Cultural Seminars



La Lingua La Vita offers every week the possibility of taking the following additional seminars:

Seminar on the History of the Italian Language:
Conducted by an expert in linguistics and romance philology, these seminars are structured according to the following program but may also be customized upon demand:
- The Indo-European roots of language.
- Passage from archaic Latin to later forms.
- The classic and popular styles in Italian language.
- Development of vulgar Italian from Latin.
- Affirmation of the Tuscan idiom versus northern and southern Italian forms.
- The scientific prose of Galileo.
- The contributions of Manzoni.
- Mussolini and the rhetoric of his regime.
- Contemporary Italian and the influence of mass media.
- The influence of borrowed foreign words and phrases in the history of Italian.
- Analysis of dialects and social jargon.

Seminar on the History of Italian Art:
Conducted by an expert in Art History and Art Critique, these seminars make use of slides and follow a program starting with Italian painting of the 13th century up to the 17th century. Each lesson will be dedicated to a different artist.

Seminar on Food, Literature and Cinema:
This is a multimedia presentation focusing on the influence of food in the Italian literature, cinema, everyday life, songs, sayings and idiomatic expressions. Reference to recipes elaborated from the famed movies Il Postino (The Postman) and Il Gattopardo (The Leopard).

Seminar on Italian Literature:
Starting from a literary analysis of the later Latin authors to the ‘Three Tuscan Crowns’ (Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio), through the reading and commentary of several poetic and literary segments.

Seminar on the History of Italian Cinema:
Strictly connected to the free guided viewing of selected Italian movies (that can be agreed between students and the teacher according to individual interest and tastes), these seminars may follow standard itineraries such as the birth of Neorealism in Italy or, alternatively, an analysis of the representation of women in Italian films.

Long live Italian Pop Music!
Every Friday at 11:30 a few Italian popular songs are selected by La Lingua La Vita teachers to be analyzed and then sung by students from all current classes in a group session. Prior to the song fest, each teacher will have gone over the lyrics to make sure everyone understands the words and their particular significance and social reference. But the fun starts when everyone listens together to a recording and then sings in unison. It is an important moment for language instruction, for understanding the culture and for socializing together!