Global Arc

"Will we have a machine capable of replacing the poet and the author?" asked Italo Calvino in 1967, hopeful that computers would write "the literature." In 1962 poet Nanni Balestrini instructed a computer to write a poem eager to hear "the voice of the machine." Rough novels and 200,000 non-fiction books have already been written through algorithms and a literary novel is expected soon. Can we instruct a computer to write a novel? Should we use an algorithm or machine learning? Students will create with their own writing experiment analyzing the "Wiki" tradition of collective writing, the Bible, Homer up to the bizarre Slender Man saga.

This seminar approaches the two most studied phases of Italian history, the Renaissance and the 20th Century, by placing otherness at the center of the picture rather than at its margins. We will look at pivotal events and phenomena (the rise of Humanism, the rise of fascism, courtly culture, the two World Wars, 16th century art, the avant-garde) from the point of view of non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual witnesses, authors, and fictional characters. We will adopt a trans-historical, intersectional, and interdisciplinary perspective: themes will be analyzed at the crossing of the two historical phases and of the three topics in exam.

Investigation of a major theme or author, with special attention to formal structures and intellectual context. Topics may range from the medieval chivalric tradition in such Renaissance masterpieces as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso to a reading of the writings of Primo Levi as these examine the issue of the annihilation of the personality. Prerequisite: a 200-level course in Italian or instructor's permission.