Browsing by Subject "Italian"
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Item Canonizing Zuccaro : The early life of Taddeo series and the building of an artistic legacy(2020-08-14) Sumner, Claire I.; Waldman, Louis AlexanderThe Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro is a series of twenty-four highly finished drawings in pencil, ink, and wash executed by Federico Zuccaro (1541c-1609) in the mid-1590s depicting scenes from the life of Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-66) during his apprenticeship and early career. Each drawing is paired with a tercet of poetry also by Federico meant to complement the scene being depicted. The drawings and accompanying verse are a tribute to Taddeo, whose career was cut short by his death in 1566, from his younger brother and apprentice. The choice of Taddeo’s early life as the subject almost thirty years after his death was part of Federico’s attempt to depict a family legacy in his Palazzo in Rome that highlighted his artistic pedigree and innovative compositions. While the lives of artists is now a common subject of both visual and literary depictions, the subject was almost unique in the seicento, only the funerary banners painted by the members of the Accademia del Disegno for Michelangelo’s funeral in 1564 precede The Early Life of Taddeo series. This paper investigates how Federico Zuccaro through The Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro series turns his brother into an exemplum for the students of the newly founded Accademia di San Luca of which Federico was the first principe, principal. Federico uses hagiographic imagery, which had previously only been used in relation to Michelangelo, to place his brother among the canon of great artist and by doing so elevated his brother, himself, and his newly founded academy. The Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro is an ambitious attempt to control Taddeo’s narrative and establish a familial legacy that highlights many of the changing elements, both positive and negative, that will have long-lasting effect on how artists are viewed and operate. The drawings demonstrate just how aware the savvy artist was of their changing circumstances and the active role that artists could play in manipulating and responding to their evolving role in the social fabric of Italian cities at the end of the sixteenth centuryItem An Examination of Individual Differences in Italian and American Fashion Cultures: Past, Present, and Projections for the Future(2018-05) Hotze, Mary LouiseWhat does it mean for a nation to be a “global icon” in the fashion world and how exactly do they get there? Today, both the United States and Italy are part of the leading nations in the fashion world, yet the two countries have significantly different histories and cultures. By examining the individual histories, cultures, and global interactions of Italy and the United States, a pattern emerges for the manner in which a nation rises to power in the fashion industry. Important historical events tend to result in sociological and psychological responses and changes within a society. Consequently, individual differences in fashion culture correspond to the major political and cultural events throughout the course of a nation’s history. How can we use the histories of Italy and the United States to understand the method in which they came to be global fashion icons today, and how can this knowledge be used to make predictions for the future of the fashion industry? These are the questions this paper seeks to answer. Fashion design has been used by various groups of people over the course of history to outwardly express their thoughts and emotions regarding political and social climates of the time. The United States and Italy are two nations that not only influence fashion for many others, but they also have a stronghold on the direction of current social and political climates. The first task is to examine the complete history of each nations, identifying the major political and cultural events that sparked changes in society and consequently influenced fashion design. The second task is to examine the present-day fashion cultures of Italy and the United States, while considering their global interactions and influences on each other. The third and final task is to use historical evidence to develop and propose predictions for the future of the fashion industry on a global scale and within each nation.Item Finding the third space : a case study of developing multiple literacies in a foreign language conversation class(2010-05) Demont, Brandi Leanne; Swaffar, Janet K.; Schallert, Diane L.; Frizzi, Adria; Moore, Zena; Horwitz, Elaine K.The present inquiry is a qualitative case study of conversations and attitudes of students participating in a non-required, second-year conversation section offered as a voluntary adjunct to required second year courses in Italian. The findings in this dissertation support calls by policy makers in foreign language education who advocate for a more integrated and holistic approach to foreign language education. Through this empirical qualitative case study, I have used the construct of Third Space (Gutiérrez, 2008) to examine students’ development of multiple literacies (Swaffar & Arens, 2005) in a foreign language conversation-based classroom. The theory of Third Space is seen as a kind of authentic intersubjective space, where students’ ways of knowing and learning are accepted and expanded in the learning environment. The study describes the results from the implementation of a language pedagogy based on the model of multiple literacies in an Italian conversation class. Students in the class read and viewed a wide variety of authentic materials, around which they anchored their class discussions. Through activities involving multiple readings of the given text, the students co-constructed their interpretations based on personal experiences and on the socio-cultural background of the text. Students also engaged in self-reflective exercises documenting their own learning processes. Through interpretive analysis of student work produced in the class, the ecology of learner developments and the corresponding classroom talk are assessed. I have identified three major themes that are evident as essential elements to the students’ developing trans-linguistic proficiency in conjunction with their evolving cultural literacy. In particular, self-reflection and identity, expanded practices of knowing and learning, and the influence of semiotic mediation on classroom interactions are the three elements that define how these students articulated their Third Space in conjunction with this particular language learning context.Item Italian metaphony in optimality theory with candidate chains(2013-12) Gaskill, Anne E.; Montreuil, Jean-Pierre; Russi, Cinzia; Donaldson, Bryan; Bullock, Barbara E; Kelm, OrlandoThe regressive (mor)phonological assimilatory process most commonly referred to as metaphony is one which is quite common in Romance: it is found in the dialects of Portugal, Spain, and Italy, with traces appearing in Rumanian and the Spanish of the Americas, as well. As a result, it has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly research both diachronically, (Hall 1950, Blaylock 1965, Leonard 1978, Papa 1981, Kaze 1989) and synchronically (McCarthy 1984, Calabrese 1985, 1998, 2008, Vago 1988, Hualde 1989, Martínez-Gil 2006, Walker 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010). What has eluded recent researchers, however, is a framework that can successfully address the myriad variations of metaphony found in these regions; there exists to date no comprehensive analysis of metaphony in Romance. This dissertation offers an analysis of Italian Metaphony that is couched in a recent variety of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004), Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains (McCarthy 2007), a framework which exploits the rarely used serial capacity of OT. In exploring the myriad varieties of metaphony found in the Italian dialects, this dissertation tests the capabilities and limitations of both Traditional Optimality Theory and Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains; this exploration culminates with the analysis of a problematic variety of OT that currently lacks an acceptable solution in OT-CC. To address this shortcoming, this dissertation introduces a new constraint to the established constraint hierarchy of OT-CC: Subsequence. Subsequence builds on the theoretical premises established in McCarthy (2007) with the introduction of Precedence, which evaluated not a single output candidate but rather the order of the constraint violations found within an individual candidate chain. The resulting analyses create a unified account of Italian metaphony that demonstrates the usefulness not only of OT-CC for addressing different types of opacity, but also the need for an enhancement such as subsequence to account for types of variation that are currently impossible to address in OT-CC. This dissertation offers an analysis of Italian Metaphony that is couched in a recent variety of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004), Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains (McCarthy 2007), a framework which exploits the rarely used serial capacity of OT. In exploring the myriad varieties of metaphony found in the Italian dialects, this dissertation tests the capabilities and limitations of both Traditional Optimality Theory and Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains; this exploration culminates with the analysis of a problematic variety of OT that currently lacks an acceptable solution in OT-CC. To address this shortcoming, this dissertation introduces a new constraint to the established constraint hierarchy of OT-CC: Subsequence. Subsequence builds on the theoretical premises established in McCarthy (2007) with the introduction of Precedence, which evaluated not a single output candidate but rather the order of the constraint violations found within an individual candidate chain. The resulting analyses create a unified account of Italian metaphony that demonstrates the usefulness not only of OT-CC for addressing different types of opacity, but also the need for an enhancement such as subsequence to account for types of variation that are currently impossible to address in OT-CC.Item O partigiano, portami via! Men, sexuality, and the Italian Resistance(2016-05) Rabatin, Matthew Ryan; Bini, Daniela, 1945-; Bonifazio, Paola, 1976-; Raffa, Guy; Insana, Lina; Johnson, MichaelThis dissertation examines the representations of sexuality in male-authored narratives, both cinematic and literary, inspired by the Italian Resistance of the Second World War. My theoretical framework builds on the assertion that such narratives question predominant modes of representing the male partisan figure as a heterosexual man to include gay and queer sexualities. I foreground my work through a close reading of Carlo Coccioli’s Il Migliore e l’ultimo, a novel written during Coccioli’s imprisonment that narrates his love for a fellow partisan named Alberto. I proceed to novels and films produced during the 21st century. I engage each work with postmodern theories of writing and filmmaking, which I discuss alongside queer theorists whose studies affirm postmodernism as a site of openness and productivity for queer and eccentric subjects. I demonstrate how these works respond avant la lettre to calls for the revision of Resistance historiography made by official organizations of former partisans, such as Italy’s National Association of Partisans of Italy (A.N.P.I.). The works I examine are the aforementioned "Il Migliore e l’ultimo", Wu Ming’s "Asce di guerra", Bert D’Arragon’s "La libellula", and Ferzan Özpetek’s "Magnifica presenza".Item Rabbi Betcher Interview(2021-03-18) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious StudiesThis interview is with Rabbi-Cantor Marie Betcher, a female rabbi in Austin, Texas. Rabbi Betcher discusses her upbringing, growing up in Brooklyn, NY in an Italian family. She shares her multicultural background and the migration story of her family. She also discusses the gender dynamics she experiences as a female rabbi. In this interview, we hear her account of life in the pandemic and her involvement in the community. She currently serves as a chaplain with the Austin Police Department.Item Setting a new standard: a sociolinguistic analysis of the regional Italian of Sicily in Andrea Camilleri’s Commissario Montalbano mystery series(2009-12) Andrighetti, Traci Lee; Russi, Cinzia, 1966-The purpose of this study was to conduct a sociolinguistic analysis of the regional Italian of Sicily in Andrea Camilleri’s Un mese con Montalbano (A Month with Montalbano). The lexical portion of a model developed by Sgroi (1990) to examine the use of regional Italian in literature was applied to the thirty short stories in Camilleri’s text to isolate the components of this variety. The study also attempted to identify the socio-economic features of the characters who speak regional Italian, the contexts of use of this variety and what the regionalisms in the stories indicate about Italy and the speech of Italians. The model revealed that Camilleri utilizes three main types of language to regionalize his prose: Sicilian Italian regionalisms; phonological adaptations of Sicilian dialect terms; and, hyperfrequent Italian words. The regional terms comprise only 24.4% of the lexemes identified by the model, while 40.4% represent Italianizations of Sicilian dialect that may be artistic adaptations of the author. A surprising 33.4% of the terms are standard Italian words that appear to have been chosen by Camilleri due to their similarity to equivalent Sicilian dialect terms. With respect to the sociolinguistic aspects of the study, the findings were somewhat problematic owing to the nature of the mystery genre. Specifically, middle-aged policemen and police-related contexts of use are disproportionately represented in the stories. Nevertheless, it was determined that regional Italian is spoken by male and female characters who represent a wide range of ages and occupations. Furthermore, results illustrated that regionalisms are uttered most frequently in professional, public and formal contexts. The requisites of the mystery genre also affected the findings in regard to Camilleri’s portrayal of Italy and Italian speech. Much of the regional language used in the text exaggerates the criminal aspects of Italian society and the expressive quality of this variety. In a more realistic vein, however, many regionalisms emphasize the multi-cultural makeup of the country and the intangible facet of Italianness. In general, the textual analysis indicates that regional Italian is a complex variety which may enjoy a broader usage in contemporary Italy than the traditional dialects.Item Vowel length in Standard Italian and Northern Italian dialects(2007-05) Youngblood, Jessica Lyn; Montreuil, Jean-PierreIn this report, the phenomenon of vowel lengthening in Standard Italian and two Northern Italian dialects, Friulian and Milanese, is discussed. For each language, the facts of vowel lengthening are presented and analyzed in the framework of several theories previously proposed to account for the data. These include primarily derivational theory, moraic theory, and optimality theory. Vowel lengthening is analyzed predominantly from a synchronic perspective for Standard Italian, but for Friulian and Milanese, both diachronic and synchronic accounts are presented. Vowel length in Italian and Milanese is seen to result from bimoraic enforcement, a principle requiring that all stressed syllables be bimoraic. A constraint prohibiting long vowels in word-final position interacts with the principle of bimoraic enforcement in Italian. In Milanese, bimoraic enforcement responds to a lexical contrast in moraic and non-moraic codas. Vowels before non-moraic codas lengthen to create a bimoraic syllable, while those before moraic codas do not since those syllables are already bimoraic. In Friulian, on the other hand, historical vowel lengthening which resulted from compensatory lengthening following the apocope of final vowels has been reanalyzed as a synchronic process of compensatory lengthening resulting from loss of consonant voice following word-final devoicing.