History of Ideas, of Culture and of Italian Literature: from the 19th century to the Present [ LROM1545 ]

LFLTR 1750 (Basic Modern Italian I) and LROM 1751 (Basic Modern Italian II) or similar.

- The Risorgimento: major events and ideologies;
- From the Risorgimento to Fascism: from the concept of nationality to nationalism;
- Fascism: interpretation of written and audiovisual documents of this era. Second World War, post war period;
- Risorgimento and Resistance: the debate around the birth of a popular democracy in Italy;
- The identity of Italians in literature (Calvino, Fenoglio, and others), and in visual arts (from the neorealism of postwarRossellini, De Sica, Visconti, to films of the 60s 70sTaviani, Vancini, Visconti, Lorenzini);
- The image of Italy and Italians in contemporary cultural expressions.

By the end of the course, the student :
- should know the broad outlines of the cultural history of Italy from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries;
- have developed the ability to follow a course in Italian;
- should be able to understand Italian literary, philosophical, journalistic, cinematic texts;
- should be able to provide information on major events of the twentieth and twentyfirst century, by analyzing in parallel how they represent the different sources (written and audiovisual);
- have developed a high language proficiency in Italian and autonomy in research.

Written work, oral presentation, and oral exam.

Texts and film projections will support the lessons and be the objects of critical readings. Through the lessons, the student will acquire a full picture of the evolution of Italian ideas and culture in the XIX and XX century. The student will then choose a theme or an actor of the Italian culture for a personal research. This research will lead to a written work and a short presentation to the other students. The student will thus improve his research and linguistic qualities as his knowledge of the subject.

The lessons present the history of Italian culture and literature from the Risorgimento to these days : the fights for independence, the emerging idea of nation, the beginnings of Fascism, the intellectual's positions in Fascist Italy, the post-war period and the last decades. Especially, the theme of identity will be investigated, with its variations according to historical, social and geographical contexts. The student will study the issue of particularities under the unification, the North-South problem, the dealing with other cultural influences, the influence of emigration and immigration on the Italian identity, the evolution of the woman's image, and the intellectual's position towards the Berlusconian cultural politic.

' Manifesto degli intellettuali fascisti

' Manifesto degli intellettuali antifascisti

' Manifesto degli scienziati razzisti

(Work in progress : this section might be modified)

Some of the needed documents will be shared on icampus.