The Boston College Department of Romance Languages and Literatures invites qualified students to apply for the Master of Arts program in Italian Studies. The department is committed to the professional formation of students, who graduate with broad experience in textual and cultural analysis, including a strong component of visual literacy and film as well as pedagogical training and practice. Our courses focus on the analysis of specific authors and themes, while seeking an interdisciplinary approach to literary studies. They range from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, from Romanticism to the Twentieth-First century, and include seminars on Italian Cinema, art and pedagogy. We expect an incoming class of 5-6 students, and maintain a low student-faculty ratio that allows individualized attention for each student.

All graduate students are supported by Teaching Fellowships with full tuition remission and a stipend. Summer research scholarships are available on a competitive basis. 

While attending graduate seminars, our Master’s students teach undergraduate language courses and participate in departmental activities. They are encouraged to contribute to the organization of an annual graduate conference in collaboration with other Romance Languages and Literature MA candidates. The 2016 conference,“Language is Never Innocent. Roland Barthes at Boston College,” featured Professor Jonathan Culler of Cornell University as the keynote speaker, as well as students and scholars from a number of colleges and universities nationwide. Our candidates also have the opportunity to join the editorial board of Romance eReview, a peer-reviewed online graduate journal, where they oversee all editorial aspects of an academic journal, publish their work and practice their editing skills.

Boston is a cosmopolitan city enriched by over forty universities and colleges as well as several institutions of Italian culture. In the second year of study, Masters candidates at Boston College may enroll in courses offerings at a consortium of local universities including Boston University, Tufts University and Brandeis University. 

In the past several years, Masters candidates from Boston College have accepted prestigious doctoral fellowships at University of California-Berkeley, Yale, New York University, Johns Hopkins and The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, among others. Those students who have chosen secondary teaching as a career have positions in some of the best public schools in the area.

 

The program welcomes American, Italian, and other international applicants, and seeks a balance of native and non-native speakers. Most courses are taught in Italian. Applicants must have a firm command of the Italian language. A Bachelor’s degree with a major in Italian is preferred but not required. 

 

The deadline for all M.A. applicants is February 1, 2017. For more information: 

http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/romlang/gradprog.html or contact Laurie Shepard, Graduate Program Director [shepardl@bc.edu]

 

Cordially, 

 

Franco Mormando, Professor of Italian

Laurie Shepard, Associate Professor of Italian, Chair of the Italian Section

Brian O’Connor, Assistant Professor of the Practice & Coordinator of Italian Language Instruction

Mattia Acetoso, Assistant Professor of Italian

 

ITALIAN GRADUATE COURSE OFFERINGS

1200-1500

 

• Dante’s Divine Comedy in Translation
• Lyric Poetry from Giacomo da Lentini to Petrarca
• Boccaccio and the Comedy of Renaissance Italy
• Fifteenth-Century Florence: The Humanists

 

 

1500-1800

 

• Challenging Authority: Ariosto, Machiavelli and Aretino
• Courting Power: Castiglione and Machiavelli  
• Tasso and His World
• The Plague in Italy: From Boccaccio to Manzoni
• Bernini and the Baroque
• Michelangelo and His World 

 

1800-2000s

 

• Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi
•  To the Moon: A Portrait of Italian Romanticism
• Heroism, Tragedy and Romance in Romantic Italy
• The Cultural Production of Fascism
• Contemporary Italian Storytellers
• Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry
• Italian Auteurist Cinema / Introduction to Italian Film
• The Feminine Gaze
• An Author in the Spotlight: from Dario Fo to Marco Paolini
• Italian Eco-criticism / Literature and Sustainability    

Mattia Acetoso