Gerald & Beverly Bocciardi Undergraduate Prize

The annual Gerald & Beverly Bocciardi Undergraduate Prize*, generously funded by the Bocciardi family, is awarded to UC Berkeley Italian Studies undergraduate students’ original creative projects related to Italian culture, literature, art, history or language.

Participation in the contest is open to all undergraduate students currently registered in one of the courses offered by our Department and to students who took an Italian Studies course in the spring semester of the same calendar year. In early December, short listed projects are showcased at the Gerald & Beverly Bocciardi Undergraduate Conference, where winners are announced.

2024: Italian and the Book: the World between the Lines

The 2024 topic is “Italian and the Book: the World between the Lines” and we welcome original projects, in English or in Italian, focusing on any aspect and form of Italian literature, be it narrative, theatre, or poetry. Any Italian literary work that has fascinated and/or influenced you can be the center of your project, but you can also highlight the importance of a specific literary genre in Italian literature or compare two works by different authors and so on. The use of multimedia (video, animated presentations, etc.) in your project is encouraged.

Participants are required to enroll in Italian Studies 198 (directed group study: 1 unit, P/NP) directed by Dr. Perco.

Italian 198, Section 1 #21724

If you are interested in participating in the conference, but your course load does not allow you to register for IS 198, contact Dr. Giuliana Perco

Complete projects are due the week before Thanksgiving.

The 2024 Gerald & Beverly Bocciardi Undergraduate Conference will be held in an hybrid format in the morning of Saturday December 7, 2023. Participants must be able to attend the conference in order to be awarded the Prize*.

If you are interested in competing to participate in the conference and to have the chance to win the Gerald & Beverly Bocciardi Prize*, please complete this participation form by September 13th, 2024.

With questions, please contact Dr. Giuliana Perco.

Past Recipients

Fall 2023
- Brooke Brogan for “Slow Food: an Italian Story of Sustainability” [Italian 3: Intermediate Italian]
- Erik Rivera Avendano for “Il terzo miracolo di Venezia”/ Venice’s Third Miracle” [Italian 1: Elementary Italian]
- Kinley Flaherty & Isa Motley for “Fiume Po: Navigare verso un futuro sostenibile”/ “Po River: Navigating towards a Sustainable Future” [Italian 101: Advanced Writing Workshop]
- Tabitha Sides for “Lettera a Paolo Pejrone” / “Letter To Paolo Pejrone” [Italian 101: Advanced Writing Workshop]

Fall 2022:
- Dylan Murphy for “Skateboarding and Contemporary Italian Culture” [Italian 170: Italian Cinema: Global Neorealism]
- Yuqi Tian for “La mappa costruisce il mondo” /”La mappa makes the World” [Italian 3: Intermediate Italian]
- Arman Baradaran for “Ecologia profonda: una soluzione dantesca per il cambiamento climatico” /”Deep Ecology: a Dantean Solution for Climate Change” [Italian 130A: Dante’s Inferno and Italian 163: Literature and the Environment]
- Yassin Oulad Daoud for “Analisi digitale del punto di vista nelle vedute prospettiche moderne del Campidoglio a Roma” /”Digital Analysis of Vantage Points in Perspective Views of the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome” [Italian 101: Advanced Writing Workshop].

Fall 2021:
- Rhea Sood for “The Tenth Circle of Hell” [Italian 130A: Dante’s Inferno]
- Arman Baradaran for “Il rifugiato immortale”/ “The Immortal Refugee” [Italian 120: “Crossing Italian Borders: Migrations, Identity and Citizenship”]
- Elizabeth Girling, and Connor Fitzpatrick for “I Nuovi Circoli della Divina Commedia”/ “The New Circles of the Divine Comedy”[Italian 1: Elementary Italian 1].

Fall 2020
- Armen Aprahamian for “P is for Poet” [Italian 130A: Dante’s Inferno]
- Emily Mantaro for “Arte, Amore ed Antifa: Graffiti ad Aosta” [Italian 2: Elementary Italian 2]
- Sharon Burk and Julia Francisco for “I gialli attraverso il tempo: il rapporto tra colore e contenuto” / “The ‘Gialli’ through Time: Relations between Color and Content” [Italian 160: “Il giallo: Murder Mystery Italian Style”]
- Valeria Garnica Urdaneta for “Vogue Italia Throughout the Years” [Italian 4: Intermediate Italian]

Fall 2019
- Alessia Belsito-Riera, Maddison Brown, Sofia Dallarda, Myriam Grzybek, Sarah Kersting, and Giancarlo Tucci-Berube for “L’Italia imperiale e la storia storta” [Italian 160: Narratives of Italian Colonialism and Its Aftermath];
- Sharon Burk, Shivani Sundaram, and Yuanqi Zhou for “Dante’s Inferno: Communicating Body and Soul” [Italian 130A: Dante’s Inferno];
- Hannah Peregrino, Sebastián Yáñez Buvinic, and Gianfranco Centeno for “La riunione” [Italian 1: Elementary Italian 1].