Global Learning
Explore Library resources for study abroad, international learning, and countries represented by our Kirkwood students.
About Italy
Some facts about Italy, from Global Road Warrior database:
- "Italy covers roughly 300,000 square kilometers (116,000 square miles) and shares borders with France, Austria, Slovenia, and Switzerland. Within Italy’s territory are two enclaves: Vatican City and San Marino, while Campione is another Italian exclave located entirely within Switzerland."
- "The country’s official language is Italian, with many regions speaking various Italian dialects. Other languages include English, French, Friulian, Ladin, Slovene, and Spanish."
- "Noted characteristic of Italian culture include prioritizing family, which includes extended family who are present at frequent household gatherings. The country is renowned for excellence in architecture, art, theatre, literature, and wine, with fashion and food also highly esteemed. “Bella figura,” or “good image” is important to Italians, with not only clothes important to this concept, but the confidence one projects as well."
- "Italy’s varied climate and topography supports a great deal of biodiversity and there are many endemic species. The country has 24 national parks, with one on Sicily and three on the island of Sardinia. Common trees include species of oak and pine, European olive, cypress, beech, and poplar. Grasses, mosses, and wildflowers, as well as the national flower, the lily, are all found in Italy.
Large mammals include lynx, wolves, brown bears, ibex, deer, chamois, mouflon, and porcupines. Italy is also home to many bats, birds, and owls, while small mammals like shrews, voles, and cat-like genets thrive in Italy. Coastal waters are home to monk seals, dolphins, whales, sharks, and hundreds of kinds of fish."
- Read much more about Italy in Global Road Warrior!
Books and other resources about Italy
Italy - Culture Smart! by Call Number: 945 T655i 2020ISBN: 9781787028760Publication Date: 2021-03-04Don't just see the sights--get to know the people. Italy delights and stimulates with its magnificent cities and monuments, stunningly beautiful landscapes, the glory of its art and architecture, the richness and variety of its food, the elegance of its design and fashion, and the vitality and charm of its people. Italian style and culture have been exported all over the world. At home, however, Italian society and politics are facing challenges as the country struggles to maintain its standard of living, the stability of its currency, and its ability to provide jobs. The influx of refugees across the Mediterranean is putting pressure on both its social fabric and its economy. Culture Smart! Italy is an insider s guide to their daily lives, passions, and preoccupations. It introduces you to their history and culture, and provides vital information and practical tips to help smooth your path in different social situations.
Italy in the Modern World by Call Number: 945.08 R327iISBN: 9781350005181Publication Date: 2019-12-12Providing a comprehensive history of Italy from around 1800 to the present, Italy in the Modern World traces the social and cultural transformations that defined the lives of Italians during the 19th and 20th century. The book focuses on how social relations (class, gender and race), science and the arts shaped the political processes of unification, state building, fascism and the postwar world. Split up into four parts covering the making of Italy, the liberal state, war and fascism, and the republic, the text draws on secondary literature and primary sources in order to synthesize current historiographical debates and provide primary documents for classroom use.
Italy and the Environmental Humanities by Call Number: eBookISBN: 0813941083Publication Date: 2018-03-27Bringing together new writing by some of the field's most compelling voices from the United States and Europe, this is the first book to examine Italy--as a territory of both matter and imagination--through the lens of the environmental humanities. The contributors offer a wide spectrum of approaches--including ecocriticism, film studies, environmental history and sociology, eco-art, and animal and landscape studies--to move past cliché and reimagine Italy as a hybrid, plural, eloquent place.
A History of Modern Italy by Call Number: 945.09 C268hISBN: 9780199982578Publication Date: 2018-06-15A History of Modern Italy addresses the question of how Italy's modern history, from its prolonged process of nation-building in the nineteenth century to the crises of the last two decades, has produced a paradoxical blend of hyper-modernity and traditionalism and thus made the country "different" in the broader context of Western Europe.The text explores how Italians have experienced seismic shifts in their social and economic landscape over the past two centuries, while simultaneously maintaining older cultural norms, social practices, and political methods.
Search for books and articles on more specific topics using our WorldCat library search:
- WorldCat Discovery This link opens in a new window
- Why search here? A great place to start your research, WorldCat is an all-in-one search of the library's holdings.
- What's included? Kirkwood library books, ebooks, and article database content. Select "Libraries Worldwide" on the results screen to search books held by libraries around the country and the world.
Films available to stream:
- Documentary: Renaissance ItalyThe Renaissance was a time of significant accomplishments in architecture, art, music, science and exploration. It began in the Italian city-states, with Florence generally described as the cradle of the Renaissance. Venice was a trading superpower with a large empire. The Catholic Church and Trade Unions were influential on society...
- Documentary: Love and Sex in ItalyItaly has the lowest birth rate in Europe. At this rate, Italy’s population could reduce by 16 million over the next 50 years. But despite this, it remains the most romantic country in the world for many.
Italy's first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was elected on a platform of a return to traditional family values. Traditionalists fear for the status of the family, and reactionary Catholic campaigners are pushing back on abortion rights... - Educational series: Learning Italian - Step by Step and Region by RegionIn this exciting series on Italian, learn to speak about the present, the past, and the future through detailed work with verbs, nouns, and adjectives, plus you'll learn vocabulary on numerous, useful subjects. Also discover the romantic beauties of Campania, The "Marches", Il Veneto, and Tuscany, in an unforgettable immersion into Italy's splendorous language and culture.
- Documentary: In My Mother's House - Tracing a Family's History, from Italy to EritreaOne day in 2005, Lina Fruzzetti receives a startling email that reads, "If this is your father, we are cousins." There follows a decade-long quest to learn more about her Italian father who died young in Italian ruled Eritrea and her Eritrean mother who does not dwell on the past. Above all, Fruzzetti strives to understand her far-flung African, European, and American family against the backdrop of colonial rule, worlds at war, migration, grief, diasporas, and the global world in which we all live.
- Educational series: Gothic Churches in ItalyWhile the term Gothic is rarely used in an Italian context, Professor Cook pinpoints both traditional and unique Gothic elements present in the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto, as well as in the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. He also guides you through other buildings, including the most Gothic cathedral in Italy, Milan Cathedral.
- Documentary: Materia Wood - Explore Cremona Italy's Traditional Violin MakingIn Italy there’s a strong tradition of working with wood. In this documentary we start in the Forest of Violins in Paneveggio. Each tree is specially selected and felled for its quality grain. The forest is never over-harvested, with a mindfulness of preserving the forest and the traditional trees that are used to make the world’s finest violins and other objects of art. You will be introduced to fascinating Cremona, where the best violin makers work. Visit Schools, and witness local traditions being carved, like the Krampus masks and other works of art surrounded by the beautiful landscapes of the region.
- Film (Drama) - Io CapitanoIn this acclaimed film which won top directing and acting prizes at the Venice Film Festival, writer-director Garrone presents a “reverse shot” of the immigration experience while unfurling an epic, cinematographically magnificent odyssey from West Africa to Italy.
Many more documentaries and movies available on the Library's Kanopy database:
- Kanopy Streaming Videos This link opens in a new window
- Why search here? For an extensive collection of streaming videos and films.
- What's included? Contains a wide range of films and television series, as well as documentary videos produced by PBS, BBC, Documentary Educational Resources and more.
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