Italian American Literature

Italian American Literature surveys fiction, poetry, and drama throughout the history of Italian Americans in the United States beginning in the first half of the twentieth century and continuing into contemporary America. This literature will be considered in the context of recurring themes in the artistically framed experiences of Italian Americans beginning in the first half of the twentieth century and continuing into contemporary America: cultural-national identity conflict, anti- colonization by church and state, religion, gender relations, generational differences and relations, class conflict, for example, working class vs. the bourgeois, or working class immigrant and sons and daughters vs. the dominant American culture, the problem of education in early Italian American history, the dilemma of cultural and linguistic loss, intercultural conflict, intra-cultural conflict, family values, oppression, social dysfunction, and assimilation.

Fall, Spring

013558