Undergraduate - UnitATS2164 - Italian transformations: Reading and writing self-discovery

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Literary Studies
Monash Passport category	International Short Field Experience (Explore Program)
Offered	Prato Term 3 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Melinda Harvey

Notes

This is an international study program that requires an application to be enrolled - see the Arts PratoArts Prato (http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/prato/) page for further information.
The unit is offered as a Term 3 unit - see the Winter Arts ProgramWinter Arts Program (http://www.monash.edu/students/courses/arts/winter-program.html) page for further information.

Synopsis

The unit will explore a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts that treat Italy as a site for transformations of the self. These self-discoveries are usually cast as positive but are on occasion of a more unsettling or disturbing kind. The unit will investigate these transformations. It will also consider why Italy has been a place of renewal and 'undoing' in literature over the years and try to account for the popularity of such narratives with readers past and present. In this unit there will be an emphasis on 'geolocated' reading experiences and writing exercises. For this reason there will be a particular focus on 'Tuscan transformations'; we will visit the actual sites and scenes of our texts and there will also be regular in situ writing excursions in Prato and surrounds.

Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit students will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of the representation of Italy generally (and Tuscany in particular) as a site of personal transformation in range of texts.
Critically describe the diverse history of cultural investments in Italy as an agent of personal transformation for non-Italian writers.
Produce a piece of Creative Writing, either fiction or non-fiction, that explores the transformational potential of Italy.
Appreciate and articulate the relationships between environment, literary criticism and creative practice.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.