Italy has long served as a site of enchantment, romance, and historical knowledge in popular culture. To this day, undergraduates flock to Florence and Rome for their semesters abroad, anticipating their own personal, intellectual, and cultural awakenings. In this course, we will consider a number of texts about journeys to Italy, from Goethe’s accounts of his eighteenth-century Grand Tour travels to Gabriella Ghermandi’s contemporary novel on postcolonial identity. Throughout the course of the semester, we will think about the various ways in which Italy functions in these narratives. How do these texts posit travel as a pathway to – at times frightening – self-discovery? To what extent do they seem to travel through time as well as space? And how do they navigate the interplay between self and other, between the privileged and the dispossessed, and between history and the imagination?

This course fulfills the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and its primary purpose is to prepare you for college-level work through the development of critical reading, writing, and research skills. In addition to producing polished, final drafts of essays, you will write preliminary drafts and numerous close readings, and you will participate in regular in-class writing workshops. After completing this course, you should have an analytical toolkit that allows you to analyze primary and secondary texts, draft research-based essays in clear and elegant academic prose, and provide your peers with constructive feedback on written assignments.

One of our major goals in this class is to reflect on who we are as writers, how we present our ideas, and how we can gain a sense of pride in both the writing process and the product. To that end, all activities – formal and exploratory writing, active reading, peer feedback, classroom discussion, etc. – are designed to encourage awareness and reflection in the cultivation of our academic voices.

Required Books:

E. M. Forster, A Room with a View (Penguin Classics, ISBN-10: 0141183292)

Gabriella Ghermandi, Queen of Flowers and Pearls (Indiana University Press, ISBN-10: 0253015472)

Additional texts and course reader information to be announced.

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list.