Wednesday, July 16: Constructing Identity: Portuguese and Judeo-Spanish in Jewish Venice
This talk is apart of a panel with multiple speakers.

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Ladino Texts in Latin American Genres: Language Revival and National Identity in Contemporary Argentina

In the Primer Simposio de Estudios Sefardíes held in Madrid in 1964, León S. Pérez claimed that Latin America was the ideal place for the creation of an “area of secondary Sephardization.” He came to this conclusion in large part because most of Latin America, after all, speaks Spanish. Pérez argued that Latin America provides linguistic and cultural conditions which encourage the “process of creating a Sephardic cultural type.” This vision of a new Sephardic type, the product of the encounter among Ashkenazim, Sepharadim, and the many cultures that are the foundation of Hispanic Latin America, announces the possibility of a new Sephardic cultural production, including a new Sephardic literature.

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Italy Through French Eyes

Italy has for several centuries been the objet of admiration and source of inspiration for novels, essays, poems and paintings by French artists. French Renaissance offers the poems of Joachim du Bellay singing the ruins of Rome in his Antiquities. Still in the 16th century, Michel de Montaigne writes essayistic reflections on Italian customs, languages and political organization, adding attentive remarks about the women he sees in the cities he visits. The 19th century is especially prolific. In an exoticizing move, in an era in which the French cast their gaze in the Orient, French artists look at Italy as a mysterious and attractive land to be conquered by their pen and their brush. Like Jerusalem, Cyprus and other somewhat mystical and Eastern destinations, cities such as Rome, Florence, Naples and Venice enter the circuit of great journeys which are recorded in copious journals and letters.

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Pinocchio’s Travels and Transformations - Course Syllabus

This course is centered on the reading of Tuscan writer Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, an expression of Italian character, and perhaps the most popular work of Italian literature. The attentive reading of both the text and the illustrations of this classic work will frame our exploration of universal themes as well as Italian literary, linguistic, and political history. We will revisit sources that might have inspired Collodi, such as Boccaccio, Dante, Ariosto, Commedia dell’Arte, Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. We will read the text in a bilingual version, so as to have a chance to perceive its subtleties and linguistic sophistication.

Syllabus