A Report on the Program's Activities: Summer 2009
From the Director, Antonella D. Olson ad.olson@mail.utexas.edu
Office: HRH 2.106B; (512) 471-5531
Thirty-three students from UT-Austin enrolled in this year's program. Douglas Biow, Professor, French and Italian, taught with Program Director Antonella Olson, Distinguished Senior Lecturer, French and Italian. Students spent their class time (1 1/2 hours for each class) from Monday to Thursday in the Palazzo Antici-Mattei, a baroque palace in the heart of Rome. The cost of the program was $4,400. The fee did not cover airfare, UT tuition and fees, or textbooks. It covered: housing and two meals per day (three on weekends), classrooms in the Palazzo Antici-Mattei, transportation from and to the airport, bus tickets, a monthly bus card, admissions to Tivoli’s Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este, admissions and guided visits to the Galleria Borghese (Prof. Giovanna Terzulli and Prof. Francesca Barberini), all the guides on the field trips as well as several social gatherings among students, host families and faculty. Due to a favorable exchange rate, the Director was able to give back to students 120 euros (about $170 US) for a taxi to the airport. This year, the Program received a total of $30,000.00 in scholarships to distribute among deserving students participating in the Program: $27,000.00 from the College of Liberal Arts and $3,000.00 from Ms Barbara Myers. Our warmest gratitude goes to her and to the College of Liberal Arts.
| | ITL 312K:
Second-Year Italian Language and Culture I.
3 credit hours, taught by Antonella Olson.
(Enrollment: 17 students) The focus of this course is on a partial review of first-year grammar and on culture. The city of Rome is a living laboratory in which students can improve their language skills and vocabulary and immerse themselves completely in the Italian culture and environment. At the end of the session, the 312K students performed in their own adaptation of “I quattro veli di Kulala” by Stefano Benni. |
| | ITC 349:
Rome, Eternal City: Myths and Realities.
3 credit hours, taught by Douglas Biow.
(Enrollment: 25 students) This is an interdisciplinary course taught in English with focus on the powerful myths of Rome--political, religious, cultural--from antiquity to the present. Its curriculum was revised and students greatly appreciated the new structure. The analysis of historical, literary, and cinematic works was added to the artistic and architectural resources of the city itself. The study was enriched by on-site lessons where students were active participants and learned how to discover and recognize the many treasures of Rome. |
| | ITC 365:
Contemporary Italian Culture. Conference Course in Italian.
3 credit hours, taught by Douglas Biow and Antonella Olson.
(Enrollment: 12 students) This is an upper-division course taught in Italian with emphasis on listening, reading and comprehension skills. The class was divided into three sections: • Progetto A: Each student chose a topic on Italian culture, did research prior to departure, conducted interviews in Italy, wrote a summary and presented it in class. • Progetto B: Students read/analyzed/discussed a novel by Niccolò Ammaniti, Io non ho paura, and watched the movie based on it; they wrote a paper in which they compared novel and film and commented on them. • Progetto C: Students read a short play by Stefano Benni which they presented to the families at the end of the program, and a longer one by Dacia Maraini. Students were privileged to visit with Dacia Maraini at her home in Rome. |
| | The Palazzo Antici-Mattei has been used as classroom space since summer 1999. The Centro Studi Americani (CSA) is one of the major Italian libraries of American Studies and is situated in the majestic Palazzo Antici-Mattei, a seventeenth-century palace. Its rooms feature frescoes by Tuscan and Flemish painters of the early 1600s. The CSA provided and will provide again next year a spacious, elegant and distinct environment for our students. 
| | The BAC Travel Agency locates families in Rome for students enrolled in the Program and ensures that the families with whom the students are lodged provide them with meals, speak with them in Italian, and host them in a pleasant and friendly environment. BAC Travel works with other American universities throughout the year and has been working with the Rome Study Program and its Director since 1996, when Antonella launched the program. |
| | Included in the program's cost: - 1) An orientation session in Rome;
- 2) guided visits to ancient Roman sites;
- 3) a guided visit to the Museum of the Galleria Borghese;
- 4) a guided visit to Tivoli (Villa Adriana, Villa D'Este)
- 5) admissions to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel
Optional field trips organized by the Director: - 1) A three-day visit to Genoa and the Cinque Terre
2) A three-day visit to Sorrento, Pompeii, Capri and the Capodimonte Museum in Naples
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