Italian Studies Joint Honours Component (B.A.) (36 credits)
Offered by: Languages,Literatures,Cultures (Faculty of Arts)
Degree: Bachelor of Arts; Bachelor of Arts and Science
Program credit weight: 36
Program Description
Students who wish to study at the Honours level in two Arts disciplines may apply to combine Joint Honours program components from two Arts disciplines. For a list of available Joint Honours programs, see "Overview of Programs Offered" and "Joint Honours Programs".
Joint Honours students should consult an adviser in each department to discuss their course selection and their interdisciplinary research project (if applicable).
Joint Honours students must maintain a GPA of 3.30 in their program courses and, according to Faculty regulations, a minimum CGPA of 3.00 in general.
Admission to Joint Honours requires departmental approval. Students wishing to register in the program should consult with the Department as early as possible. Students may register for Joint Honours in the first year, instead of the second year, if in the opinion of the departments they are found to be qualified.
Degree Requirements — B.A. students
To be eligible for a B.A. degree, a student must fulfil all Faculty and program requirements as indicated in Degree Requirements for the Faculty of Arts.
We recommend that students consult an Arts OASIS advisor for degree planning.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Required Courses (6 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ITAL 355 | Dante and the Middle Ages. | 3 |
Dante and the Middle Ages. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An introduction to the work of Dante Alighieri, a pillar of medieval European literature. The times in which he lived, the institutions and cultural shifts of that era, the influence exercised by Dante's work, as well as how it has been perceived in our time. | ||
| ITAL 470 | Joint Honours Thesis. | 3 |
Joint Honours Thesis. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Research and completion of the Honours thesis on an approved subject. | ||
Complementary Courses (30 credits)
30 credits, 6 of which must be at the 400 level or above, selected from the four Italian course lists as follows:
0-12 credits from Group A – Basic Language Courses.
12-30 credits from Group B – Courses Taught in Italian.
0-18 credits combined from Group C – Courses Taught in English and Group D – Courses Offered in Other Departments.
Note: Students with advanced standing in the language must replace language courses with courses from groups B, C, and D.
Group A - Basic Language Courses
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ITAL 205D1 | Italian for Beginners. | 3 |
Italian for Beginners. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Grammar, reading, dictation. Intensive practice in speech patterns and written structures. Conversation and composition. Visual material and selected readings will be used in describing the making of contemporary Italy. | ||
| ITAL 205D2 | Italian for Beginners. | 3 |
Italian for Beginners. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. See ITAL 205D1 for course description. | ||
| ITAL 206 | Beginners Italian Intensive. | 6 |
Beginners Italian Intensive. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Designed to cover in one term the same material as ITAL 205D1/ITAL 205D2. | ||
| ITAL 210D1 | Italian for Advanced Beginners. | 3 |
Italian for Advanced Beginners. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Intended for students who have never studied Italian, but who have had some informal exposure to the language. Grammar, reading, conversation and composition. An outline of Italian civilization, oral presentations and discussions. | ||
| ITAL 210D2 | Italian for Advanced Beginners. | 3 |
Italian for Advanced Beginners. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. See ITAL 210D1 for course description. | ||
| ITAL 215D1 | Intermediate Italian. | 3 |
Intermediate Italian. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Direct continuation of ITAL 205D1/ITAL 205D2. Grammar, literary readings, conversation. Grammar exercises and composition. Reading of selected literary works, oral presentations and group discussion. | ||
| ITAL 215D2 | Intermediate Italian. | 3 |
Intermediate Italian. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. See ITAL 215D1 for course description. | ||
| ITAL 216 | Intermediate Italian Intensive. | 6 |
Intermediate Italian Intensive. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Course designed to cover in one term the same material as ITAL 215D1/ITAL 215D2. Direct continuation of ITAL 206. | ||
Group B - Courses Taught in Italian
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ITAL 250 | Italian Literary Composition. 1 | 3 |
Italian Literary Composition. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Analysis and discussion of selected 19th and 20th century literary texts with a view to improving language and composition skills. Review of major grammatical difficulties. | ||
| ITAL 255 | Advanced Reading and Composition. 1 | 6 |
Advanced Reading and Composition. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The understanding of grammatical structures through a variety of exercises; paraphrasing, translating, composition and discussion. Particular emphasis will be placed on syntax through the study of contemporary texts. | ||
| ITAL 260 | Reading Italian Literature. | 3 |
Reading Italian Literature. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A selection of poetic, narrative and theatrical texts from different historical periods, providing students with advanced tools in textual analysis and close reading of Italian literary texts. | ||
| ITAL 270 | Manzoni: Novel and Nationhood. | 3 |
Manzoni: Novel and Nationhood. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An analysis of the historical novel "I promessi sposi", by Alessandro Manzoni: its political, social and intellectual role in the evolution of Italy towards nationhood (Risorgimento). | ||
| ITAL 281 | Masterpieces of Italian Literature 2. | 3 |
Masterpieces of Italian Literature 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A survey of Italian literature from Renaissance to the 20th century. Interdisciplinary approach. | ||
| ITAL 290 | Commedia Dell'Arte. | 3 |
Commedia Dell'Arte. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Playhouses, actors, stage techniques, masks and scenarios of the "Commedia dell'Arte". | ||
| ITAL 295 | Italian Cultural Studies. | 3 |
Italian Cultural Studies. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A cultural studies approach to contemporary Italian society. Focus on distinctive traits of Italian popular culture through literature, film, television and other media. | ||
| ITAL 307 | Topics in Italian Culture. | 3 |
Topics in Italian Culture. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Selected topics in Italian culture (topics may vary and may concentrate on one or more of the following areas: geography, history, music, art history, political science, and/or literature). | ||
| ITAL 310 | The Invention of Italian Literature. | 3 |
The Invention of Italian Literature. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The course presents Italian's major texts and authors over the ages, by critically exploring how the invention of Italian literature impacts the formation of a national identity. | ||
| ITAL 332 | Italian Theatrical Traditions. | 3 |
Italian Theatrical Traditions. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An overview of the major works and genres of Italian theatre from the Renaissance to the present, analyzing their reception and influence on Italian society. | ||
| ITAL 356 | Medieval Discourses on Love. | 3 |
Medieval Discourses on Love. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Medieval ideas, attitudes and behaviour surrounding love as represented in literature: readings will include excerpts from early Italian love lyrics, Dante's Vita Nuova, Petrarch's Canzoniere, Boccaccio's Decameron. | ||
| ITAL 360 | Contemporary Italian Prose. | 3 |
Contemporary Italian Prose. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A study of Italian fiction, docu-fiction and non-fiction published since 1990, examined in the context of the debates on post-modernism. | ||
| ITAL 383 | Women's Writing since 1880. | 3 |
Women's Writing since 1880. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A study of Italian women writers and their search for literary identity. | ||
| ITAL 400 | Italian Regional Identities. | 3 |
Italian Regional Identities. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The course explores tensions between national and regional narratives in Italy's literature, culture, language, and society. | ||
| ITAL 410 | Italian Modernism. | 3 |
Italian Modernism. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A study of representative works of major Italian authors from the fin-de-siècle to WWII. | ||
| ITAL 560 | Topics in 19th and 20th Century Literature. | 3 |
Topics in 19th and 20th Century Literature. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Exploration of individual authors, genres, and literary or cultural movements that have marked Italian culture in the 19th and 20th century. | ||
- 1
Note: Only one of ITAL 250 Italian Literary Composition. or ITAL 255 Advanced Reading and Composition. can count toward the program.
Group C - Courses Taught in English
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ITAL 199 | FYS: Italy's Literature in Context. | 3 |
FYS: Italy's Literature in Context. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The purpose of this seminar is to re-visit, problematically, the commonsense notion that literature "reflects" reality (or society). Classics of twentieth-century Italian writing shall be analyzed as the response of that nation's literary imagination to the contradictions of its turbulent political and social history. | ||
| ITAL 355 | Dante and the Middle Ages. | 3 |
Dante and the Middle Ages. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An introduction to the work of Dante Alighieri, a pillar of medieval European literature. The times in which he lived, the institutions and cultural shifts of that era, the influence exercised by Dante's work, as well as how it has been perceived in our time. | ||
| ITAL 365 | The Italian Renaissance. | 3 |
The Italian Renaissance. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A presentation of the main ideas and literary masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance (13th-17thC), in the context of Italy's social, political, religious and cultural climate. Reading and discussion of selected literary texts and visual material. | ||
| ITAL 375 | Cinema and Society in Modern Italy. | 3 |
Cinema and Society in Modern Italy. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A survey of the most important trends in post-war Italian cinema seen in the context of the rapidly and dramatically evolving society of modern Italy. | ||
| ITAL 464 | Machiavelli. | 3 |
Machiavelli. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Machiavelli, the political thinker and man of letters. A portrait of Machiavelli as political strategist, playwright and observer of his times. Reading of The Prince as well as selected plays, letters and other writings. | ||
| ITAL 477 | Italian Cinema and Video. | 3 |
Italian Cinema and Video. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Different Italian film maker or videomaker every year, presenting a selection of his/her significant works. Discussions will include script analysis, interviews, articles and books by the director in focus, in addition to theoretical and critical statements by scholars. Established and new directors will be considered alternately. | ||
Group D - Courses Offered in Other Departments
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ARTH 223 | Introduction Italian Renaissance Art 1300-1500. | 3 |
Introduction Italian Renaissance Art 1300-1500. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Surveys the changing role of the artwork in Renaissance Italy in its social, political, and religious contexts. | ||
| ARTH 325 | Visual Culture Renaissance Venice. | 3 |
Visual Culture Renaissance Venice. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Distinctive visual culture in the context of Venice's singular topography and reputation for licentiousness and toleration. | ||
| CLAS 302 | Roman Literature and Society. | 3 |
Roman Literature and Society. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An exploration of Roman texts written during the Republican and Imperial periods (200 BCE-400 CE) and the study of social contexts in which they were written. | ||
| CLAS 404 | Classical Tradition. | 3 |
Classical Tradition. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Examines the evolution of Classical Antiquity's social and cultural status from the 17th c. to the present day. Particular consideration is given to the processes of the ongoing professionalization of history and archeology as academic disciplines, the emergence of new political usages of the past, the transformation of cultural practices from the Grand Tour to the modern museum and tourism. | ||
| ENGL 447 | Crosscurrents/English Literature and European Literature 1. | 3 |
Crosscurrents/English Literature and European Literature 1. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Comparative study of English and European literature. Topic varies by year. | ||
| HIST 345 | History of Italian Renaissance. | 3 |
History of Italian Renaissance. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An introduction to the economy, society, politics and intellectual developments in Italy from approximately 1300 to the early 16th century. | ||
| HIST 380 | The Medieval Mediterranean . | 3 |
The Medieval Mediterranean . Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Thematic history of the Mediterranean during the Medieval period, covering elements of Latin, Byzantine and Islamic civilizations and their interactions. | ||
| HIST 398 | Topics in Italian History. | 3 |
Topics in Italian History. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Topics in Italian history. Topic varies by year. | ||
| HIST 401 | Topics: Medieval Culture and Society. | 3 |
Topics: Medieval Culture and Society. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Selected topics in the intellectual and cultural history of the Middle Ages. Emphasis on modern critical approaches to medieval culture, including literature, the supernatural, religious experience. | ||
| MUHL 387 | Opera from Mozart to Puccini. | 3 |
Opera from Mozart to Puccini. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Mozart's operas and the seria, buffa, and Singspiel traditions. Ottocento opera, grand opera, and cross-fertilization between France and Italy. German Romantic opera. Wagner. Eastern European opera. Verismo and fin-de-siècle opera in Vienna and Paris. Sociology of opera. Emphasis on critical understanding of music's role in articulating drama. | ||