Ruin and Redemption: Narrating Twentieth-Century Italy
ITAL 222
Fall 2021 not offered
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When fugitive far-left terrorist Cesare Battisti was extradited to Italy in January 2019 to serve out a life sentence for crimes committed in the late 1970s, he provided fresh evidence for the way that 20th-century events still cast long shadows into contemporary Italy. The events, their narration and re-narration over time tell the story of unresolved conflicts and overturned verdicts in a context characterized by repression, revisionism, and rehabilitation. In this course we study three historical events of the past century that continue to haunt contemporary Italian society, culture, and politics: fascism; civil war and resistance; and the political violence of terrorism in the 1970s and 80s. We approach these events by examining the ever-changing narratives about them. For each narrative we focus on specific issues (e.g., for fascism: the rise of fascism, racism and anti-Semitism, colonialism, Mussolini's cult of personality, the exaltation of war, fascist intellectuals, the art of the regime, etc.), but we use these as an entry point to articulate contradictions and complexity. We explore these narratives through various media and forms of expression: from films to novels, from landmarks to newspaper articles, from poems to billboards. By exploring how the polarizations of these narratives flow into the 21st century, we unveil the fractures and conflicting agents at the core of contemporary Italy.
The course is conducted in Italian. Authors include: Italo Calvino, Liliana Cavani, Umberto Eco, Beppe Fenoglio, Dario Fo, Natalia Ginzburg, Primo Levi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cesare Pavese, Roberto Rossellini. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA RLAN |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ITST)(RMST) |
Major Readings:
Italo Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno; Dario Fo, Morte accidentale di un anarchico; Giacomo Debenedetti, 16 ottobre 1943; Umberto Eco, Il fascismo eterno; Beppe Fenoglio, Una questione privata; Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo; Gianni Amelio, Colpire al cuore; Daniele Lucchetti, I piccoli maestri; Roberto Rossellini, Roma città aperta; Roberto Rossellini, Paisà.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Discussion questions, presentations, three papers of increasing length throughout the semester. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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