December 2015 – DEV – The Umbra Institute – Study Abroad in Italy

Due to its history and modern relationship with the Catholic Church, Italy is a country that gets particularly excited about the Christmas season and its celebration. In the past, the Epiphany, held on January 6^th, was more widely and extravagantly celebrated. However, in recent years Christmas has become equally important to the Italian Holiday season. The festivities begin the first week of December with the decoration of city centers and the arrival of Christmas markets that fill the streets and, in Perugia’s case, the Rocca Paolina, which used to be the Pope’s fortress until the late 1800s.

Here are the top 5 ways that Umbra’s Italian Staff members celebrate the December Holidays:

5. Fish vs. Meat
When asked about Christmas Traditions, Umbra’s director of the Food & Sustainability Studies Program, Elisa Ascione, was first to mention that on Christmas Eve, known as the Vigilia in Italy, Italians eat fish, and lots of it! This tradition is primarily practiced in the South of Italy and is linked to the Catholic tradition of abstinence from meat, considered a less pure food, as they await the birth of Jesus. On Christmas day, however, meat returns to the table, in abundance, as Italian families gather together to celebrate around traditionally prepared feasts.

4. Eating Pampepato
A number of staff members crave Pampepato as the holidays approach. Pampepato is an Umbrian holiday sweet made with walnuts, almonds, cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, and, of course, sugar! Italian mothers or grandmothers typically bake this sweet to be enjoyed throughout the holiday season.

3. Briscola and the Bestia
During the Christmas season, it is very common for Italian families to gather together and find entertainment within decks of cards. Marco mentions that some common games in his family include Briscola, Scala 40, Machiavelli, or even Bestia, which he describes as “an inception between Briscola and Poker”. Barbara adds that she looks forward every year to her family’s Tombolata, an Italian version of BINGO.

2. Babbo Natale and la Befana
The white beard and jolly spirit of Babbo Natale, Father Christmas, are on the minds of young Italian children as they anticipate Christmas day. Italian families often open their gifts to each other at Midnight, the evening of Christmas Eve, before everyone makes their way to bed to await the arrival of Babbo Natale.

La Befana, however, is the more traditional gift bearer, and Anna’s favorite! According to legend, the Three Wise Men, lost on their way to find baby Jesus, stopped at the home of an old woman to ask for directions. The old woman was unable to give the men directions but they invited her on their journey anyway; she declined the invitation only to realize, shortly after, that she should have gone. The old woman then went in search of the Wise Men but could not find them. To make up for the missed opportunity, she then stopped every child to give them a small gift in hopes that one was young Jesus. Now, Italian children leave a stocking for the Befana on the Epiphany each year, waiting for her to leave a gift as she continues her search for Jesus. However, if they were naughty children, they are likely to get a lump of coal in their stocking. Do not worry, the coal is made of sugar!

1. Cappelletti
Almost every member of the Umbra Staff, in anticipation of the holiday season, excitedly describes the family tradition of making and eating Cappelletti, served in a warm broth. Francesco describes Cappelletti as being a sort of tortellini made with a meat filling. He says that his entire family usually gets together in early December to make many, many cappelletti by hand before freezing them and waiting to eat them together on Christmas day.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, from the Umbra Institute!

The Fall 2015 General Studies Program has officially come to an end. In order to reflect on their study abroad experience and share their interpretation of life in Italy with the Umbra community, students participated in a series of Community Engagement activities as a final salute to Italy.

Monday, December 7^thPhotography Art Show: The Art Show was a lovely display of images taken by students in both the Introduction to Photography and Visual Communications courses. Each image represented a unique perspective of Perugia as well as the interpretation of each student’s Study Abroad experience, as a whole.

small_logo_final-project — The final product of a semester of collaboration between Fontenuovo and Umbra’s Fresco Painting class

Tuesday, December 8^th
Theater Workshop Final Performance: In Teatro della Sapienza, Umbra’s theater club shared all it learned about theater this semester through the performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged & Revised). Students introduced the tragedies and comedies to a large crowd of American and Italian peers who they regularly involved in their performance in order to inspire gasps and laughs throughout the night.

Wednesday, December 9th
Fresco Painting Inauguration: Throughout the semester, Umbra’s Fresco Painting students have been studying modern and historic techniques and context relative to the Fresco Art. Students then put to practice all that they learned in collaboration with Fontenuovo, a local residency for the elderly. In honor of Fontenuovo’s 130^th anniversary, students created a lovely fresco painting of the Perugian skyline and unveiled their beautiful artwork during their end-of-semester Inauguration ceremony.

Community Engagement Presentations: These presentations were designed to allow students from thirteen courses with community engagement components to share their experiences through conference-style presentations. To learn more about the topics presented and the class that won Best Presentation, read Students End their Study Abroad Experience with Community Engagement Presentations.

WW1 According to Umbra’s Museum Interns: Throughout the semester, Umbra Museum Seminar and Practicum students have learned about the operations and functions of museums, leading to their final project: creating a WW1 exhibit in direct collaboration with the Palazzo Sorbello House Museum. This Wednesday afternoon, the Umbra community was invited to tour the exhibit and receive a personal tour provided by Umbra Museum Interns.

small_logo_group-with-sindaco — Urban Spaces Students stand with Perugia’s Sindaco to celebrate community collaboration

Urban Spaces Terrace Initiative: With support of the City of Perugia, the collaboration of the Association of Borgo Bello, and the help of the residents of Borgo Bello, Umbra’s Urban Spaces students have been working to create a common place on the terrace of Via del Cortone. Students researched various place-making methods and became involved in the community in order to understand the perfect way to meet the local need and desire for an area designed for relaxation and community. To celebrate their project, students met one last time with those in the community who are sponsoring the project, including the Sindaco, Mayor, of Perugia who shook the hand of each student and thanked them for their contributions. The project was celebrated with live music and bruschetta cooked over a fire on the terrace of Via del Cortone.

Creative Writing Public Readings: Throughout the semester, Umbra’s Creative Writing students have been analyzing Italian literary classics in order to expand their knowledge of diverse writing methods. In order to share what they have learned, each student presented one of their favorite short stories that they wrote this semester during a public reading in the Caffé di Perugia. Stories pulled both tears and laughs from the crowd as students reflected on their time in Perugia and the fact that it is never too cold for gelato.

Thursday, December 10^thArchaeology Museum Tours: Umbra’s Archaeological Discoveries students provided two tours through Perugia’s Museo Archeologico Nazionale; highlighting Perugian history during the Etruscan period. Each student presented a summary of their findings regarding one artifact which they had researched during the semester as they worked with the museum. Students mentioned what is still unknown to archaeologists about the Etruscans and shared the history of what has been understood of Etruscan work-life, entertainment, and death rituals.

To read more about Umbra’s Community Engagement Initiatives, click here!

This afternoon, thirteen courses with Community Engagement components provided conference-style presentations to allow students to reflect on what they have learned during their study abroad experience and to share their new knowledge with the rest of the Umbra community. Some of these courses included Integrated Marketing Communication, Contemporary Italy, Sustainability of Food, and the Fair Trade Seminar and Practicum. Each presentation lasted for no more than fifteen minutes and drew attention to the key concepts taken from each course.

Each Community Engagement activity at Umbra presents a new and diverse perspective of Italian culture. For example, the Integrated Marketing Communication course presented their work with Sara and Giulia Goretti, founders of WineTherapy. For their project, they analyzed and researched WineTherapy competitors and provided a full SWOT analysis before setting to work to develop an integrated marketing strategy to meet WineTherapy’s goals of appealing to youth and reaching international recognition. All the while, Sustainability of Food students studied the sociopolitical popularity of the sustainability “trend” and learned how to turn the popular trend into a reality for people from all walks of life. Sustainability students worked with local Italian students to present the practical reality of sustainable food culture and presented their findings, based on the Italian perspective blended with their own.

Other students presented their work with local Italian families, the organizational behavior of an up and coming Truffle business, a chocolate museum and fair trade bottega, and more.

The event’s winning presentation was that of the Community Based Research in Psychology students. Students analyzed different Umbra initiatives such as the RepEAT Box project and the SoloItaliano Challenge. Students then used the information they collected to offer their understanding and insight relative to psychological behavior and habits, all with the goal of improving practicality of each initiative and to encourage that they be maintained in the Perugian community.

To read more about Umbra’s many Community Engagement Initiatives, click here.

The Umbra Institute Perugia-Staff Marco Bagli

Marco Bagli, Student Services Co-coordinator for the Umbra Institute, was recently awarded the Young Researcher’s Award at an international conference in Pavia. Marco is a PhD candidate in English Cognitive Linguistics at the University of Perugia, with an interest in Cognitive Semantics, Semantic Categorization, and Conceptual Metaphor Theory. For his PhD project, Marco is investigating the conceptualization of the sense of Taste in the English language – for example, why does one call a loved one “honey” or refer to sarcasm as being “bitter”.

The Young Researcher’s Award was a competitive award granted to three students selected from applicants coming from different countries throughout the world. Marco, along with two post-doc students one from Spain and one from France, were selected for the award based on the scientific quality, innovation, clarity, and disciplinary relevance of their research. For this particular award, Marco’s research dealt with the semantic categorization of Taste words in English, which was carried out at the Umbra Institute with the participation of some of the Spring 14 students. The conference focused on ‘Figurative Thought and Language’ which is “not something that only pertains to poetry or literature, but human beings speak and think figuratively on a daily basis without noticing it. We constantly make use of metaphors and metonymies, even if we don’t know”, Marco explains.

In January, Marco plans to continue his studies by moving to Glasgow for four months to work with Dr. Wendy Anderson at the School of Critical Studies. Thanks to an Erasmus+ grant, a European project designed to enhance student exchange in Europe while fostering an intercultural, European identity, Marco will be looking at the historical development of the conceptualization of the sense of Taste in the English Language

For more information regarding Marco’s research, click here.

Student design for Terrace project. Photo by Raymond Lorenzo

Urban Spaces students have dedicated their semester to constructing a new space for locals to enjoy on a terrace along Via del Cortone, located in the Borgo Bello district of Perugia’s historic center. The plans for this community-oriented space follow the design strategy of “place making”, a particularly innovative approach that involves designing a public space according to direct input from locals who live and work in that space. In order to approach the project from the “place making” perspective, students conducted multiple meetings in the district of Borgo Bello, where their terrace project will be completed, in order to understand exactly how to match their space planning to the communal idea and the culture of the district.

After studying multiple “place making” methods under Professor Ray Lorenzo and Assistant Instructor Viviana Lorenzo, students began to elaborate their plans for an open space featuring gardens, comfortable hand-made chairs and a fresco timeline; all aiming to promote and emphasize a community oriented environment in view of the panoramic landscape of Perugia, as seen from the terrace.

Students explore the terrace for their project design. Photo by Raymond Lorenzo

Now that this semester’s planning project is complete, students plan to inaugurate their new “urban space” with a special celebration, featuring bruschetta and wine, to take place on the terrace on December 9^th. In preparation, students took to the streets of Borgo Bello to form a flash mob in promotion of the event. Under the holiday lights, urban spacers sang Christmas carols as they invited passersby to sit in the newly created chairs and to hear about how those same chairs will be found on the terrace of Via del Cortone.

To read more about this semester’s Urban Spaces initiative, read A Living Room with a View in Borgo Bello, an article written for the local Luoghi Comuni magazine by three Umbra students, Stefanie Buffa, Demiana Khoury, and Massimiliano Giannangeli.