Approaches to Teaching the Works of Italo Calvino
- Editor: Franco Ricci
- Pages: vi & 159 pp.
- Published: 2013
- ISBN: 9781603291248 (Paperback)
“[V]ery highly recommended for professional and academic library Literary Studies collections in general, and Italo Calvino supplemental studies reading lists in particular.”
—Library Bookwatch
Italo Calvino, whose works reflect the major literary and cultural trends of the second half of the twentieth century, is known for his imagination, humor, and technical virtuosity. He explores topics such as neorealism, folktale, fantasy, and social and political allegory and experiments with narrative style and structure. Students take delight in Calvino’s wide-ranging and inventive work, whether in Italian courses or in courses in comparative or world literature, literary criticism, cultural studies, philosophy, or even architecture.
Given the range of his writing, teaching Calvino can seem a daunting task. This volume aims to help instructors develop creative and engaging classroom strategies. Part 1, “Materials,” presents an overview of Calvino’s writings, nearly all of which are available in English translation, as well as critical works and online resources. The essays in part 2, “Approaches,” focus on general themes and cultural contexts, address theoretical issues, and provide practical classroom applications. Contributors describe strategies for teaching Calvino that are as varied as his writings, whether having students study narrative theory through If on a winter’s night a traveler, explore literary genre with Cosmicomics, improve their writing using Six Memos for the Next Millennium, or read Mr. Palomar in a general education humanities course.
Douglas Basford
Eugenio Bolongaro
Anna Botta
JoAnn Cannon
Rocco Capozzi
Natasha V. Chang
Julia M. Cozzarelli
Andrea Dini
John Domini
Joseph Francese
Rita Gagliano
Giulia Guarnieri
Carol Lazzaro-Weis
Massimo Lollini
Andrew Martino
Guy P. Raffa
Susan Rogers
Robert Rushing
Dean Swinford
PART ONE: MATERIALS
The Instructor’s Library
Works by Italo Calvino
Primary Texts
Translations in English
Calvino and the Internet
PART TWO: APPROACHES
Introduction
Historical Contexts
The Figure of the Intellectual in Calvino’s Early Fiction
Calvino’s Essays
Calvino’s Scientific Humanism
Intellectual Contexts
Open Encyclopedias: Teaching Calvino’s Works from a Comparative Perspective
From Fiction to Theories: Calvino’s Art of Narration and Literary Theories
Proceed with Caution: Teaching Symbolism and Intertextuality in Calvino’s Fantasy Novels
Autobiography, History, and Writing in Calvino: Toward an Ethics of the Subject
Readerly Expectations: Identification and Fantasy in Calvino’s Experimental Fiction
Reading Calvino’s Women
Classroom Contexts
Why Read Calvino? What We Tell Our Italian Language and Literature Students
Reading, Writing, Desire, and Closure: Teaching Calvino to Undergraduates in Italian
Teaching Il castello dei destini incrociati: An Intuitive Approach
Calvino, Translations, and Translatability
Teaching Calvino in Creative Writing Classes
Using Mr. Palomar to Question Received Truths in a General Education Course in the Humanities
Through the Eyes of Another: Text as Visual Representation
The Invisible Monster: Calvino and the Contemporary City
“Then She Saw the Surprise”: Teaching Writing with Six Memos for the Next Millennium and Difficult Loves
Notes on Contributors
Works Cited
Index
“The volume’s readability and bibliographic and pedagogical detail and each essay’s careful framework render the volume valuable for nonspecialists, for Italianists, and for Calvino specialists, too.”
—Tommasina Gabriele, Wheaton College, Massachusetts
