AMERICAN STUDIES AND LANGUAGES

12 CFU - 1° and 2° Semester

Teaching Staff

SALVATORE MARANO - Module Cultural Studies - L-LIN/11 - 6 CFU
FLORIANA PUGLISI - Module American English for Specific Purposes - L-LIN/11 - 6 CFU

Course Structure

Cultural Studies
Lectures, assignements, class discussion.
American English for Specific Purposes
Traditional front lessons will be combined with activities aimed at fostering the direct involvement of attending students. This will include class debate on topical issues and students’ assignments for the lessons (guidelines will be given in the classroom and posted on Studium).

Attendance, of both program (36 hours) and language practice (60 hours) classes is highly recommended. Students who won’t be able to attend must in any case register for the course via Studium and keep in contact with the professor as well as with her language assistant teacher.

Detailed Course Content

Cultural Studies
Module A (3 CFU, 18 ore) “Introducing Cultural Studies and Comics Studies”

Introduction to Cultural Studies in the UK and the US (focus on: sociology; ethnic studies, material history, gender studies).

Module B (3 CFU, 18 ore) “Comics between the American Myths and Popular Imagination”

Comics, born at the end of the nineteenth century on the pages of national newspapers, are studied with reference to both the founding myths of America and the media that in the twentieth century have been taking inspiration from them (from the popular press to pop art to the cinema).
American English for Specific Purposes
1) Language and cultural diversity in the United States

American English: processes of language variation and standardization; ethnic cultures and dialects (African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-American identities; African American Vernacular English, Chicano English, Spanglish).

2) Professional Communication

Dynamics of Professional Communication. Analysis of specific texts produced in the field of Professional Discourse through the multidimensional approach of Critical Genre Analysis. Hybridization and interdiscursivity. Corporate disclosure practices: the annual report. NGOs and accountability.

Textbook Information

Cultural Studies
► Module A

1) The Cultural Studies Reader (3rd ed.), ed. S. During, London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Must reads:

S. During, “Introduction” (pp. 1-30); S. Hall, “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies” (pp. 33-44); id., “Encoding, Decoding” (pp. 477-487); J. Butler, “Subversive Bodily Acts” (pp. 371-382); Th. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception” (pp. 405-415).

2) One book for choice, among the following ones (also in translation):

R. Williams. Culture and Society, New York, Columbia University Press, 1963; J. G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories As Art and Popular Culture, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976; L.A. Fiedler, Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self, London, Simon and Schuster, 1978; C. Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, New York, Norton, 1979; D. Hebdige, Subculture. The Meaning of Style, London, Methuen, 1979; P. Bourdieu. Ce que parler veut dire: l’économie des échanges linguistiques, Paris, Fayard, 1982; A. Khatibi, Amour Bilingue, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1983; B. Anderson, Imagined Communities, London and New York, Verso Books, 1983; H.L. Gates jr., The Signifying Monkey. A Theory of African American Literary Criticism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1988; N. Wolf, The Beauty Myth, London, Chatto & Windus, 1990; A. Easthope, Literary into Cultural Studies, New York and London, Routledge, 1991; H.K. Bhabha. The Location of Culture, New York and London, Routledge, 1994; b. hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representation, New York and London, Routledge, 1994; N. Klein, No Logo, Toronto, Picador, 2000; J.P. Russo, The Future without a Past: The Humanities in a Technological Society, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 2005; Ta-Nehishi Coates, Between the World and Me, New York, Spiegel & Grau, 2015.

► Module B

1) A Comic Studies Reader, ed. by J. Heer and K. Worcester, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2009. Must-read:

T. Groensteen, “Why Are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimation?” (pp. 3-11); R. C. Harvey, “How Comics Came to Be” (pp. 25-45); P. Coogan, “The Definition of the Superhero” (pp. 77-93); J. Vitek, “The Arrow and the Grid” (pp. 149-156); P. Lefèvre, “The Construction of Space in Comics” (pp. 157-162); H. Chute, “History and Graphic Representation in Maus” (pp. 363-368).

2) Five stories for choice among the following ones:

C. Barks, “Mystery of the Swamp” (1945); “Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto” (1947); “Sheriff of Bullett Valley” (1948); “Lost in the Andes” (1949); “Luck of the North” (1949); “Donald Duck [and the Jumping Frog]” (1950); “Rip Van Donald” (1950); “Vacation Time” (1950); “Donald Duck in Old California” (1951); “Donald Duck and the Golden Helmet” (1952); “Donald Duck and the Gilded Man” (1952); “Uncle Scrooge Back to Klondike” (1953); “Uncle Scrooge and the Seven Cities of Cibola” (1954); “Back to Long Ago!” (1956); “Donald Duck in Forbidden Valley” (1957); “Land of the Pigmy Indians” (1957); “Fantastic River Race” (1957); “Fabulous Tycoon” (1958); “The Prize of Pizzarro” (1959); “Ghosts of Pizen Bluff” (1959); “That’s No Fable!” (1960); “Island in the Sky” (1960); “Northeaster on Cape Quack” (1962); “Raven Mad” (1962); “Crown of the Mayas” (1963); “The Not-So-Ancient Mariner” (1966). [*]

3) W. C. Williams, In the American Grain (1925), New York, New Directions, 2004.

4) T. Andrae, Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book, Jackson, University

Press of Mississippi, 2006 (pp. 3-30). [*]

5) B. Beaty, “Roy Lichtenstein’s Tears: Ressentiment and Exclusion in the World of Pop Art”, in Comics vs Art, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 51-70. [*]

6) A. Moore, D. Gibbons, Watchmen, New York, DC Comics, 1987.

7) Z. Snyder, Watchmen (the movie), Warner Bros, 2009.

8) A. Spiegelmann, Maus. A Survivor’s Tale, New York, Pantheon Books, 1991.

[*] Within the limits of fair use, texts followed by a star (*) will be available in .pdf

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.
American English for Specific Purposes
1) Language and cultural diversity in the United States
- Bonfiglio, T.P., Race and the Rise of Standard American, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002 (pp. 1-73);
- Johnson, J.F., Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2000 (pp. xi-xv, pp. 3-68, pp. 113-242).
For private practice:

To integrate their training, students are highly recommended to use the following textbook on phonetics and phonology:
- L. Mojsin, Mastering the American Accent (with 4 Audio CDs), Hauppauge, NY, Barron's Educational Series, 2009.
Spelling, lexical, morphological, syntactical and grammatical elements of American English will be examined in the classes for language practice. For individual study, students can consult the following textbook:
- G. Tottie. An Introduction to American English, Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2002
2) Professional Communication
- Bhatia, V.K., Critical Genre Analysis. Investigating Interdiscursive Performance in Professional Practice, London and New York, Routledge 2017 (pp. 3-111; 142-160);
- Dhanani, A., & Connolly, C., “Non-governmental Organizational Accountability: Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk?” Journal of Business Ethics, 129.3 (2014): 613-637;
- Kilby, P., “Accountability for Empowerment: Dilemmas Facing Non-Governmental Organizations”, World Development, 34.6 (2006): 951-963.
  
  Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.
  
  For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).
  
  All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.

Open in PDF format Versione in italiano