UCL - History of Ideas, of Culture and of Italian Literature: from the 19th century to the Present

[ROM1545]

[15h] 3 credits

This course is taught in the 2d semester.

Teacher(s):

Language: I

Level: First

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

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.

Main themes

The Risorgimento: major events and ideologies. From the Risorgimento to Fascism: 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.

Content and teaching methods

The history of thought (in our case, 19th and 20th century thought) is made up of the set of sources which allow us to develop a cultural and social interpretation of a chosen period. In other words, to read history means knowing how to identify both the bestknown facts and their supporting philosophical, literary and political ideas, and also their impact on public opinion; it also means understanding how our reading of particular historical moments (the picture which one develops of events) varies over time, and that variation/interpretation is rather heightened by films, theatre and works of literature, which will be essential part of what we will look at during the course.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Course attendance is obligatory, with very few exceptions where justified reasons are given. For the final result, students must know the lines of argument which have been covered, and individually or in small groups must delve in greater detail into a topic on which they will write an account of about 5 pages (1,800 characters per page, including spaces).