Apr 5, 2009, 6:33 PM

Italian scholar updates Persian students on Iran

TEHRAN, April 5 (MNA) -- Italian scholar Riccardo Zipoli who teaches Persian at the Department of Eurasian Studies at Ca’ Foscari University gave some details on the Persian courses offered at their department.

“Several languages including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and Armenian are currently taught at the department,” he told Mehr News Agency reporter in Venice.

He believes that the teaching hours of Persian language and literature have been reduced in the past few years, saying, “Our major problem is the insufficient facilities to offer scholarships to the students to continue their studies in Iran.”

“At the present time, we give general information on Iran’s social, cultural, artistic, historical and religious issues to the students in the first two years. These lessons are taught in the Italian language.

“I mostly try to encourage students to continue their education and travel to Iran to become more familiar with the characteristics of the country.

“The students of the Persian language are mainly interested in the social and political issues of Iran. They also like modern and classical Persian literature. We teach translations in the third year. We study and analyze poetry by Hafez and Sadi and contemporary poetry by Abbas Kiarostami. The texts are translated in Italian, French, English and German. We ask the students to compare the works and finally give their own translations in Italian.

“I personally like to provide students with more information on Iran’s cinema and photography. I believe the students who study Persian need to be knowledgeable about the cultural aspects of the country. I also ask them to visit my website which is home to many photos on Iran’s nature and landscapes.

“There is also an Iranian scholar teaching the Persian language in the department. Films and educational tapes are also used to help enable students to learn conversational skills in Persian.

”The department is also home to a sizeable collection of Persian texts and we also try to keep the collection updated. We directly purchase the books from Iran and I personally come to Iran every two years to buy the required books.

Some of the students also register at the Dehkhoda institute where they can better learn the Persian language. The institute, located in Rome, also gives the students the chance to travel to Iran as well.

Zipoli’s collection of photos went on display at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art last year.

RM/YAW

END

MNA

News Code 33033