Luca Zipoli presents "Philadelphia the Global City: the Italian Legacy across Time"

Описание: Presentation of ITAL B240 course “Philadelphia the Global City: the Italian Legacy across Time” by Luca Zipoli (Bryn Mawr College). This course will be taught in Philadelphia in Fall 2025 as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. The video recording is by Rashan Thompson.

The course is offered by the Department of Transnational Italian Studies within the Tri-Co Philly Program and is cross-listed with History, History of Art, Growth and Structure of Cities, and the Praxis Program.

Fall Semester 2025 • Monday, 12:10-3:00 p.m.
Friends Center • 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia

Abstract:
This course investigates the history and evolution of Philadelphia as a globalized and multi-ethnic city, using as a case study for this analysis the impact and legacy of transnational Italian culture across the centuries. By adopting a cross-cultural, trans-historical, and interdisciplinary approach, the course explores the influence that — along with and in intersections with many other cultural inputs — also Italian arts and cultures have exerted on the city, making it become the cosmopolitan and transnational urban environment that it is today. Throughout the centuries and way before Italy even started existing as a state, Philadelphians traveled to the peninsula and brought back objects to display in emerging cultural institutions or studied the country’s art and architecture styles to shape the evolving aspect of the city. Simultaneously, incoming immigration formed new neighborhoods — such as South Philly, home to the Italian Market — and Italian figures came to prominence and became part of the social fabric of the city. Nowadays, many non-profit organizations work to preserve the traces that Italian migrants left within Philadelphia’s multi-ethnic urban environment as well as to extend the city's global profile and celebrate its heritage and diversity. Through specific field trips, on-site experiential activities, and forms of civic engagement this course highlights both the enduring fascination of Philadelphians with Italy (or with the idea thereof) across the centuries and the role that the Italian Diaspora played in the development of the city. The course ultimately challenges geographical, chronological, and cultural boundaries by showing how places, arts, identities that today are perceived as ‘American’ have in most cases an intersectional, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural history to tell. All readings and class discussion will be in English, and no knowledge of Italian is required. Students seeking Italian credits will complete their assignments in the target language.

More info:
https://www.brynmawr.edu/inside/acade...