Spring Quarter 2025
- For day, time, room, and TA information, see our PDF Schedule or the class search tool https://registrar-apps.ucdavis.edu/courses/search/index.cfm.
- For all courses not described here, please refer to the General Catalog course descriptions: https://catalog.ucdavis.edu/courses-subject-code/ita/
Language Courses
ITA 003: Elementary Italian
For instructor information, see https://registrar-apps.ucdavis.edu/courses/search/index.cfm
ITA 003 is designed for advanced beginners who have completed ITA 002 or its equivalent. This course provides students the opportunity to develop and expand their speaking and listening comprehension, as well as their reading/writing proficiency in Italian. Throughout the semester you will practice through the study of a wide range of communication patterns and real-life situations. By the end of Italian 003, you will be able to use Italian to talk about the future, give commands and incite action, and be able to suggest advice through the use the conditional. You will be able to read and understand short texts, conversations, audio/video clips, and to write short dialogues/stories, and participate in a Travel Fair. In addition to our language courses, the Department offers an array of events and co-curricular activities such as weekly conversation/practice hours, films, cultural events, C.I.A.O. club activities, and free peer tutoring.
ITA 023: Intermediate Italian
This intermediate course continues to expand upon the linguistic and cultural foundations built in your prior study of Italian through grammar exercises, novel excerpts, essays, short and feature films, and film dubbing. In Italian 023, students continue to refine their writing skills while they also tackle questions like: how do you form hypothetical statements in Italian? Why is film dubbing so popular in Italy? What is a mestiere? We do so by simulating in class the real-life conversations and debates happening in Italy and among Italians right now.
ITA 032: Beginning Italian for Spanish Speakers
In this follow-up to ITA 031 we continue to bridge the gap between previous and/or inherited knowledge of Spanish and/or other Romance languages and the fundamentals of the Italian language in order to communicate effectively and accurately in Italian. We will discover together the geography, history, art, society, and cultural norms of Italy while studying the structure of Italian language and recognizing connections between Romance languages and cultures and Italy.
Undergraduate Courses
ITA 104: Italian Translation & Style - Translating Italophone African Literatures
Andre Naffis-Sahely
This course will introduce students to the practical aspects of literary translation by engaging with the works of Italophone African writers, including the novelist Alessandro Spina (né Basili Shafik Khouzam) who wrote about the Italian colonial presence in Libya, and the Italo-Eritrean poet Ribka Sibhatu, whose work investigates the realities of immigrant life in Italy. The course will also include an overview of how translation has been practiced and theorized in the Western tradition, particularly in regards to late 20th and early 21st century Italian literature in English.
ITA 118: Italian Language & Society… in giallo!
Eric Russell
Taught in Italian: open to students who have completed or are currently completing ITA 23
In this class, we will explore everyday Italian through the close examination of gialli, popular detective novels rich in dialogue. We will explore language use in real-life situations – to show anger or deference, make demands and ask questions, engage in seduction or subterfuge, establish relationships that are distant and cold or close and amorous, and much more. We will also collaboratively write our own giallo, creating original characters who reflect contemporary Italian languacultural reality, while also continuing to hone language skills.
Click Here to read an expanded course description
ITA 150: Italian Cinema
Michael Subialka
In this course we will delve into one of the world’s great cinematic traditions, looking at groundbreaking Italian classics and analyzing their significance both in relation to their historical time as well as in comparison with contemporary revolutions in film. The emergence of cinema as a new art form at the turn of the 20th century gave rise to new ways of seeing and interacting with the world, and great filmmakers used these as a tool to interrogate Italian society and to transform Italian culture. From Neorealist documentation of postwar poverty to classic films examining and challenging social changes by directors like Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lina Wertmüller, and others, Italy boasts a tradition of filmic masterpieces. At the same time, important genres developed in the Italian context: from “comedy, Italian style” (commedia all’italiana) to the Spaghetti Western, Italian filmmaking reshaped the global market while also reframing how the world saw (and sees) Italian society. In this class, we will analyze major 20th-century films in their historical context and compare them with some of the most striking new films to come out of Italy in the 21st century. Addressing themes from class and political strife to gender, sexuality, and religion, and to questions of race, migration, and colonial and decolonial struggle, the films in this class will serve as both a gateway into a deeper understanding of Italian society and also an opportunity to engage in deeper critical analysis of modern and contemporary culture. The course is taught in English, and all films will have English subtitles: all are welcome!
