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): Béatrice Barbalato

Language: I

Level: First

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

Aims

The students shall be able to give an interpretation of the semantics of history. That is to say, they shall examine a series of historical facts and their relative representations coherently (with an emphasis on works of literature and iconographic expressions).
Students shall be able to compare various historical documents, be they graphic, literary, journalistic, or on film (fictional or documentary).
The course aims to develop the students' autonomy when doing research, as well as to develop their awareness of Italian culture, by enabling them to recognize its distinctive traits.

Main themes

Analysis of the image of the Italians throughout history and contemporary culture, with an eye to its development in a European frame:
- Nationalism in the early XX century;
- fascism and nationalism: filmology, legends and persuasive arguments;
- the image of Italy in the documentaries by the Istituto LUCE
- the image of Italy in American documentaries from the second world war (J.Huston: war films)
- analysis of the current social and political situation through comparison of newspaper articles, photographic documents and audiovisual material.

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 best-known 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).