Italy emerges from its contrasts: one language and dozens of dialects, an age-old literature and culture and the burgeoning creativity of the local vis--vis the global, world-famous landscapes and culinary traditions and traumas of wars, political crises, and environmental disasters. Its identity speaks through its art, history, politics, and philosophy, being a crossroads of Mediterranean voices, civilizations, and migrations. Building on this complexity, the Graduate Program in Italian Studies considers Italy at the confluence of cultures, territories, and imagination to be seen through multiple lenses.
Our Graduate Program enables students to work across the whole spectrum of the humanities and social sciences. We place Italian literary, linguistic, and cultural production in dialogue with complementary fields such as anthropology, art history, comparative literature, cultural and visual studies, philosophy, critical theory, film studies, geography, history, music, post-colonial studies, translation studies, women, gender, and queer studies.
UNC-CH's Graduate Program in Italian Studies does also something more. We emphasize trans-disciplinary conversations across the boundaries of the humanities, with the goal to develop the competencies, flexibility, and sensibility necessary to address and read the phenomena of complex societies and environments. We use innovative theoretical frameworks that allow Italian Studies to expand its vistas and topics, while still providing fruitful reinterpretations of its historic foundations.