This course aims to develop advanced oral and aural skills through discussion, debate, performance, and role-play about the arts in Italy, including cinema, theater, the figurative arts, and music.

This course aims to develop advanced oral and aural skills through discussion, debate, performance, and role-play about the arts in Italy, including cinema, theater, the figurative arts, and music. The thematic content of this course changes every semester. In the Spring 2022 the emphasis will be on how ‘power struggles’ are represented in the performative and figurative arts. We are performers and the world is indeed a stage. No interaction is devoid of power games. Race, class, and gender play a role in every aspect of our lives and every exchange we experience daily carry multiple meanings. Understanding how language is manipulated in these interactions helps us to better interpret the meanings behind the words. In this course we will read, analyze, and discuss provocative texts by Italian playwrights, as well as look at works of art by contemporary artists that speak to the power dynamics in todays’ Italian multicultural landscape. These works will make us reflect on our own values, beliefs, and identities, and critically think about power struggles in the context of the multilingual communities we live in. The course is highly interactive and includes a creative and collaborative component. Over the course of the semester students will not only learn how to analyze, discuss, and interpret written and visual texts by well-known authors, but they will also learn how to write a script and become storytellers and performers of their own stories, based on issues that are particularly meaningful to them.

Prerequisite: Italian 4 at UC Berkeley or equivalent.

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Requirements class fulfills