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Italian Cinema: Part IV. Contemporary Crises and Postmodern Projections with Dr. Jennie Hirsh

Italian Cinema: Part IV. Contemporary Crises and Postmodern Projections with Dr. Jennie Hirsh


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Can't make this time? A video recording will be sent to all participants after the seminar.

The fourth (and final) installment in a four-part series on Italian postwar cinema, this lecture will look at postmodern and other genres of contemporary Italian cinema, exploring both comedic and dramatic films such as Nanni Moretti's Caro Diario (1993) and We Have a Pope (2011), Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1997), Alice Rohrwacher's Heavenly Body (2011), Taviani Brothers' Caesar Must Die (2012), and Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (2013) and The Hand of God (2021).

Led by an expert on modern and contemporary art, architecture, and film, Dr. Jennie Hirsh, this lecture will ground participants in both familiar and lesser known examples of Italian cinema from the 1990s to the present. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with an increased sense of how Italian directors of the last thirty years have not only experimented with innovative stylistic approaches to reflect contemporary social history but also looked more closely at marginalized figures in society, frequently touching on themes including gender, race, incarceration, class, and alienation.

Jennie Hirsh (Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College) is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Columbia Universities, as well as pre-doctoral fellowships from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Wolfsonian FIU. Hirsh has authored essays on artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Yinka Shonibare, and Regina Silveira, and is co-editor, with Isabelle Wallace, of Contemporary Art and Classical Myth (Ashgate 2011).

This conversation is suitable for all ages.

90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.

Customer Reviews

Based on 4 reviews
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(4)
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L
Louis Higgins (Minneapolis, US)
Great class

This was an extremely entertaining class. I can't wait to watch the movies we talked about during the session. And I can't wait to see more courses on Italian films and directors in the future. The instructor obviously loves these movies, and she brings her passion to the presentation. I highly recommend checking this out!

C
C.A. (El Cerrito, US)
Great series on Italian cinema!

This is actually about all four lectures in the series because I while I watched all four, I was only able to attend this fourth presentation "live." The historical context of the first two lectures was especially interesting to me, and my understanding of more recent Italian cinema deepened. Dr. Jennie Hirsh's presentation style was excellent. She is clearly an expert in Italian arts and cinema and I found myself wanting to take a course with her to delve more deeply into the material.

M
Maria Cantarin (Los Angeles, US)

Guest did not leave comment

P
P. (Mill Valley, US)

N/A

Customer Reviews

Based on 4 reviews
100%
(4)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
L
Louis Higgins (Minneapolis, US)
Great class

This was an extremely entertaining class. I can't wait to watch the movies we talked about during the session. And I can't wait to see more courses on Italian films and directors in the future. The instructor obviously loves these movies, and she brings her passion to the presentation. I highly recommend checking this out!

C
C.A. (El Cerrito, US)
Great series on Italian cinema!

This is actually about all four lectures in the series because I while I watched all four, I was only able to attend this fourth presentation "live." The historical context of the first two lectures was especially interesting to me, and my understanding of more recent Italian cinema deepened. Dr. Jennie Hirsh's presentation style was excellent. She is clearly an expert in Italian arts and cinema and I found myself wanting to take a course with her to delve more deeply into the material.

M
Maria Cantarin (Los Angeles, US)

Guest did not leave comment

P
P. (Mill Valley, US)

N/A