This program has been cancelled for 2008.

May 4-16, 2008 with Maria DiBattista, Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Follow in the steps of famous authors as you wend through Florence and Venice.

Few places have so moved the hearts of British and American writers through the centuries as Italy. Join your fellow Princetonians on a literary tour of the two cities most conjured up in the Anglo-American imagination—Florence and Venice—and understand why poets and authors have waxed lyrical about this special place.

Professor Maria DiBattista, a perennial favorite with alumni, will lead precept sessions nearly every day. Discuss with her and your fellow Princetonians works by such well-known writers as Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Robert Browning, but also more contemporary authors such as Mary McCarthy, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Muriel Spark. Consider the idea of Italy in the Anglo-American imagination in other media during screenings of literary films.

Visit churches, museums, and other sites frequented by the authors under discussion to see how works of the masters Carpaccio, Palladio, and Michelangelo affected their works. And then follow your own imagination and embark upon independent exploration of these glorious cities during free time.

About the Study Leader
Maria DiBattista, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, will serve as study leader for this program.

A member of the Princeton faculty since 1974, Professor DiBattista specializes in modern British and Continental European fiction. She regularly teaches a variety of popular undergraduate and graduate courses in English and Comparative Literature, including The European Novel, The Modern European Novel, Experimental Fiction, and 20th Century Fiction. From time to time, she offers special-topics seminars in American Studies, Women's Studies, the Freshman Seminar Program and alumni studies courses, most recently Reading Aestetically. Professor DiBattista received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1994. Most recent in an extraordinary record of University Service is her service as Master of Rockefeller College; after serving since 1999, she will be stepping down this year.

To reserve your spot before the brochure is available to download, fill out a pre-registration form [PDF] and fax it to (609) 258-1281 or contact Princeton Journeys at (609) 258-8686 or journeys@princeton.edu.