CAPA International Education

The course provides a formative program and it is designed for students with no prior experience of Italian Language. The teacher will explain the fundamental knowledge of grammar, phonetics, morphology and syntax using a functional-situational approach (to learn a rule beginning from its location in a text or context). A part of the lesson will be dedicated to real situation exercises, grammar drills, consolidation of the material, deepening of concepts through readings, conversations, role games and listening exercises (through the listening of music and videos among others) to correct pronunciation.

The object of this class is to develop students' skills in understanding and speaking everyday Italian in different common situations, giving the students all the instruments to speak, understand, write, and read simple Italian, especially in practical situations. Authentic materials, such as ads, brochures, videos, songs, magazine articles, films and a short book are used extensively to expose students to contemporary Italian language and culture. Listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills are integrated into all activities.

This is an intermediate proficiency based course designed for students who have already taken Italian 1 and 2 (1 year of Italian). It is divided into units, which consist of approximately 6-8 hours, aimed at refining previously acquired linguistic skills and at the analyses of the usage of new grammar structures. The object of this course is to develop students' skills in understanding and speaking everyday Italian in different common situations providing them with all the required linguistic skills to speak, understand, write, and read simple Italian, especially in practical situations. The approach adopted relates to the general view of language use and learning provided by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment and it is an "action-oriented" approach insofar as it views language learners primarily as members of society interacting and accomplishing their tasks in a given set of circumstances and environments.

This is a course designed for students who have already taken Italian level 1, 2 and 3 so that are already in possession of some elementary notions of the Italian language. In the course will be covered the following: pronunciation, grammar and communicative functions, vocabulary. The object of this class is to develop students' skills in understanding and speaking Italian language in different situations giving to the students all the instruments to speak, understand, write, and read Italian. Authentic materials, such as ads, brochures, videos, songs, magazine articles, films and a short book are used extensively to expose students to contemporary Italian language and culture. Listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills are integrated into all activities.

A studio arts drawing course for beginning and intermediate students that explores an essential aspect of artistic self-expression and the techniques necessary to learn to draw what you see. The course will examine Florentine artists' drawing techniques that raised the level of this medium during the Renaissance period from preliminary studies to that of true works of art. Visual perception is a way of seeing that differs from our typical way of seeing. The objective is that of teaching students how to transmit what they see, an artistic perception which will permit them to explore their personal mode of expression. The course will concentrate upon the component parts of drawing, the necessary aspects self-awareness and general creativity, learning to draw what is out there and self expression.

An introductory studio course for beginning and intermediate students aimed at exposing individuals to this particular painting technique. Studio work concentrates on building strong perceptual and compositional skills, the use of color and various techniques that are characteristic of this painting method enriched by the exploration of Florentine subject matter. The final objective is the creation of a unique, visual journal of one’s personal experience in this marvellous Italian city.
Note: The course will be modified to meet the needs of students on an advanced level of study.

Figurative sculpture is a basic studio course designed for beginners and intermediate students. It explores the skills and techniques necessary to approach clay modelling. Students are invited to take advantage of class activities as much as possible since it is through constant commitment and exercise that they will achieve the technical mastery of the medium. At the same time, it is necessary for students to acquire a certain theoretical awareness. Stimuli provided by projections, workshop and site visits to the most important sculptures in Florence are integral to the course. Students will visit these works during the week. Students will have a sketchbook in order to document at least one work per visit.

Investigate concepts of color, form, line, composition, volume, space, and the use of oil paint as a medium. Beginning or intermediate levels accepted. This course is structured to introduce oil painting starting from the basic techniques and introducing new approaches and ideas. Students should take advantage of “open studio hours” to complete their assignments. At the beginning of each new topic and project students will be asked to list the techniques acquired in the previous lessons before moving on to a new exercise. Students will be expected to complete at least 4 paintings to successfully complete the course in addition to completing the weekly assignments.

The course will introduce students to digital photography with a focus on documentary photography and photojournalism. The program is geared to both beginners and students with some experience. Students will gain overall knowledge of photography as a visual medium, achieve a good technical and creative control of the photographic technique, begin to know how to communicate through images, delivering visual information as well as creating a picture story. They will also become acquainted with the history of photography as an art medium, with an emphasis on the work of the masters of photography such as W.E. Smith, R. Capa, R. Frank, S. Salgado. Students will end the semester with a portfolio of color prints to take back home as a record of the work done.

This course examines and assesses international economy and business in a global sense, using European case studies. It starts with a wide comparison between the first and the second periods of globalization, as it developed at the end of XIX° century, and examines how in the present day it is considered as the “prevalent economic system”, even though this is debated by people of all continents. The importance of the Bretton Woods system will be clearly underlined in order to understand the events of the second part of the XX° century. The creation of the international economic institutions – International Monetary Fund, World Bank and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and others – constitutes a pillar on which the development of the international economy is largely based in a context in which protectionism is banned. The role of international trade in the global era has never declined; free trade and market economy are still representing the most relevant economic orientation at an international scale. During the ‘80s the international framework was changing, due to the progressive decline and consequential death of Fordism, and the uprising new industrial processes. International finance was influenced by the development of the information technology revolution, the global economy after “September 11th” has changed its shape, but it was never interrupted, according to the most persuasive opinions of major economists. The course will also approach the current financial global crisis.

This course introduces students to painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence in the Renaissance. Beginning with the great projects of the Middle Ages that defined the religious and political centers of the city, attention focuses on major monuments of the Renaissance. Discussion will center on how works of art were made, their style, and how they communicate intellectual meaning. Sub-themes that intersect with the most recent research in the field of art history are interwoven into each class period. Topics for discussion include the cross-cultural fertilization of artistic ideas, how women, the poor, and children were depicted in Renaissance art, conflicting ideas regarding patronage, and how works of art construct religious, political, gender, and class identities. This course analyzes the interrelationship between people’s creative achievements and their society. In other words, students must understand a work of art in the social, artistic, and historical context of medieval and renaissance Florence.

The course will introduce students to a number of the most significant 20th century Italian novels dealing with the rhetoric of self-expression, the role of tradition in the construction of a sense of self, the psychology of identity, individual and collective memory, remembrance and memorialization. As this is a clearly thematic approach, focus will be placed on the most prominent narrative devices employed to bring out these issues in what can be certainly described as life-writing, but that in this period tends to cluster around the feeling of alienation from middle-class values and society (Pirandello’s The Late Mattia Pascal, Svevo’s Zeno’s Conscience), and the Italian memorialization of the catastrophe of World War II (Calvino’s The Path to the Spiders’ Nest, Levi’s Surviving Auschwitz). Therefore, the first lessons of the course will be devoted to a survey of the main tenets of narratological theory and to the pivotal questions debated in autobiographical studies. Students will be provided with the basic operational tools to help them recognize how identity is questioned and constructed in Svevo’s and Pirandello’s works, and how individual and collective memory of the horrors of war are expressed in Calvino’s and Levi’s choral narratives. Special emphasis will be placed on the crucial distinction between possessive and relational self, and its consequence for literary practice. Students will learn to practice a close narratological reading of the texts, and will be encouraged to form their own critical opinion on the writings analyzed for their oral presentations

The course will introduce students to the history of Italian Literature, focusing on great masterpieces (in English translation) from the 14th to the 16th century. A multidisciplinary approach, dealing with social, political, historical and philosophical implications will provide further understanding by placing literary works in a comprehensive cultural context. Special emphasis will be placed on the impact of Italian literature in European culture in pre-modern age, stressing the broad influence of Dante's Comedy, Boccaccio's Decameron and Ariosto's Orlando Enraged. Students will be provided with the basic operational tools to help them recognize different literary genres and understand why certain forms of artistic expression are peculiar to certain ages, at times to the exclusion of others. Literary issues such as the great divide between high and low literature, the question of language, the relation between classical, Christian and chivalric epics, the concept of originality in the Middle Ages, the circulation of books and the development of a reading public will be thoroughly investigated. Students will be able to follow the formation and the evolution of the mainstream literary tradition, and appreciate the innovative charge, both in form and content, of the works selected. They will also learn to practice a close reading of the texts, and will be encouraged to form their own critical opinion on the writings analyzed for their oral presentations. The first lessons will be devoted to a general overview of the 13th and the 14th centuries both from a historical and a more specifically literary perspective. Then the focus will shift onto the role of Dante in shaping the vernacular literature as a means to bridge the gap between academic and popular culture, to Boccaccio’s ground-breaking work in restyling storytelling into an art of conversation and therefore a collective enterprise, and finally to Ariosto’s humorous contemplation of human vanity and foolishness. Each lecture introducing a new author will be preceded by a brief outline of his life and literary output, and will then proceed with the description and analysis of his major work.

The course is conceived as a survey of Italian from antiquity to the sixteenth century. Students will be introduced to the transformations that occurred in Italy and Europe, from the end of the Roman Empire to the “melting pot” period preceding the Age of Italian communes. We will examine the works of art from a variety of perspectives. While we will look at the works in terms of their aesthetic and stylistic qualities, we will also pay special attention to issues of social, political and economic context, as well as to function, which was integral to artistic production of the period. As the works we will study are often still in their original physical settings, we will also have a unique opportunity to experience the works as their original viewers did and as their creators intended. Throughout the semester we will be specifically focusing on the sociological and philosophical values of the image in Western society, starting with Byzantine icons and ending with the late Renaissance. To take full advantage of the opportunities available for the study of art in Florence, many of our classes will be held in museums, churches, and piazzas throughout the city. The underlining objective of this course is to analyze the interrelationship between people’s creative achievements and their society.

The first unit of the course introduces students to a broad range of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence during the Renaissance. Discussion centers on how works of art were made, their style, and how they communicate intellectual meaning.  To take full advantage of the opportunities available for the study of art in Florence, many classes are held in museums, churches, and piazzas.  Florence is our classroom. The second unit of the course traces the trajectory of the history of art from the Baroque to the early years of the twentieth-century avant-gardes. Sections include discussions of the Neoclassical, Macchiaioli, and Futurist movements in Florence and Italy.

The objective of this course is to give students the opportunity to comprehend contemporary Italian society through the screen images that Italian filmmakers have presented of the cultural, political and working environment they live in. Using a multidisciplinary approach for history, film theory, and social contextualization, this course will explore how contemporary Italian cinema has followed, mirrored, and sometimes even anticipated cultural and social transformations in Italian society. Up to twenty Italian films released between the late '90s to the present will be examined from the point of view of 20th and 21st Century Italian social, political, and cultural history in order to understand the various social and ethical concerns exemplified by the movies.

This course presents a survey of contemporary Italy from an anthropological perspective, which is to say with a systematic and informed focus on the role of culture in contemporary Italian society. For anthropology, culture is the concept which describes the networks of shared meanings and values that underlie social practices and create distinct group identities. With this in mind, the course examines the operation of such universal cultural features as identity, social and political organization, gender, and religion in contemporary Italy, as well as considering local issues of healthcare, immigration and internal migration, and Italian and Florentine "cultural heritage." The course requires an ethnographic engagement with Florentine society, which provides an opportunity to recognize and apply anthropological concepts in a practical fashion outside of the classroom. Although this course will be conducted principally in English for reasons of comprehension, the instructor will incorporate Italian and Italian cultural resources as much as possible in order to give students maximum exposure to the Italian language.

This course offers a general survey of the History of Europe in the twentieth century, focusing on major political and economic processes and events. It also considers the correlated national and international environments. It will shed light on the way in which European development influenced the national and international contexts and, inversely, document how national and international factors conditioned European dynamics. The analysis highlights the dynamics of European history from a world-scale perspective. The beginning of the twentieth century marked the crisis of empires and colonial powers. A second significant shift occurred after the Second World War with the emergence of a bi-polar world order, and the subsequent division of power between the USA and USSR. The third was registered in 1989-91, when, with the fall of the Soviet bloc, conditions for an American hegemony were eventually created (a mono-polar order was established). Attempts are now under way to open avenues to a functional global order.

The Learning Through Internships Program is an educational experience that enables students to apply classroom learning to the workplace and social environment of the host culture, to expand professional skills and earn academic credit. The Focus Seminars and Regional Identities lectures & activities which make up an important part of Learning through Internships are designed to provide theory & practice around societal themes which inform and enrich the internship experience. Themes that will be examined in the light of Italy’s society and the workplace are Leadership; Communication; Gender; Media, Law, and Politics; Multiculturalism; and Social Justice and Urban Challenges.

Florence is a global heritage city: millions of people every day crowd into its small streets admiring the ancient buildings and its artistic heritage, which creates revenue as well as issues. For this reason, contemporary Florence and its inhabitants are less well-known by visitors. Florence today has an ethnically diverse population with complex socio-cultural dynamics that shape the identity of this fascinating city. Although migration to the city has intensified over the last few decades, ‘multiculturalism’ is not a recent phenomenon: over the centuries the city has celebrated diversity, with different ethnic groups, different nationalities and various religious groups who have contributed to Florence’s social and cultural wealth. Even the briefest of walks can unveil this wealth to the eyes of the attentive observer – and it is precisely this ‘below the surface’ understanding that this course provides. Florence is, and always has been, a ‘global’ city.

We will analyze the complex dynamics that shape the identity of Florence by applying a critical perspective to the notion of globalization and by analyzing the socio-cultural forces at play both historically and presently. Students will learn to analyze the cultural variety present in the city, examining which ethnic communities live in Florence today, and gaining insight into their lives through scholarly sources and direct observation. Throughout the course we will discuss the relativity of cultural values; we will analyze how multicultural aspects of Florence’s identity have been discursively constructed and by which social actors; we will review which policies the local and national administration have put into effect to deal with these issues.
 

The course provides a formative program of 45 hours and it is designed for students with no prior experience of Italian Language. The teacher will explain the fundamental knowledge of grammar, phonetics, morphology and syntax using a functional- situational approach (to learn a rule beginning from its location in a text or context). A part of the lesson will be dedicated to real situation exercises, grammar drills, consolidation of the material, deepening of concepts through readings, conversations, role games and listening exercises (through the listening of music and videos among others) to correct pronunciation.

The course provides a formative program of 45 hours and it is designed for students who have already taken at least a semester of Italian. It is divided into units, which consist of 7 weekly hours, aimed at refining previously acquired linguistic skills and at the analyses of the usage of new grammar structures.

A studio arts drawing course for beginning and intermediate students that explores an essential aspect of artistic self-expression and the techniques necessary to learn to draw what you see. The course will examine Florentine artists' drawing techniques that raised the level of this medium during the Renaissance period from preliminary studies to that of true works of art. Visual perception is a way of seeing that differs from our typical way of seeing. The objective is that of teaching students how to transmit what they see, an artistic perception which will permit them to explore their personal mode of expression. The course will concentrate upon the component parts of drawing, the necessary aspects self-awareness and general creativity, learning to draw what is out there and self expression.

This course examines and assesses international economy and business in a global sense, using European case studies. It starts with a wide comparison between the first and the second periods of globalization, as it developed at the end of XIX° century, and examines how in the present day it is considered as the “prevalent economic system”, even though this is debated by people of all continents. The importance of the Bretton Woods system will be clearly underlined in order to understand the events of the second part of the XX° century. The creation of the international economic institutions – International Monetary Fund, World Bank and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and others – constitutes a pillar on which the development of the international economy is largely based in a context in which protectionism is banned. The role of international trade in the global era has never declined; free trade and market economy are still representing the most relevant economic orientation at an international scale. During the ‘80s the international framework was changing, due to the progressive decline and consequential death of Fordism, and the uprising new industrial processes. International finance was influenced by the development of the information technology revolution, the global economy after “September 11th” has changed its shape, but it was never interrupted, according to the most persuasive opinions of major economists. The course will also approach the current financial global crisis.

This course introduces students to painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence in the Renaissance. Beginning with the great projects of the Middle Ages that defined the religious and political centers of the city, attention focuses on major monuments of the Renaissance. Discussion will center on how works of art were made, their style, and how they communicate intellectual meaning. Sub-themes that intersect with the most recent research in the field of art history are interwoven into each class period. Topics for discussion include the cross-cultural fertilization of artistic ideas, how women, the poor, and children were depicted in Renaissance art, conflicting ideas regarding patronage, and how works of art construct religious, political, gender, and class identities. This course analyzes the interrelationship between people’s creative achievements and their society. In other words, students must understand a work of art in the social, artistic, and historical context of medieval and renaissance Florence.

This course is a creative writing workshop designed to explore the experience of traveling and living abroad in Florence in both verse and prose. Along with the workshop we will also read and discuss texts that focus on Italy in general and Florence specifically from both the native and foreign perspectives, noting particularly the literary techniques and strategies that various writers have used to verbally map out the territory of the city and to express their own place and experiences within its walls. The texts will provide us with a forum for discussing each author’s relationship to and the literary expression of place. The texts will also provide us with models for weekly writing exercises.     I believe that we can use our unique position as sojourners abroad to begin to chart our own internal and imaginative landscapes. Our ultimate goal will be to produce a finalized, substantial text—or series of short texts—suitable for performance and/or publication in the literary world beyond this class.

This course presents a survey of contemporary Italy from an anthropological perspective, which is to say with a systematic and informed focus on the role of culture in contemporary Italian society. For anthropology, culture is the concept which describes the networks of shared meanings and values that underlie social practices and create distinct group identities. With this in mind, the course examines the operation of such universal cultural features as identity, social and political organization, gender, and religion in contemporary Italy, as well as considering local issues of healthcare, immigration and internal migration, and Italian and Florentine "cultural heritage." The course requires an ethnographic engagement with Florentine society, which provides an opportunity to recognize and apply anthropological concepts in a practical fashion outside of the classroom. Although this course will be conducted principally in English for reasons of comprehension, the instructor will incorporate Italian and Italian cultural resources as much as possible in order to give students maximum exposure to the Italian language.