"The Greater Danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” -Michelangelo
Dates: Feb 2 – April 30th, 2011
What You Will Learn:
Visiting another country, understanding the culture of other people, comparing our own habits and traditions--these are the joys of traveling. Italian life has been described as art, history, culture, food, and wine. But what do Italians really do? What are Tuscan habits? How do Florentine s enjoy their town, free time, and holidays? This total immersion program in a foreign country with a different language and a different culture will provide the students with the initial shock required to really appreciate multiculturalism in the real world as well as a rapid target language absorption and familiarization with the country's history, culture, and gastronomy.
Academic Courses that students may choose from:
* Italian Language
Each unit, which consists of approximately 6-8 hours will help to develop the students’ skills in understanding and speaking everyday Italian in different common situations.
* Area Studies: Contemporary Italian Society
(This course meets a general history requirement at USF.)
This course will provide an introduction to the cultures and civilization of Italy from a chronological and thematic perspective.
* Political and Economic History of Europe in the 20th Century
This course offers a general survey of the 20th Century History of Europe, with a focus on the major political and economic processes and events.
* Renaissance Art History
(This course meets one fine arts requirement at USF.)
This intensive course introduces students to a broad range of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence focused around the pivotal period of the Renaissance.
* Cross Cultural Psychology
This course will help students gain a better understanding of the ways in which culture and human psyche interact, and to enhance the ability to recognize and evaluate variations in human behavior across cultures and ethnic groups.This course will help students gain a better understanding of the ways in which culture and human psyche interact, and to enhance the ability to recognize and evaluate variations in human behavior across cultures and ethnic groups.
* Italy and Literary Imagination
(This course meets the introduction to literature requirement at USF.)
The course is a survey of Italian prose, fiction, and poetry from the end of the Middle Ages to the early 1990s. Authors have been chosen in order to provide significant examples of the main trends in Italian literature, from realism to modernism to neo-realism and beyond. The course will also introduce students to the socio-historical context in which the different trends rise and develop. The formal solutions and the themes of the literature will therefore be discussed with special emphasis on the peculiarity of Italian cultural history.(Note: This course will be taught by University of St. Francis instructor: Dr. John Bowers, Professor of English, Ph.D. in English Renaissance Literature.)
* Images of St. Francis in Art and Literature
(This course meets one theology requirement at USF.)
In this course we will search for St Francis of Assisi in as rich a historical context as possible, to know him as he was understood by his companions and near contemporaries. In addition to examination of written texts, we shall devote a significant part of the seminar’s work to a study of early visual images of St Francis. Since the seminar meets in Italy, we can do much of this in museums and churches.
(Note: This course will be taught by University of St. Francis instructor: Dr. John Bowers, Professor of English, Ph.D. in English Renaissance Literature.)
