Art, Food, and Finance in Venice: An Immersive Experience
May 28 – June 23, 2023
Marianna Torgovnick, Department of English, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Course Summary
The course will immerse students in the Venetian experience, aiming to give them a solid basis for understanding the city’s past and its current issues. Venice’s legendary beauty and cultured lifestyle didn’t just happen. They grew out of the complex interaction of geography, populations, and economic activities: fishing, commerce, banking, tourism. Venice has been influenced strongly by the politics of empire and the dynamics of patronage—once governmental or from the Catholic Church, now often via corporate entities, including leading fashion houses. The program will examine Venice’s geography and role of water both as the city’s lifeblood and as ecological threat. Students will appreciate the role of commerce, money-lending, empire, film, and banking in forming the city’s international reputation. In addition, students will savor the role of art and food in everyday Venetian life and analyze how networks of art, food, and finance fuel tourism and tourism’s effects on Venice.
This course will be taught in English.