Walking in the Metropolis
Italian 368
Prof. Andrea Baldi
Italian Department
Tel. 732-932-7031
abaldi@rci.rutgers.edu
Course Description
The course addresses the representation of walking in Western cultures. Rooted in the
everyday, in ordinary gestures, the experience of walking is pivotal to the shaping of our
experience of place. Strolling relates to our most immediate way of staying in the world,
examining and describing it. In the wake of modernity, the new urban subjects have fashioned
walking as a style of apprehension and appropriation of their surroundings. Through their
“rhetoric of walking,” their choices of itineraries, passers-by devise their own maps of the city,
appropriating its spaces.
As it constitutes a primary way of relating to others and perceiving the environment around
us, walking is a recurrent motif in literary and cinematic texts. Since antiquity, this practice has
been prominently recorded in literature as a paradigm of a dynamic relationship with the outside
world, often leading to detachment from the mundane sphere, and prompting reflection and
introspection. Such observation of our living space is culturally encoded and, with its shifts and
transformations in the course of time, reflects changing attitudes and customs, highly influenced
by social and economic factors. Walking through the city is also, and foremost, codified by
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gender, as demonstrated by the various models of flânerie, in which the sexual identity of the
passer-by shapes the observation of urban space. Walking sets in motion essential processes
regarding reflection, knowledge, and writing. It is, ultimately, a call to participation in the world,
as well as a process of cognitive discovery, moving from the outside to the inside.
In the course we will explore these issues, analyzing a wide array of captivating literary
and visual texts. Thus, we will raise and discuss questions about our own experience of walking
in the metropolis.
Learning Goals:
The course aims to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of key cultural, social, and gender
issues of Western culture in the 19th-21st centuries. Through readings, screenings, class
discussions, and written assignments, the course is designed to foster the development of
essential analytical and critical skills that students can apply to diverse national literary traditions,
historical periods, and cultural frameworks.
Required Texts:
A Reader will be made available by the instructor and posted on SAKAI
Course Requirements and Grade Distribution:
The abilities defined in the learning goals will be assessed through oral and written activities.
Active class participation (15%); Students are expected to actively participate in class discussions.
One oral presentation (10%); Students are required to give a 10-minute presentation on a topic
discussed with the instructor. Their performance will be evaluated according to their effectiveness
in communicating as well as the thoroughness of their critical analysis of the subject.
Two 4-page papers (25%); Students are required to analyze a literary or visual text, discussing two
sources linked to their topic. They are expected to demonstrate the ability to address and
communicate complex ideas.
Midterm exam (25%); The exam comprises two essay questions on the topics discussed in the first
part of the course. It assesses each student’s ability to engage critically with the issues tackled in
the course in relation to their historical, social, and cultural background as well as with the
theoretical concepts expounded in the course.
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Final exam (25%); The exam comprises two essay questions on the topics not addressed in the
Midterm.
Attendance, Participation, and Disabilities Policies.
Students are expected to attend all classes; if you expect to miss one or two classes, please use
the University absence reporting website https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/ to indicate the date and
reason for your absence. An email is automatically sent to me. No more than three absences are
allowed; use them wisely, for health and other serious issues. Having more than three absences,
arriving to class late, and engaging in behavior that is distracting to the rest of the class are
grounds for a significantly lower mark in class participation.
PLEASE NOTE: USE OF CELLULAR PHONES IS NOT ALLOWED DURING CLASSES. NO LATE ASSIGNMENTS
AND MAKE-UP EXAMS.
In case students with disabilities should require any special type of assistance and would like to
request
accommodations,
they
must
follow
the
procedures
outlined
at:http://disabilityservices.rutgers.edu/request.html
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
In order to avoid plagiarism (the representation of the words or ideas of others as one’s own),
every quotation must be indentified by quotation marks or appropriate indentation and must be
properly cited in the text or in a footnote. Always acknowledge your sources clearly and completely
when you paraphrase or summarize material from another source (in print, electronic, or other
medium) on whole or in part. If you are in doubt, please consult the policy on plagiarism and
academic integrity at Rutgers and do not hesitate to ask for clarifications, if needed. Please check:
http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml
Schedule of meetings
Week 1
1.
Introduction to the course
2.
Flânerie and arcades
Discussion of images of arcades and city-life in 19th-century Paris and beyond
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Week 2
1.
Discussion of Edgar Allan Poe, “The Man of the Crowd”
Critical reading: A. Rummel, “People in the Crowd: British Modernism, the Metropolis
and the Flâneur”
2.
Discussion of Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life” (excerpts)”;
discussion of works by Constantin Guys
Critical reading: J.A. Hiddleston, “Baudelaire and Constantin Guys” (selections)
Week 3
1.
Discussion of Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Modern Life” (selections)
2.
Discussion of Walter Benjamin, “The Flâneur”
Critical reading: M. Lauster, “Walter Benjamin’s Myth of the ‘Flâneur’”
Week 4
1.
Discussion of Charles Baudelaire, The Spleen of Paris (excerpts)
Critical reading: B. Schlossman, “The Night of the Poet: Baudelaire, Benjamin, and
the Woman in the Street”
2.
Discussion of Matilde Serao, “A Florist”
Week 5
1.
Discussion of futurist artworks and aesthetics
Critical reading: T. Harte, Fast Forward: The Aesthetics and Ideology of Speed, 5-27
2.
Discussion of Katherine Mansfield, “The Tiredness of Rosabel”
First paper due
Week 6
1.
Discussion of Katherine Mansfield, “Miss Brill” and excerpts from her Journal
Critical reading: M.B. Mandel, “Reductive Imagery in ‘Miss Brill”
2.
Screening and discussion of episodes from the movie Paris, Je T’aime (2006)
Week 7
1.
Midterm
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2.
Discussion of Virginia Woolf, “Oxford Street Tide”
Critical reading: S. Squier, “Gender and Class in Virginia Woolf’s London”
(selections)
Week 8
1.
Screening and discussion of episodes from Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan (1946)
Critical reading: M. Marcus, “National Identity by Means of Montage in Roberto
Rossellini’s Paisan”
2.
Screening and discussion of episodes from Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan (1946);
students’ presentations
Week 9
1.
Screening of Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948)
2.
Discussion of Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Critical reading: R.C. Gordon, Bicycle Thieves (selections); students’ presentations
Week 10
1.
Discussion of Michel de Certeau, “Walking in the City” (selections). Screening and
discussion of clips from Federico Fellini, La dolce vita; students’ presentations
2.
Discussion of Jean Rhys, “Illusion,” “In the Luxembourg Gardens.”
Critical reading: C.A. Malcolm, D. Malcolm, Jean Rhys: A Study of the Short Fiction
(selections); students’ presentations
Second paper due
Week 11
1.
Discussion of Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo or The Seasons in the City (selections);
students’ presentations
Critical reading: A.M. Jeannet, “Escape from the Labyrinth: Italo Calvino’s
Marcovaldo”
2.
Discussion of Anna Maria Ortese, “A Night at the Station”; students’ presentations
Week 12
1.
Screening of Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007)
Reading of J. Krakauer, Into the Wild (selections)
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2.
Screening and discussion of Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007)
Critical reading: D.S. Cohen, “From Script to Screen: Into the Wild”; students’
presentations
Week 13
1.
Screening of P. Sorrentino, The Great Beauty (2013)
2.
Screening and discussion of P. Sorrentino,The Great Beauty (2013)
Week 14
1.
Discussion of P. Sorrentino, The Great Beauty (2013); comparison with Fellini’s La
Dolce Vita; students’ presentations
2.
Students’ presentations.
Week 15
1.
Conclusions to the course.
Preliminary Bibliography
Cohen, D.S. “From Script to Screen: Into the Wild,” Script (November-December 2007): 37-43
Gordon, R.C. Bicycle Thieves. London: Macmillan, 2008
Harte, T. Fast Forward: The Aesthetics and Ideology of Speed in Russian Avant-Garde
Culture, 1910-1930. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009
J. A. Hiddleston, “Baudelaire and Constantin Guys ,” The Modern Language Review, 90 .3
(July 1995); 603-21
Jeannet, A. M. “Escape from the Labyrinth: Italo Calvino’s Marcovaldo,” Annali d’Italianistica 9
(1991): 212-29
Lauster, M. “Walter Benjamin’s Myth of the ‘Flâneur,’” MLR 102. 1 (January 2007): 119-156
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Malcolm, C. A. and Malcolm D., Jean Rhys: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne
Publishers 1996
Mandel, M. “Reductive Imagery in ‘Miss Brill,’” Studies in Short Fiction 26.4 (Fall 1989): 473-77.
Marcus, M. “National Identity by Means of Montage in Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan,” After Fellini:
National Cinema in the Postmodern Age. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2002, 15-38
Rummel, A. “People in the Crowd: British Modernism, the Metropolis and the Flâneur,” in
Rudaitytė, Regina (ed. and foreword). Literature in Society. Newcastle upon Tyne, England:
Cambridge Scholars, 2012, 57-76
Schlossman, B. “The Night of the Poet: Baudelaire, Benjamin, and the Woman in the Street,”
MLN, 119. 5 (December 2004): 1013-32
Squier, S. “The London Scene: Gender and Class in Virginia Woolf’s London,” Twentieth Century
Literature, 29. 4 (Winter, 1983): 488-500
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