29514 - Global History: Public Sphere and Mass Media (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will be able to use the acquired conceptual and theoretical tools to build adequate analytical frames and approach specific historical subjects. Particularly, students will master theories and methodological approaches concerning the shape and changes of public spheres in contemporary history. Thanks to the knowledge of the national and international historiography, students will be able to manage on their own further historical research on a specific topic. At the end of the two modules of the course, they will be aware of the methodological orientations prevailing in the global history, particularly with regard to economic matters, material cultures, environmental changes and changes in the public sphere. This will allow them to be critical towards the information, the texts and data and their historiographic relevance.

Course contents

Communicating and facing trasformations triggered by capitalist development (1848-End of the 20th century): Interpreting social injustice and agency between national and transnational spaces. 

Since the publication of Marx's Communist Manifesto (1848) to recent times economic and social changes triggered by capitalism have been subject of studies and interpretations capable to orient collective action and movements. Such processes have been accompanied and sometimes fostered by literacy politicies carried by nation states and by the rise of new communication technologies. Both these factors have facilited the access of subaltern classes to national and transnational public spheres. In the light of these changes the course will focus on the history of workers movements and unionism investigating how communication processes and interaction forms among social groups impacted on a global scale since the middle of the 19th to the end of the 20th century. The course will start by clarifying the conceptual tools utlized. Nevertheless, theretical debate and analysis of case studies will be considered in their interconnections throughout the whole course. 

Thematically classes are organized along following five weeks.  

1. Methodological introduction to global history and clarification of the concepts used (civil society, publc sphere, mass communication)

2. 1848 and the rise of "dangerous classes" in Europe and beyond 

3. Glorious internationalism and its limits

4. Revolution and the unvoidable crisis of capitalism: global movements

5. Forces of Labour in the "Golden Age" of organized capitalism

 

Readings/Bibliography

The list is intended as reference for the topic that will be addressed in class and for the preparation of the final paper.

Marek Tamm, Peter Burke (eds.), Debating new approaches to history, London, Bloomsbury 2019

Stefan-L. Hoffmann, Civil Society 1750-1914, Palgrave New York 2006

J. Habermas, Storia e critica dell'opinione pubblica, 3. ed
Roma-Bari, Laterza 2008

Craig Calhoun(ed), Habermas and the public sphere, The Mit Press, Cambridge 1992

Geoff Eley, Forging democracy: the history of the left in Europe, 1850-2000, New York: Oxford University Press 2002

Juergen Kocka, Capitalismo. Una breve storia, Carocci, Roma 2016

Maurizio Isabella, Risorgimento in esilio : l'internazionale liberale e l'età delle rivoluzioni, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2011

Fabio Bertini, Figli del '48. I ribelli, gli esuli, i lavoratori. Dalla Repubblica universale alla prima Internazionale, Roma, Aracne 2013

Gian Mario Bravo, Marx e la Prima Internazionale, Milano : Pantarei, 2014

Marcello Musto (a cura di), Lavoratori di tutto il mondo, unitevi! Indirizzi, risoluzioni, discorsi e documenti della Prima Internazionale, Roma, Donzelli 2014

Frits van Holthoon, Marcel van der Linden (eds.),
Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940, vol. I, Brill, Amsterdam 1988

Donna R. Gabaccia and Fraser M. Ottanelli
(eds), Italian Workers of the World. Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States, University of Illinois
Press, Urbana and Chicago 2001

Donna R. Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta (eds.), Women, gender, and transnational lives :
Italian workers of the world, University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2002

Steven Hirsch, Lucien van der Walt (eds), Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940 : the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution, Brill, Leiden 2010.

Georges Haupt, La II Internazionale, Firenze : La Nuova Italia, 1973

Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the revolution : Italian womenʼs resistance and radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2010

Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront. Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia, University of Illinois Press, Urbana 2007

Colin Crouch e Alessandro Pizzorno (a cura di), Conflitti in Europa. Lotte di classe, sindacati e Stato dopo il '68,
Milano : Etas libri, 1977

Beverly Silver, Le forze del lavoro. Movimenti operai e globalizzazione dal 1870, Milano : Bruno Mondadori, 2008

Enrico Serventi Longhi, Alceste De Ambris. l'utopia concreta di un rivoluzionario sindacalista, Milano : Angeli, 2011

Matteo Pasetti, Tra classe e nazione: rappresentazioni e organizzazione del movimento nazional-sindacalista (1918-1922), Carocci, Roma 2008

Silvio Pons, Stephen A. Smith (eds.), World revolution and socialism in one country, 1917-1941, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2017

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond borders. Advocacy networks in international politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1998

John A. Guidry, Michael D. Kennedy, Mayer N. Zald (eds.), Globalizations and social movements : culture, power, and the transnational public sphere, University of Michigan press, Ann Arbor 2000

Teaching methods

The course will interchange classical lecture to seminar moments. Lectures aim at illustrating the conceptual tools emplyed to analyse historical phenomena and particular contexts. In order to stimulate lively debates and active participation students will be asked to prepare readings that will be provided through the "materiali didattici" linked to the course.

Assessment methods

Students will write a final paper (40,000 beatings including the all text/15-18 pages) on one of the topics dealt with in one of the two modules.

In addition to the final paper not-attending students have to pass a written exam on following books:

S. Conrad, Storia Globale. Un'introduzione, Carocci, Roma 2015

John R. McNeillQualcosa di nuovo sotto il sole. Storia dell'ambiente nel 20. secolo, Torino, Einaudi, 2002

The exam will consist of 6 open questions (3 for each book) that students have to answer in 90'.

Teaching tools

Short texts, articles or essays will be uploaded in the "materiali didattici" linked to the course. As some of the readings are in English it is advantegeous that students have a good knowledge of the English language.

Office hours

See the website of Marica Tolomelli