Courses and Faculty

Courses

Required:
HUM 350T: Italian Life and Culture [GE C.3. & Z]
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the introduction of Italy and other contemporary European cultures and civilizations. Students will be introduced to social, historical & cultural highlights of contemporary Europe, to principles and methods useful for analyzing cultures and their own interactions with them. This course includes lectures by guest faculty and related field trips.

Choose one course from the following:
HIST 377: Modern Italy and Film* [GE C.3]
Through lectures, readings, and film screenings, the course examines the relationship between modern Italian history and the country's national cinema, with an emphasis on the rehabilitation of Italy's wartime image via neorealism, the "economic miracle" of the 1950s and 1960s and the cinema of Fellini, and the relationship between Italian film and international markets, including the U.S. film industry.

HIST 486: Italy and the American Imagination*
Italy is a cultural touchstone for visiting Americans from the eighteenth century to the post-World War II era. Students may study the work of J. S. Copley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, J. A. M. Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Ernest Hemingway, and others. Includes slide lectures on American artists in Italy and tours and on-site discussions at Florentine places described in literary texts and portrayed in artworks.

*For official catalog description, visit http://www.fullerton.edu/catalog/

Faculty

Dr. Benjamin Cawthra

Benjamin Cawthra is a cultural historian who teaches history via literature, the visual arts, and music. He is the author of Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz (University of Chicago Press, 2011) and he teaches courses in visual history, twentieth-century U.S. cultural history, public history, and the Civil War era. His research interests include U.S.-Italian cultural interaction and exchange. Dr. Cawthra holds the Ph.D. in history from Washington University in St. Louis and is the recipient of the Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in American Art. He worked for nearly a decade at the Missouri History Museum and works with students to create history exhibitions at CSUF. He is an engaging and dynamic teacher whose enthusiasm and intellectual range are well known to history students. Years after completing several undergraduate courses in western art and Renaissance history, he is learning Italian and looking forward to Florence in 2013.

Teaching interests: Twentieth-century U.S. cultural history, visual history, public history, the Civil War era, modern Italy and film.
Research interests: Postwar U.S.-Italian culture, Jazz cultural studies, visual culture, African American history and culture.

Office: H-825I
Office Telephone: (657) 278-7893
Email address: bcawthra@fullerton.edu

Registration

After your application is approved, we will register you in your selected classes. After you are registered, you will be notified to go online and pay tuition for your Summer units. All adds, drops or schedule changes must be completed prior to leaving for this trip.

Summer 2013 tuition is separate from the program fees and will be paid through Student Financial Services after enrollment is complete.

Italy Study Abroad Student Statement

Italy study abroad students are expected to attend all of their registered classes, unless there is a medical reason which prevents them from doing so, and to adhere to all behavioral norms established on their respective campuses. Additionally, they are required to follow the laws and regulations, and respect the cultural mores, national traditions and customs of the host country.