Vignette # 1: Rewinding a bit

A Re-Cap

            I have realized that my blog has become less of a study abroad blog and much more of a travel blog: most of my motivation to write blog posts comes directly after a weekend trip, and I spend the remainder of my time soaking in the Bologna lifestyle and completely forgetting to write about my daily life. I’ve said it once and I will say it again: living over here somehow just allows the time to slip away. Whereas at home I could probably have time to sit at home to write hundreds of blog posts, here it is so much easier to find myself walking around Bologna or eating my fourth gelato of the past 48 hours or traveling on the weekend …all of which fill up my days, making the idea of writing a blog post such an intimidating and time-consuming idea. But here I am! Finally, after a much-too-delayed break, I will try to do a re-cap of my recent time here in short little vignettes, so as to give you something to read and to give myself a record of what I’ve been up to and then follow it up with a few more travel pieces…since I have just traveled to Southern Italy and Greece.

Breaking out the Books

            So as my father has pointed out multiple times, the amount of blog posts that I’ve dedicated to the actual academic portion of my study abroad experience has been slim to none. I am, indeed, studying. Here’s the breakdown of my classes:

·      Italian Cinema (focusing primarily on the directors Fellini and Pasolini)

·      Italian Literature (of the 1800’s variety—Leopardi and Carducci)

·      Urban History (studying the development of Italian cities from Etruscan times to the Renaissance and beyond)

·      Italian Writing (an internal course with Ivan! includes more dancing from my wonderful professor and more literature set in World War II)

·      Medieval History (mainly focusing on the Italian sphere during this time)

            Some of my courses are internal; that is, within my program. These courses are still taught by Universita’ di Bologna professors, but within ECCO’s office and with a somewhat American university structure. And then there are the UNIBO courses, which involve a lot of confused looks exchanged between Sami and Lily and I (who are also taking the Medieval History course with me) and a fun time trying to figure out who “Giovanni senza terra” is (literally, ‘John without land’ = Prince John of Robin Hood).

            Choosing an UNIBO course was an interesting experience because of the difficulty in getting it to match up with my other courses, ensuring that the professor will accommodate American students, choosing a course that does not take place on Friday’s (hey, I have to travel), and also—most importantly—finding a course in which I could understand both the material and the professor. The first course I tried out was a Contemporary History course within the department of Lettere e Filosofie which, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, was complete chaos. Although the class was definitely a cultural experience, I decided to try another course in Medieval History, since it worked better with UMW’s course approval of my classes for my Italian major.

            My Medieval History class is, admittedly, much calmer and organized than the Contemporary History course, but it is still probably the greatest challenge out of all of my classes, since it’s taught at UNIBO and it’s sometimes hard to keep up with a professor who is lecturing to a classroom of Italians, rather than a classroom of Americans. The professor is completely bald but with a wonderfully white handlebar mustache and big, round glasses. He is also clearly a genius and his nickname within the department, apparently, is Merlino (Merlin) because of the mustache, I am assuming, or perhaps because he seems to be filled with infinite wisdom on medieval history. My notes for this class are particularly amusing: there are usually a lot of question marks drawn all over the page with small notes in the margins that say “look this up on Wikipedia later” for concepts or names I didn’t understand as he lectures at a record-pace. Regardless of those moments in which I have no idea what century we’re talking about, I love the class because I’ve been a medieval history nerd since around the age of seven. Also, because the class is all from a somewhat Italian point of view, everything becomes all the more entertaining. For example:

“And then these men would do something extremely Italian: they would declare themselves to be lords by building their own castles. They would then later ask their sovereign lord for permission to build this castle. So, you know…very Italian.”—Merlino

Merlin also makes jokes about excommunication and medieval eating habits, so we are basically best friends.

            Urban History is probably my favorite class because it is so incredibly different from anything I’ve ever studied. I feel like I have learned so much—not only about the development of Italian medieval cities, but specifically Bologna.  I love feeling like I know the city. For example, Bologna’s main symbol are its two crooked towers in the center of the city….but did you know that there used to be over two hundred of these towers throughout the city. Over two hundred. Crazy. Also, the reason for why a lot of Italian piazzas are in an oval or circular structure is because they used to be roman amphitheaters. When the barbarians attacked the Roman Empire, the people retreated into these amphitheaters and lived in them. That is, the amphitheaters became small cities. This blew my mind for some reason. Why didn’t anyone teach me this in the U.S.’s take on Medieval History?

            Cinema is also a refreshing break, mainly because we watch a lot of movies. Originally I thought the class would involve a lot more film analysis, but our professor seems determined to make us watch only Pasolini’s films and then talk about his murder and the corruption of society in post-fascism Italy. Some days I love this class and then other days I wonder why I haven’t watched La Dolce Vita yet and talked about it like any other Italian cinema class. We are starting Fellini this week, though, so I’m pretty excited about that! I’ve come to realize that it is much more a history of Italian cinema than an analysis of it but I really enjoy it regardless.

            Literature, ironically—as I am an English and Italian major—is my least favorite class. I find it somewhat tedious, although our professor has an excellent poetry-reading voice and I think our entire class swoons every time he breaks out the 19th century Italian love poetry in his perfect, crooning voice.

            My Writing Workshop class with Ivan is excellent, of course, because I am back in Ivan’s classroom and his enthusiasm for life and dancing around our desks has not diminished. We are studying an Italian writer named Beppe Fenoglio and one of his books on WWII by reading the book, discussing it, and writing essays on it. This is an awesome class because everyone in it is from my Intensive Italian portion of the class, so we’re very comfortable with each other and have a great group dynamic.

            All of my classes are taught in Italian, class discussion is in Italian, all work is done in Italian. The professors all have pretty high expectations of our language skills. Also, the structure of the classes is different from the ones back home. There is a lot less busywork, which I’m incredibly grateful for, because I feel like I have a more time to actually enjoy what I’m learning. There’s barely any reading—you just take notes upon notes upon notes. And although when I call home and talk to friends at UMW who are killing themselves over work and I have time in the evening to watch five episodes of How I Met Your Mother with Viola, I don’t feel as if I am learning any less than them. I’m just learning in a different way.