Italian Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill

Graduate Studies in Italian

The approximately seventeen Italian graduate programs in North America train primarily college teachers. In recent years, Italian enrollments at the undergraduate level have risen in percentage more than in any other Romance language. According to statistics provided by the Modern Language Association (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2003), Italian enrollment has increased 29.6% since 1998, significantly more than other Romance languages (Portuguese: 21.1%; Spanish: 13.7%; French: 1.5%) and European languages (German: 12.5%; Russian: 0.5%). Consistent with national trends, UNC’s undergraduate program has grown considerably.

UNC’s graduate program in Italian, around since the beginning of the graduate program in Romance Languages and Literatures and associated with the Curriculum of Comparative Literature, has gained national and international visibility and respect.

Italian course offerings for M.A. and Ph.D. students are designed to provide the students with a fundamental understanding of:

At the beginning of their graduate studies, all graduate students (M.A. and Ph.D.) take Italian 706, which provides an introduction to the following:

With the exception of two surveys of Italian literature and culture (Italian 511-512), all courses are organized according to the four criteria laid out above, offering students broad exposure to literary genres, major literary figures, and literary and cultural epochs. Each course is organized like a seminar, with the goal of training students in textual analysis, independent thinking and research, and the writing of research papers. Each Italian faculty member has developed a three-year cycle of graduate courses in their own areas of expertise, covering the three major epochs of Italy’s literary culture: the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern. M.A. students are required to take at least two courses in each of these epochs; Ph.D. students (who advance from Carolina’s M.A. program or who come from another institution) are required to take a third course in each epoch. The Graduate Advisor guides students through selection of all other courses.

More: M.A. in Italian

Ph.D. in Italian

Funded Study in Italy

Graduate students may apply to the Italian Graduate Advisor and be recommended for a teaching position at the Lorenzo de’ Medici School in Florence, where more than two hundred UNC students (with an average GPA of 3.31) are enrolled during the academic year and summer sessions. Graduate students may stay a semester or an academic year, during which time they teach a course and advise undergraduate students. They may also take advantage of their stay in one of Europe’s major cultural centers, by improving their language skills, familiarizing themselves with archival research, and auditing courses at the University of Florence. The period spent in Florence does not count as part of the subsidized support promised by the University.

Library Resources

As of 2005, the UNC-Chapel Hill libraries hold in excess of 5.4 million volumes, 4.8 million microforms, and 20 million manuscripts. Holdings are very extensive in all areas of Italian studies, especially the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Links

Italian Studies
CB 3170, Dey Hall
UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3170
(919) 999-9999
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