University of Kent - Home

• Contact
• Maps
• Departments

Navigation menu

• < SECL Home

Italian

• Italian Home
• Eight reasons to choose us
• International Students
• Undergraduate Studies
• Postgraduate Studies
• Resources
• Year Abroad
• People
• Careers
• Contact Us

News & Events

• Italian News
• Italian Research Seminar
• Events at SECL

Italian Studies at Kent

With Italy continually proving herself as a cornerstone in culture, art and history across Europe, you cannot help but be inspired to learn the language. By learning Italian, you provide yourself with the best possible instrument to explore this cultural richness that Italy has to offer and to open your eyes to the Roman heritage, the Renaissance and to modern architecture, fashion and car design. Spoken not only in its home country, but also in Switzerland and by more than fifteen million Italians in North America and Australia, it is a hugely popular language all over the world that can only develop further.

The Italian Section within the University of Kent – one of the first language departments created – is proud to offer a course of study in which students have the opportunity to learn Italian to a high standard and gain real insight into Italian literature, culture, and society. The course covers topics such as History of Italian Literature from the origins to nowadays, 19th and 20th century Italian fiction, Fascism, History of the organized crime, neorealist and post-neorealist cinema. Staff research interests include contemporary Italian thought, the cinematic adaptation of literary texts and of course language teaching. You can study Italian at Kent whether you have got an A level or GCSE in Italian, or whether you are a beginner. You can study either full-time or part-time.

The majority of the Italian teaching staff are native speakers and there are usually a number of exchange students within the School, so you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the language. This is supplemented by excellent technical facilities including three satellite TV channels, videos and DVDs and computer-assisted language learning. The majority of our students come to us with no prior knowledge of Italian, but leave with the same standard of proficiency as those who came to us with A level.

News and Events

• New European jointly supervised PhD programme (Co-tutelle) established between the Italian department (Dr Lorenzo Chiesa) and the SUM Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane (Prof Roberto Esposito)
• Dr Francesco Capello secured a €95,000 donation from the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino for the creation of a postdoctoral position in the department and internships in Italy for UG students and recent graduates
• Recent volumes by Italian staff: L.Chiesa (ed.), Italian Thought Today: Bio-economy, Human Nature, Christianity, special issue of Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities (Routledge), volume 16, number 3, 2011; translation of G. Agamben, The Kingdom and The Glory, Homo Sacer II, 2  (Stanford University Press, 2011); A. Soardo, Accade l'accadere (Milan: Mimesis, 2011); F. Capello and L. Caldwell (eds), Psychoanalysis and Italian Studies, special issue of the Journal of Romance Studies 10, 3 (2010); W. Fiorucci, Anna Banti and the (Im)possibility of Love (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle, 2010)
• New Single honours BA in Italian Studies to start in September 2012
• New series of interdisciplinary research seminars organised by the Italian department. Full programme
• 'The Human Animal in Politics, Science, and Psychoanalysis' (pdf) international workshop organised by Dr Lorenzo Chiesa and Professor Mladen Dolar (KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 16-17 December). Videos