ITAL 212 Setting the World Ablaze: Italian Women's Writing from Saint Catherine to Elena Ferrante
This course surveys the evolution of female subjectivity, authorship, and cultural criticism in Italy from the Middle Ages until the present day. Through the close analysis of the work of St. Catherine of Siena, Vittoria Colonna, Elsa Morante, Igiaba Scego, and Elena Ferrante (among others), learners will explore how Italian women writers have used writing to establish their autonomy as self-saying subjects, assert their agency in the world, and advocate for more just and inclusive societies. In other words, students will assess how women utilized writing to establish and amplify their collective voice, deconstruct traditional, patriarchal discourse, and create new categories for understanding - and representing - the experiences of Italian women. Though specifically focused on the cultural production of women, participants will explore issues at the heart of the human condition from the perspective of gender going on to interrogate the place of both women and men in the cosmos and society. The issue of good and evil will also be pertinent to this course and investigated from the perspective of women writer's responses to the societal restrictions historically placed on them, their reflections upon the horrors of their age, and use of the written word to call attention to evil while also creating some good in the world.