Disease, Madness, and Death Italian Style

Italian literary history teems with representations of illness, insanity, and death. From the ghastly 1348 plague that frames Boccaccio's Decameron to the midday madness of errant Renaissance knights, from 16th-century tales of poisoning and 19th-century Pirandellian madmen to the contemporary scourge of mafia killings, disease, madness and death are dominant facts of reality, points of view, symbols, and cultural characteristics of Italian poetry and prose. This course undertakes a pathology of these tropes in Italian literary history and seeks to understand their meaning for the changing Italian cultural identity across time and the Italian peninsula. We will read primary literary texts and view excerpts from films alongside articles focused on the cultural history of medicine, religion, and criminal justice. Taught in English. No Final.

Course Attributes: EN H; BU BA; BU IS; AS HUM; AS LCD; AS LS; FA HUM; AR HUM; CFH MH

Disease, Madness, and Death Italian Style

MEDICAL HUMANITIES 408

Section 01