TEACHING ITALIAN STUDIES IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

1. TEACHING ITALIAN STUDIES IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TRENDS AND CHALLENGES Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series 2012-13

2. WELCOME • Dr Filippo Nereo (HEA) • Dr Giuliana Pieri (RHUL and SIS)

3. MORNING SESSIONS • 10.15-11.00: Current teaching in Italian Studies: an interim report. G. Pieri • 11.00-12.00: The canon: what is it and should we care? P. Antonello (Cambridge) and S. Jossa (RHUL) • 12.00-12.30: Gaps in the curriculum. G. Pieri • 12.30-1.00: Trends in teaching. Lynne Francis (RHUL) • 1.00.-2.00: Lunch

4. AFTERNOON SESSIONS • 2.00-2.30: Italian cinema, art and design: a visual turn? G. Pieri • 2.30-3.00: Trends in student recruiting. D. La Penna (Reading and UCLM) • 3.00-4.00: Interdisciplinarity in teaching and learning. C. Brook (Birmingham) and C. Ross (Birmingham) • 4.00-4.30: Tea • 4.30-5.00: Concluding remarks. F. Nereo, G. Pieri, and C. Burdett (SIS and Bristol).

5. Collaborative provision in languages • British Academy, 11 February 2013 • BA, HEA and UCML • The aims: • To reflect on examples of successful collaboration within and beyond languages • To explore possible models to support both teaching and research for the benefit of students and academics in UK university languages departments

7. Key messages: The British Academy commissioned a review of empirical data from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales seeking baseline data on the current demand and supply of language skills in the UK. Key findings from the report include: • There is strong evidence that the UK is suffering from a growing deficit in foreign language skills at a time when globally, the demand for language skills is expanding • The range and nature of languages being taught is insufficient to meet current and future demand • Language skills are needed at all levels in the workforce, and not simply by an internationally-mobile elite • A weak supply of language skills is pushing down demand and creating a vicious circle of monolingualism • Languages spoken by British school children, in addition to English, represent a valuable future source of supply – if these skills can be developed appropriately. These findings present us with cause for both cautious optimism and rising concern. Our diverse demographics and world-class higher education system provide us with the tools to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the future. Yet, too often, education policies are operating in isolation from demand. The report concludes that without action from government, employment and the education sectors, we will be unable to meet our aspirations for growth and global influence.

8. Russian and East European Studies • Applied Languages • Portuguese • Translation and Interpreting • Language-Based Area Studies • Virtual Dutch • Sepnet, collaboration in Physics • Collaborative model project-German • Rosetta Stone Education • Telecollaboration

9. Current teaching in Italian Studies

10. Who teaches what and where? • Italian in some shape is currently taught in 44 universities and institutions in British and Irish Universities • In Britain 37universities offer Italian • Italian is taught as Single Hons or Major in 13 out of 24 Russell Group Universities: Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford, UCL, Warwick

11. Of the remaining 11 Russell Group universities, Italian language and some content modules are offered in 5 institutions: Imperial College London, King’s College London, Liverpool, LSE, Queen Mary. • Other British universities that offer Italian are: Aberystwyth, Bangor, Bath, Essex, Greenwich, Hull, Kent, Lancaster, Leeds Metropolitan, Leicester, Royal Holloway, Manchester Metropolitan, Nottingham Trent, The Open University, Portsmouth, Reading, St Andrews, Salford, Southampton Solent University, Strathclyde, Sussex, Swansea, Wolverhampton, and York.

12. The regional picture SCOTLAND WALES Cardiff University Aberystwyth Bangor Swansea • Edinburgh • Glasgow • St. Andrews • Strathclyde

13. Cardiff • Italian taught since the 1950s • Single and Joint Hons. degree • Italian staff have a wide range of interests, including Renaissance philosophy, twentieth century literature, contemporary cinema and politics. • The study of Dante and contemporary Italian cinema is given especial relevance on the website.

14. Bangor • Joint Hons. Degree • Content courses • Year 1: a choice of courses on European literature, cinema, history, and ideas and idelogies. • Year 2: The making of the Italian Nation (literary and cinematic representations of the Risorgimento) • Year 4: cinema, and postmodern Italian fiction

15. Swansea • Joint Hons. • Modern Italian fiction • Modern Italian theatre (Dario Fo) • Translation • Italian history (especially 20thC)

16. Aberystwyth • Joint. Hons. • Content courses: • Year 1: The Making of Italy; Introduction to Italian literature • Year 2: Fascism and Resistance; History of the Italian Language; Modern Italy; Italian Cinema: Neorealism; Italian Linguistics; Post War Narrative: from Novel to Film. • Year 3: Italian Cinema: Neorealism; Mafia and terrorism in Literature and Cinema; Italian Linguistics.

17. Edinburgh • Single and Joint Hons. Degrees • Content courses: • Medieval and early Modern: Dante’s Comedy, Italian Love Poetry from the Sicilians to the Stil Novo, Baroque; The Hypernovel: from Boccaccio to Manganelli. • Modern and contemporary: Gadda, Calvino, Pasolini and Cannibal Writers, Cities in postwar Italian Literature, Manzoni, Verga, State and Society in Fascist Italy

18. Glasgow • three subjects in first year • two or three subjects in second year (two are usually continued from first year) • up to two subjects at Honours level (third and fourth years). Specialism in one subject results in Single Honours qualification and in two subjects Joint Honours qualification. • the history and literature of the Italian Resistance to Fascism • modern Italian cinema • women and 20th century Italy • the literature of Trieste and the perception of cultural identity • the poetry of Eugenio Montale • 20th century Italian theatre.

19. St. Andrews • Single and Joint Hons. • Courses • Years 1: Contemporary Italian Short Stories; Italian Renaissance Books of Manners; Poverty and Politics in Fascist Italy (Pavese and Visconti’s Ossessione); The Italian Short Story from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century. • Honours modules include: • Italian Detective Fiction • Contemporary Italian Women Writers • Dante Alighieri • Modern Italy through Cinema • Female Literary Representations in the Italian Renaissance • Literary Tranvestism in Italian Literature • Authority and Subversion in Renaissance Italy

20. Strathclyde • Joint Hons. Degree • Year 1: contemporary Italian language, cinema, literature and society. • Year 2: the Renaissance, 20th-century history and politics, 19th- and 20th-century opera, theatre, cinema and literature. • Year 3: the Resistance movement, terrorism, and celebrity culture in the 19th century.

21. Wales Scotland 2 out of 4 institutions offer Dante and Renaissance culture. The only course in the UK on the Italian Baroque. 19th and 20th century Italian culture, including cinema, history (Fascism and the Resistance); postmodern and contemporary narrative. • Only 1 out of 4 institutions offers Dante and Renaissance culture • Strong emphasis on 20th-century Italian culture with cinema, cinematic adaptation, modern and postmodern literature.

22. What next? • England with a focus on regional clusters • Over to you: what data do we need?