Program Description |
Welcome to Italian studies at Rice University
The Italian Language and
Culture Program in the Center
for the Study of
Languages (CSL) at Rice University is a
three-year curriculum. Italian courses at Rice are offered
through the CSL
at the elementary, intermediate and advanced levels, and are designed
to
cover a variety of topics — students at all levels are exposed to early
modern and modern Italian civilization through literature, music
(including live performance), and film.
The Italian Language and
Culture Program aims to integrate its course offerings with a
number of academic disciplines elsewhere in the university - e.g.,
music, classical studies, history,
architecture,
art
history, and English.
(A more detailed account of university course offerings related to Italy
and Italian culture is being prepared. The previous links can be
helpful in the interim.) The Italian Language and Culture Program
receives the strong support of Rice University's Language Resource Center. Additional
technology support is provided by the Digital Media Center.
As
a leading research university with a strong commitment to
education in the humanistic core disciplines of foreign language and
literary studies, Rice employs two full-time Italianists among its
Romance language scholars and language teachers (in addition to many
faculty with Italianist interests in other university departments and
centers). Edward M.
Anderson, PhD is an early modernist scholar who has worked over the last
three
years to integrate Italian studies at Rice with the activities of
Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and other university programs. Ryan C. Calabretta-Sajder, DML cand.,
joins the faculty in 2009-2010 and brings to Rice a special interest in
modern culture, especially film.
The
Consulate General of Italy in Houston
has played an important
role in the development of the Italian Language and Culture
Program
at Rice, through fundraising, scholarship assistance, and participation
in cultural initiatives. With thanks especially to Hon. Consul General
Cristiano Maggipinto's involvement, new scholarship funding
for Rice
students has been made available. In the Fall of 2008, the Consulate
General of Italy in Houston
and the Isitituto Italiano di Cultura in Los Angeles
collaborated with Rice's Shepherd
School of Music, the Center for the Study of
Languages, the Dean of Humanities, the Department of Classical Studies,
and the Poetry
and Poetics Workshop of the Humanities Resource Center
to present the
American premiere of an important contemporary musical work (Stabat mater) by
the Italian composer Matteo
D'Amico of Rome's celebrated musical insitution, the
Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Other links have been established with the Italian Cultural
& Community Center in Houston
(ICCC) to strengthen relationships between Rice University and
Houston's vibrant Italian community. The ICCC is in the heart of
Houston's
Museum District near Rice University, and serves as an
excellent resource for Rice University students and faculty in Italian
Studies. This and similar links are made in specific response
to
the final point of Rice University President David Leebron's Vision
for the Second Century (V2C).
Two scholarships
have been offered through the Center for the Study of Languages to
students of
Italian by the DONNE DI DOMANI and by Ugo di Portanova through the
PREMIO LETTERARIO DI PORTANOVA.
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