SATA Rome 2006

Cultural Crossings: Henry James and Others in Italy

Connecticut College SATA Rome classes sometimes take place on this rooftop terrace at John Cabot University.

SATA Rome classes often take place on this rooftop terrace at John Cabot University.

Program Description | Courses

Professor Julie Rivkin of the English department is leading the Fall SATA Rome 2006 program, offering one or both of her courses, Henry James in Italy and Passing in Literature and Film.

Professor Rivkin notes: "Students majoring in English have often been at a disadvantage in terms of the perceived rationale between their major and their proposed course of study abroad if it is a non-English speaking country like Italy. In fact, Italy has figured in extremely important ways in both the life and work of many American writers."

"This SATA program offers students the opportunity to study writing and film that takes us across cultural borders, either by following the best known American writer who has made the Italian crossing — Henry James — or by considering works that take as their subject the dislocation of identity categories. The works we encounter may well be a mirror of our own transnational experiences as Americans in Italy."

Professor Rivkin will arrange field trips to visit sites that are important to Henry James's fiction, in particular.

Rome, often referred to as "the eternal city," has been in existence for more than 2500 years. It prompts images of the Colosseum, spectacular churches, piazzas with beautiful sculpture and fountains, the Spanish Steps and much more.

SATA Rome 2006 Courses

Professor Rivkin will teach two courses:

200-level "Passing in Literature and Film"
How is identity categorized, performed, concealed, and exposed in literature and film? A study of various instances of passing – black as white, gay as straight, Jew as gentile, woman as man – in a range of texts and contexts. Readings may include The Scarlet Letter, House Behind the Cedars, and Passing; films may include Philadelphia, Boys Don't Cry, and The Crying Game.

This course is taught in the SATA Rome program only, as Professor Rivkin will be adapting the course to the transnational experience of being a student/American in Italy, She reasons that the students, and their professor, will be experiencing their own identities in radically different ways in this new context.

300-level "Henry James in Italy"
A study of Henry James's fiction and travel writing set in Italy, with attention to what Italy meant to a late 19th-century American writer. Readings include Roderick Hudson, Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, The Aspern Papers, The Wings of the Dove, and Italian Hours.

SATA Rome 2006 students will be required to take at least one of these courses. Also, each student is required to take an Italian course at a level determined by a placement test.

All other courses are selected from the offerings of John Cabot University, the host institution of the Connecticut College SATA Program in Rome. JCU is a 600-student, English-speaking, private liberal-arts college located in Trastevere ("across the Tiber"), the heart of old Rome. Additional information about John Cabot University my be found on their Web site at http://www.johncabot.edu .

Rome provides an unparalleled array of educational opportunities. Students interested in classics, religious studies, Italian Studies, international relations, history of art and architecture, for instance, find endless intellectual stimulation, also applicable for students of anthropology, political science, sociology, European history, and related studies. The SATA program and JCU sponsor field trips to important historical sites to supplement the students' experience.