Module ITAL3081: ITALIAN LAUGHTER: LITERARY HUMOUR, COMEDY AND SATIRE

Department: Modern Language and Cultures (Italian)

ITAL3081: ITALIAN LAUGHTER: LITERARY HUMOUR, COMEDY AND SATIRE

Prerequisites

• Italian Language 2B (ITAL2031) or Italian Language 2A (ITAL2111)

Corequisites

• Italian Language 4 (ITAL3021) OR Italian Language 4 following Year Abroad (Ital3091).

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To familiarise the students with definitions and understandings of humour, irony, satire, and comedy with special reference to contemporary Italian Literature.
• To enable students to discriminatet between styles, registers, and modes.
• To navigate through 20th century and 21st century Italian literature in order to recognise the social and political uses of irony, humour, satire and comedy.
• To help the students to construct a framework for understanding which different stimuli create laughter, through which the students will be introduced to examples of wit, pun, parody, sattire in Italian language.
• To gain an understanding of the critical tools necessary to understand when laughter is culturally specific and when it transfers across cultures.

Content

• Topic 1. (a) Introduction to the Italian Laughter module: aims, teaching and learning methods and definitions, (b) Definitions of terms, genres, issues.
• Topic 2. (a) Comedy as genre, (b) Modes of early twentieth century wit.
• Topic 3. (a) Pre-war humour, (b) Post-war humour.
• Topic 4. (a) "ll Caffe" di Giovan Battista Vicari, (b) L'accademia degli Informi.
• Topic 5. Potential Literature: from Oulipo to Calvino to Oplepo.
• Topic 6. (a) Satire as a genre, (b) Popular satire, (c) Satire of sacred and profane subjects.
• Topic 7. (a) Parody, (b) Political Satire.
• Topic 8. (b) Female humorists, (a) Humour and social reform.
• Topic 9. (a)National cultures of laughter, (b) Nonsense and alternative humour.

Learning Outcomes

• To develop an understanding of the concepts of irony, laughter and comedy in Italian culture, and of the ways in which they have changed through the 20th century and are evolving in the 21st century.

• Students studying this module will develop an ability:
• to demonstrate an understanding of selected Italian texts, their conventions, language and style in relation to literature of laughter;
• to engage in independent research in Italian literature;
• to study materials in Italian, conducting bibliographical research of Italian sources, and critical analysis of Italian texts;
• To assess, judge and comment on critical approaches dealing with lietery forms connected to laughter;
• to be critically aware of the interrelationships of texts, genres, literary traditions and cultural contexts.

• Identify, analyse and explain complex definitions of literary genres, of humour and of irony, orally and in writing.
• Identify, define and carry out critical appreciation of written texts to specific requirements and to a deadline.
• Evaluate validity of information orally an din writing.
• Work independently to complete, to a deadline, accurate written texts and a report on a project.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures enables students to familiarise with definitions of "irony", "humour", "comedy" through the ways in which Italian authors have interpreted them in their texts, thus establishing a theoretical framework in which the students are enabled to work on new texts, texts they have read, texts that they discover. In order to transmit and magnify the messages of the literary tests studies, additional visual materials (including paintings, posters, videos, TV sketches, and other multimedia) may be selected and used.
• Lectures defining key notions will be taught primarily in English, so as to contribute to creating the foundations of the students' knowledge; the texts adopted in preparation of the lectures will be all in Italian so as to strengthen the students; competence in the foreign language before they engage with original primary sources.
• Seminars will provide for a discussion of texts and the seminar presentations will be in Italian, so as to increase the students; familiarity with the source langauage in use and improve their communicative skills related to reporting on independent research, analysing texts, and completing a specific task within a deadline.
• Seminar preparation will rely on a weekly programme of readings encouraging students to practice their reading skills in Italian, as well as to imporove their research skills to deal with new authors and texts independently. Seminars will improve students' skills of analysis, argumentation, and presentation to an audience.
• Students will work on an essay project as soon as the definitions of genre have been completed. Students will be given the freedom to explore new texts and authors, or conduct additional analysis of texts provided during the lectures. Under the tutor's guidance, the students will work on texts that they select, thus developing their own research skills and ability to substantiate an argument with appropriate study and preparation. Establishing independent solutions to questions of definitions in relation to the distance between Italian culture and other cultures they are familiar with will enhance the students; ability to compare and contrast cultural differences, and to develop their critical skills by reviewing regularly the work they have prepared over the course of the module.
• Feedback on presentation will be given orally to each group presenting in the seminar, and individually on a feedback form submitted on DUO will allow students to review their work and ponder alternative solutions, rework their selection of topics, and progress further in their overall learning process.
• The differentation of types of assessment and their weighting allow students to be tutored and monitored regularly in their learning process.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Oral presentation during seminars will be followed by written feedback in tabular form providing guidance towards improving argumentative structure so as to support and correct common mistakes in essay writing.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University