Cultural studies
Courses
45 hours, 3 credits
Prof. Davide De Gennaro
The course presents concepts of tourism relating to food and geography, using Italy as its example. The course is relevant to students of all backgrounds but was designed specifically for students studying hospitality, business, and culinary arts. Students will study international organizations operating in tourism (i.e. WTO) and the different types of tourism with particular attention paid to sustainable tourism.
Students will be asked to investigate the tourism geography of Italy, becoming familiar with the most important tourist sites in Italy and Campania through several excursions. The third module of the course will be dedicated to a very important kind of tourism in Italy and the Campania region: Food and Wine Tourism.
HIST 350/IS 305 History and Culture of Italian Food
45 hours, 3 credits
Course Description
The course examines the history of food from a variety of points of view. Food is not just nourishment; food is part of mankind and its evolution. Without food, history could not be possible. Food is like a book: it tells us who we are and where we are from, and it describes our habits, religion, and traditions. The course aims to explain how food has influenced history, including religious prescriptions, class identity, borders, and drawing the line between the rich and the poor. History of Food will attempt to explain how nourishment has changed throughout the ages, how we have shifted from the “symposium” to McDonald’s, and how, still today, food is a strong element of identity.
HIST 350 Special Topics: Cultural Dialogues: Italy and United States
45 hours, 3 credits
Course Description
This course surveys cultural relations between Italy and the United States from the end on 19th century to the present. Rather than just comparing historical events we will place them in juxtaposition focusing on unexpected and critical connections. We will embark on a transatlantic journey tracing multiple histories that connect past and present, global and local: Migration, sounds, moving images, international relations and politics, radicalism, race and racialism, the American Century, the truly global aspect of World War II, organized crime, the urban crises of the 1970s, global media flows, power and mass communication, youth culture, and imperialism
JU 330 Mediterranean Migration
45 hours, 3 credits
Course Description
In this course, students will study the economic and political causes and histories of migration from the Mediterranean region. They will examine the historic legacies of Mediterranean migration through the twentieth century with the mass emigration from the Southern Mediterranean to the Americas. Through the lens of international economics, demographics, and geopolitics, students will understand the phenomenon of Mediterranean migration. Additionally, students will analyze the effects of this mass migration on the stability of the European Union and the Euro zone and will propose solutions to ongoing, systemic pan-European political and demographic challenges.
JU 330 New York Calls, Naples responds
45 hours, 3 credits
Course Description
In this course, students will discover the historical link between New York City and Naples. Students will understand these two cities within wider currents, moving across time and space, and trace multiple histories that connect past, present, and future in both a local and global sense. Topics will include the early slave rebellions in the Americas, the 1648 rebellion of Naples, the U.S. military presence in Naples during World War II and Cold War era, Italian immigration to New York City, and the urban crises of Naples and New York in the 1970s and 1980s.
In this course, music, cinema, and other cultural expressions are not considered as a background but become central narrative devices. Sustained by the saxophone sound of James Senese, the electro funk of Afrika Bambaataa, the echo chamber effect of Sha-Rock, the poetry of Sandra María Esteves, and the blue maps of Bobby Womack and Mario Merola, we will study unexpected and critical connections between New York City and Naples.
In addition to music, films, and poems, we will use other primary sources collected at the archives of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, the Bronx County Historical Society, and the National Library of Naples.
JU 330 Mediterranean Nero
45 hours, 3 credits
Course Description
Inspired by Paul Gilroy’s book The Black Atlantic, this course focuses on the traditionally repressed and hidden Black history of the Mediterranean region. Through the examination of primary historical documents and the accounts of historians, students will discover a range of topics such as the Masaniello Revolt of 1648 in Naples, the Haitian Revolution of 1799, the international dimension of Black Power, the racialization of urban space, and the contemporary migration from Africa to the Mediterranean.
Faculty
Fabrizio Novellino
Chair of Humanities - Area: History
Ph.D. in Contemporary History, University of Trento
Alessandro Buffa
Area: American Studies
Ph.D. United States Histor, State University of New York Stony Brook
Course highlight
HISTORY OF ITALIAN FOOD AND CULTURE
HIST 350 – Professor Fabrizio Novellino, Ph.D.
My class is not just about food. It’s about tradition, it’s about the economy, it’s about experiencing what you are going to study…because you have the chance to join a class in the best place in the world with the best food in the world. So you are not just going to read the book, but also touch and eat and see with your own eyes all the wonderful food, the tradition and the history behind it
– Fabrizio Novellino
Available Internship Positions
At Sant’Anna Institute we believe in experiential learning.
Check our Internships page to learn more about the program and the available positions