Course Outline
Teaching and learning for this module consists of one lecture and one seminar per week. Beginners in Italian must attend an extra reading group. There will also be film showings, essay writing and research skills sessions and individual tutorials for guidance and feedback on essay writing. You are expected to read the set texts and prepare the seminar questions in advance of the seminar. Film showings and skills sessions will normally be scheduled for Thursday afternoons in the Library or the Transnational Resource Centre. If you are unable to make this session, you can borrow the film and view it in your own time.
Term 1
Weeks 2-5
Lectures: Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century; Modernism, Futurism, Hermeticism; Ungaretti’s links to intellectual movements of his time; the background of Fascism.
Seminars
Week 2: Marinetti's Futurist poetry
Week 3: Ungaretti’s ‘Fratelli’, ‘Soldati’, ‘Veglia’,
Week 4: Ungaretti’s ‘In dormiveglia’,‘Girovago’,‘Italia’
Week 5:Rossellini, Roma città aperta
Week 6 is reading week. Start reading Il sentiero.
Weeks 7-10
Lectures: Fascism, World War II; the Holocaust; the Resistance, Neorealism in literature and film, the role of intellectuals.
Seminars
Week 7: Rossellini, Roma città aperta
Week 8: Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno
Week 9: Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno
Week 10: Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno
Term 2
Weeks 11-14
Lectures: The aftermath of World War II; rebuilding; the ‘Economic Miracle’; mobility and urbanisation; the family and gender relations.
Seminars
Week 11: Visconti, Rocco e i suoi fratelli
Week 12: Visconti, Rocco e i suoi fratelli
Week 13: Natalia Ginzburg, Caro Michele
Week 14: Natalia Ginzburg, Caro Michele
Weeks 15-20
Lectures: Political extremism and terrorism; organised crime, the quest for truth, regional concerns. Lectures: Tangentopoli; political reorganisation; the rise of Berlusconi and Forza Italia, the mass media, economic affluence; the changing Italian family; immigration.
Seminars
Week 15: Tabucchi, Sostiene Pereira
Week 16 is reading week.
Week 17: Tabucchi, Sostiene Pereira
Week 18: Tabucchi, Sostiene Pereira
Week 19: Giordana, Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti
Week 20: Amelio, Lamerica