Program Requirements

  • Total Units Required: 27 (24 for second majors); of these units, 3 may be taken outside of Italian with the approval of the major advisor.
  • Grade Requirement: Students must complete courses taken for the major with a grade of B– or higher and are expected to maintain a B average or better in all Italian courses. Courses taken Pass/No Pass do not count toward the Italian major.

Required Courses

  • Students are required to complete one of the following courses (3 units):

ITAL 3070Advanced Italian in the Everyday World3
ITAL 3090Transmedia Italian Culture: Stories, Interpretation, Performance3

  • Students are required to complete one of the following courses (3 units):

ITAL 3230Italian Literature 1: Genre and Gender in Italy, 1200-16003
ITAL 3240Italian Literature II: The Making of Modern Italy, Texts and Contexts3
ITAL 3270History of the Italian Language3

  •  Students are required to complete two of the following 4000-level seminars (6 units):

ITAL 4080Disease, Madness, and Death Italian Style3
ITAL 4100Mamma Mia! Motherhood, Maternity, & the Female Reproductive Body in the Italian Cultural Context3
ITAL 4280The New Sicilian School3
ITAL 4300Divergent Voices: Italian Women Writers3
ITAL 4370Caffe, Cadavers, Comedy, and Castrati: Italy in the Age of the Grand Tour3
ITAL 4420Literature and Fascism3
ITAL 4620Prose Writers of the Sixteenth Century3
ITAL 4730Machiavelli and Guicciardini3
ITAL 4810Dante3
ITAL 4830Boccaccio: Decameron3
ITAL 4850Ariosto: Orlando Furioso3
ITAL 4910Postmodernism3
ITAL 4920The Italian Detective Novel3
  • Students may count one of the following courses as an elective:
ITAL 1100First-Year Seminar: Italy's Invention of the Modern Museum3
ITAL 1101First-Year Seminar: Italian Literary Culture: Identity, Subjectivity, Audience3
ITAL 1102Refracted Light: How Others View Italy3
ITAL 2800Sex in Italian Culture and Media3
ITAL 2900The Culture of Food in Italy3
ITAL 2910A Taste of Italy: Food and Culture3

  • Students may count ITAL 2010 Intermediate Italian in the Everyday World, Level III, which is a prerequisite for ITAL 3230 Italian Literature 1: Genre and Gender in Italy, 1200-1600 and ITAL 3240 Italian Literature II: The Making of Modern Italy, Texts and Contexts, toward the major as an elective as well.

Additional Information

For more information about the program and language study in general, Washington University Arts & Sciences has produced a video called "Falling in Love With Another Language and Culture."

Study Abroad

Students are strongly encouraged to participate in a study abroad program. We offer a semester abroad in Bologna through Bologna Consortial Studies Program (BCSP) and IES Rome Summer Language & Culture Program in Rome. These programs are considered in residence.

Transfer Credits

A minimum of 18 of the 27 units required for the major must be taken in residence. Courses not taken at Washington University may count toward the major only with departmental permission.

Senior Honors

Students are encouraged to work toward Latin honors (cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude). To qualify for Latin honors in the major by thesis, a student must complete special literary research and prepare and orally defend an honors thesis, which is judged by an honors faculty committee. To qualify for Latin honors by coursework, a student must enroll in ITAL 4952 Honors (fall of the senior year) and ITAL 4950 Senior Honors (spring of the senior year). Recommendations for honors are based on performance and the quality of the thesis in addition to the student's cumulative grade point average. (Please refer to the departmental guidelines for more information about Latin honors.)

Visit the Romance Languages and Literatures page
for additional information about this program.

Contact Info

Phone:314-935-5175
Email:rll@wustl.edu
Website:http://rll.wustl.edu