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- UCAS course code
- NR13
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
Italian Cultural Studies
Unit code | ITAL10300 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 1 |
Teaching period(s) | Full year |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
This course unit is designed to provide an introduction to the culture and society of contemporary Italy in the post-war period, with the particular aim of identifying and challenging traditional stereotypes. In Semester 1 the course identifies the major political, economic, and social changes which have affected Italy since the Second World War. In Semester 2 we begin to consider how we make sense of the process of Italian cultural production in multiple media and across multiple centuries, from the medieval and Renaissance period to the modern era, directing our attention towards the study and interpretation of different kinds texts (poetic, narrative, and filmic) created in this cultural context.
Pre/co-requisites
Available on which programme(s)? | Italian Studies Single Hons; Italian Joint Hons (both MFL and Joints); Post A- Level Flexible Hons |
Aims
The principal aims of the course unit are as follows:
- To develop knowledge and understanding of post-war Italian culture and society, along with modern and premodern cultural production.
- To develop critical thinking and higher order conceptual reasoning and analytical skills
- To equip students with working definition for key concepts in the Italian context: ‘nation’, ‘ideology’, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘canon’, etc.
- To enable to students to analyse and interrogate a variety of forms of cultural production.
Syllabus
Semester 1
Lecture | Seminar |
‘Imagined Italies’: What is Italy? | Each student should bring to class one or two examples of ‘imagined Italies’, i.e. any kind of representation of the nation (e.g.: newspapers articles, touristic advertisement, material taken from television, films, series etc.) the student find significant to discuss the particular narrative(s) surrounding the country. Proposed case studies will be examined and compared during the seminar. |
The Post-war settlement: Italy and the Cold War | |
Terrorism and the ‘anni di piombo’ | John Foot, “The Strategy of Tension and Terrorism”, in Italy’s Divided Memory, pp. 183-203 |
Mani Pulite and the Difficult Birth of the Second Republic | |
Silvio Berlusconi: the Italian 1990s | Screening: Bill Emmott’s Girlfriend in a Coma (2012) and seminar discussion |
The Mafia and Organised Crime | |
Gender Relations in Italy | Derek Duncan “‘Is It Because I’m a Wop?’: Queer Diaspora and Postcolonial Italy”, in New Perspectives in Italian Cultural Studies |
The Catholic Church and Liberal State | |
Migration and subcultures | Alessandro Dal Lago (Translated by Marie Orton) “Italy’s Unmentionable Racism: Reflections on the Image of Foreigners in Italian Culture”, in New Perspectives in Italian Cultural Studies |
Popular Culture, Cinema and National Identity |
Semester 2
Lecture | Seminar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mimesis, imitation and meaning making + Essay feedback | Medieval Lab (in computer cluster): Textual forms | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medieval 1: Beginnings. Dante + Boccaccio | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medieval 2: Dante’s Divina Commedia | Medieval seminar Textual structures | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medieval 3: Boccaccio’s Decameron | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Renaissance 1 What is a/the Renaissance? | Renaissance seminar 1 The fiction of history: reading critically | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Renaissance 2 Representing ‘Renaissance Man’ (and Renaissance woman?) |
Assessment task | Formative or Summative | Weighting within unit (if summative) |
Semester 1 Literature review and referencing exercise To be submitted Thursday Week 5 | Formative | 0% |
Semester 1 Commentary To be submitted by Thursday Week 11 | Summative | 40% |
Semester 2 Fictional Forms essay To be submitted Thursday Week 12 (semester 2) | Summative | 60% |
Resit Assessment
Assessment task |
Essay |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or Summative |
Collective feedback in class for both formative and summative work | Formative and Summative |
Individual written feedback in Bb9 | Formative and Summative |
Additional one-to-one feedback available (during consultation hours or by appointment). | Formative and Summative |
Recommended reading
- New Perspectives in Italian Cultural Studies, ed. by Graziella Parati (Madison – Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012)
- John Foot, Italy’s Divided Memory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Online access via Library ebook portal.
- Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943-1988 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990).
Further reading is recommended in CU Booklet (in Bb9) and in Reading Lists Online in which digital content is embedded and seminar readings available.
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Lectures | 22 |
Seminars | 11 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 165 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Francesca Billiani | Unit coordinator |
Additional notes