Italian Section: An Overview

The Italian section of the Department of German & Romance Languages and Literatures affords students the opportunity to study Italian language from the elementary level through advanced composition and grammar.  Undergraduate and graduate students can choose from courses in Italian culture and literature ranging from Italian cinema to Dante and Boccaccio.  Because the Italian section of the Department is small, students have the opportunity to work closely with faculty.  The faculty of the Italian section also serve as advisors for the Italian major and minor.

Study in Italy

We encourage our undergraduate students to study abroad, but they must get approval for their proposed program from the faculty of the Italian section prior to their departure from Baltimore.  

Faculty

Christopher Celenza, Areas of interest: the Latin literature and philosophy of the Italian Renaissance; late medieval intellectual history; the history of philosophy; the history of books and reading practices; and Latin paleography. 

Pier Massimo Forni, Professor of Italian. Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature, Twentieth-Century Italian Literature, Boccaccio, Castiglione, the Literature of Courtesy.

Walter Stephens, Charles S. Singleton Professor of Italian Studies and Vice-Chair of the Department. Medieval and Renaissance Literature in Italian and Latin, Humanism, relations of Literature with Philosophy and Theology, Tasso, Epic and Romance.

Associated Faculty in Italian Studies at Johns Hopkins

Luigi Burzio (Linguistics)

Charles Dempsey (History of Art)

Thomas Izbicki (Milton S. Eisenhower Library)

Richard Katz (Political Science)

Alan Shapiro (Classics)

Susan Weiss (Peabody School of Music)

Recent Visiting Faculty

Pietro Frassica, Princeton University

Guglielmo Gorni, Universite de Geneve, Switzerland

Herman Haller, City University of New York

Robert Hollander, Princeton University

Victoria Kirkham, University of Pennsylvania

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures has numerous exchange agreements with major European universities. Recent Johns Hopkins Ph.D.'s in Italian have found employment at Middlebury College, Harvard University, Pace University, the University of Maryland, the University of Rome, Barnard College, University College Cork (National University of Ireland), and the University of Pennsylvania.

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