) – based on Alberto Moravia’s novel [1hr 51min]
• Jean-Jacques Annaud – The Name of the Rose (1986) – based on Umberto Eco’s novel [2hr 10min]
• Stephen Frears – Dangerous Liaisons (1988) – based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel [1hr 59min]
• Alfonso Arau – Like Water for Chocolate (1992) – based on Laura Esquivel’s novel [2hr 03min]
• Bille August- The House of the Spirits (1993) – based on Isabel Allende’s novel [2hr 25min]
• Guel Arraes – Lisbela and the Prisoner (2003) based on a play by Osman Lins [1hr 46min]
• Walter Salles – The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) based on the travel diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara [2hr 06min]
• Juan José Campanella – The Secret in their Eyes (2009) based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri [2hr 09min]

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Alessandra Santos

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Ancients and Moderns: Studies in 17th-century French Literature

Ce cours se propose d’étudier les différentes articulations théâtrales et performatives françaises et francophones du XVIIe siècle, de la France au Canada et St. Domingue. Un moyen important pour la propagation de nouvelles idées (politiques, morales, coloniales, raciales, philosophiques, esthétiques, stylistiques, cosmologiques, médicales, etc.), la production théâtrale du XVIIe siècle fut impressionnante : elle ne consistait pas seulement en pièces « classiques » (comédies, tragédies), composées par les trois dramaturges les plus célèbres du siècle associés à « l’âge classique » — Corneille, Molière, Racine —, mais aussi en une variété de genres nouveaux (pastorales, tragicomédies, ballets, entrées royales, comédies-ballets et opéras), jouées dans de multiples lieux de théâtre non seulement en France, mais aussi dans le « Nouveau Monde ». Nous allons étudier l’interaction du corps humain et des machines théâtrales sur scène. Les thèmes récurrents comprennent la question des genres (gender), les relations raciales, les représentations spatiales, les théories du théâtre (« La querelle du Cid », les traités sur le théâtre), les articulations des passions (Descartes) et les pratiques performatives et poétiques d’inclusion et d’exclusion, en particulier dans le contexte colonial de la Nouvelle France (Canada) et des Caraïbes.

Language of instruction: French

Instructor: Dr. Katharina Piechocki

Prerequisites: FREN_V 311

Recommended prerequisites: This course is recommended for students who have completed one of FREN_V 225 or FREN_V 402, in addition to the prerequisite above.

Translation and Romance Languages

Certain themes and challenges recur in translation, whatever the situation and whatever the language pair. This course examines translation in the framework of cross­-cultural and multi­disciplinary comparisons, with an emphasis on Romance languages. We will look at the history of translation, and analyze translators and interpreters as fictional characters in literature and film. We will also explore the practice of translation in a variety of media, including literary texts, news media, Internet, film, radio, TV, blogs, and video games. A wide variety of topics such as how translation and interpreting shape our lives and transform the world, what is lost and found in translation, translating literature and cultural cues, fluency and transparency, register and tone, the author-translator-reader triangle, translating humorous verses, puns and wordplays will be examined through a list of selected readings to provide a foundational understanding of the crucial role that translators and interpreters play in our lives.

Language of instruction: English

Recommended prerequisites: Second-year standing or higher.

Italian Fashion Cultures

Cross-listed with RMST100

Milano Fashion Week & Design, 02/2011 | Source: Flickr (Mat's Eye)

In 2022, Italy’s newly-elected, right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, re-named a previous trade ministry as the “Ministry for Business and Made in Italy,” thereby invoking a key marker of Italian commercial, group, and cultural identity. Since the end of the WWII, the garment and accessories sector has been traditionally recognized as a pillar within the Made in Italy industries.

“Italian Fashion Cultures” examines both the national history of Italian fashion since the post-WWII period and its global dimensions. The course delineates the dynamics among the country’s fashion capitals (Florence, Rome, and Milan), with a focus on the apparel sector’s growth during the 1950s-1970s. We also probe how and why Italian fashion has developed in response to the clothing sector’s exigencies and creative tension with France, the United States, and China.

The course highlights ready-to-wear and fast fashion, the two most significant categories of the fashion world today. Cultural appropriation, decoloniality, and sustainability are examined throughout the course in relation to the course’s primary texts, including fashion journalism, websites, social media, advertising, literature, films, and artworks.

Students are encouraged to consider three central questions:

(1) how clothing is represented in the primary texts to influence the audience’s cognitive and affective knowledge;

(2) how fashion helps forge individual, brand, national, and other cultural identities;

(3) given the ubiquitous presence of fashion branding, how these narratives articulate the Made in Italy cachet to consumers?

The course does not assume student’s prior knowledge of Italy or Italian fashion. Oral presentations and a final project (in the format of a critical essay, a short film, a multimedia project, or creative writing) are the main tools of assessment of learning outcomes. Regular attendance in class lecturing and participation in group discussions and in-class activities are essential for developing critical and analytical skills for these assessment activities.

Language of instruction: English

Prerequisites: No prerequisites