85104 - History of Material Cultures in Italy (1) (LM)

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Docente: Paolo Capuzzo
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: M-STO/04
  • Language: English
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Italian Studies, European Literary Cultures, Linguistics (cod. 9220)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will have gained a general knowledge of the history of contemporary Italy and its main historiographical interpretations. They will be able to communicate the knowledge acquired using the specific terminology peculiar to the subject and in line with its scientific principles, finding their bearings in the historiographical debate; they will have learned the methodologies for researching the social classes and the tendencies of the same; they will have gained an understanding of mass culture and the processes of consumption. They will understand the impact methodological choices have on the final results.

Course contents

9th November What’s material culture? A historical approach

10th November Italian food in the pre-industrial age: a geographical approach

15th November Commercialization and Italian material culture in the first half of the 20th century

16th November Industrialisation of the Italian food and mass consumption

17th November Economic boom

22nd November Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts

  • Group A - Rachel Black, Acqua minerale di Sangemini: the Italian mineral water industry finds a place at the table – Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2009

  • Group B - Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003 – chapter 3 on Fascism, pp. 22-43

  • Group C - Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016, chapter 2, pp. 27-51

  • Group D - Capatti and Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, Laterza, 2005, chapter 7

23rd November Youth and consumption

24th November The city and the home: spaces of material cultures

29th November Student presentations. Students will choose one of the following texts

  • Group A - H.R. Diner, Hungering for America. Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, Harvard University Press, 2001, chapter 3, pp. 48-83

  • Group B - S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013, chapter 1, pp. 19-46

  • Group C - C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil. Politics and food in Italy, Berg, 2004, chapter 5, pp. 127-50

  • Group D - Fabio Parasecoli, The Invention of Authentic Italian Food


1st December Mapping the Italian economic miracle: gender and consumption

6th December Student presentations – students will choose one of the following texts:

  • Group A - Paolo Capuzzo, Gli spazi della nuova generazione, P. Capuzzo (ed.), Genere, generazione e consumi. L'Italia degli anni Sessanta, Carocci, pp. 217-247

  • Group B - Group D - Ivan Paris, White goods in Italy during the golden age, in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1/2013, 83-110

  • Group C - E. Scarpellini, Shopping American-Style: The Arrival of the Supermarket in Postwar Italy, “Enterprise & Society”, vol. 5 n. 4, dicembre 2004

  • Group D - Elisabetta Merlo and Francesca Polese, Turning Fashion into Business: The Emergence of Milan as an International Fashion Hub, in The Business History Review, 2006

7th December Italian consumer society: political and commercial aspects

13th December Student presentations

  • Group B - P. Capuzzo, Crisi e trasformazione della società dei consumi negli anni Settanta (2019)

  • Group B - A. Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity, chapter 6 Housewife

  • Group C - E. Merlo, Italian fashion business: Achievements and challenges (1970s–2000s), "Business History", 53:3, pp. 344-362

  • John Foot, From boomtown to bribesville: the images of the city, Milan, 1980–97

14th December Italian consumptions within the globalisation process

15th December Italian material cultures in the economic crisis


Readings/Bibliography

  • Fasce-Bini-Gaudenzi, Comprare per credere. La pubblicità in Italia dalla Belle Epoque a oggi, Carocci, 2016

  • Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003

  • Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016,

  • Capatti and Montanari, La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura, Laterza, 2005
  • H.R. Diner, Hungering for America. Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, Harvard University Press, 2001

  • S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013

  • C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil. Politics and food in Italy, Berg, 2004
  • P. Capuzzo (ed.), Genere, generazione e consumi. L'Italia degli anni Sessanta, Carocci
  • E. Asquer, Storia intima dei ceti medi. Una capitale e una periferia nell’Italia del miracolo economico, Laterza, 2011

Teaching methods

The course is structured in lectures and seminar discussions. Students are expected to participate actively by reading in due time texts in the programme, writing papers and participating in class discussions.

Assessment methods

Attending students will do class presentations according to the schedule defined during the course.

At the end of the course attending students will have to write a paper (about 2000 words) on a subject which has to be decided along with the professor.

Deadline for the submission of the final paper is February 28th.

The grade assigned to the paper will be based on:

- selection of the topic and its relatedness with the course content

- ability to identify relevant bibliography

- critical analysis

- clarity in structure and aims

- language proficiency

Non attending students are required to pass a written test. This concerns this module (6CFU), look at the programme of Prof. Settis for the first module.

The written test (60 minutes) requires to answer to three questions on the following bibliography. An accurate studying of the following books is necessary in order to pass the written exam.

The mark assigned to the paper will be based on the precision in anwering the question, the capacity to develop a critical analyis using an adequate scientific language.

Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016

Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003

Massimo Montanari, Italian Identity in the Kitchen, Columbia University Press, 2013

S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013

Teaching tools

During frontal lessons the teacher will use power point presentations containing text and visual sources.

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Capuzzo