- Docente: Silvia Ferrara
- Credits: 6
- Language: Italian
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Bologna
- Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Italian Studies, European Literary Cultures, Linguistics (cod. 9220)
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from Mar 21, 2023 to May 05, 2023
Learning outcomes
By the end of the Laboratory, students are equipped with managing and organising complex themes tied to linguistics, and with applying methods tied to critical linguistic analysis.
Course contents
Writing is perhaps the most important invention in the history of humankind. But how do we define writing? How was it invented, when and where? What are the linguistic mechanisms underlying this invention?
The course is centred on the invention of writing in the world, in Mesopotamia. Egypt, China and Mesoamerica. Case-studies of potential invention from Easter Island and the Indus Valley script will be considered and discussed, with a foray into the earliest scripts in Europe, which are still undeciphered, from the II millennium BC in the Aegean, namely from Crete and Cyprus.
From cuneiform, to hieroglyphs both Maya and Egyptian, the alphabets and the Chinese script, and other typologies of scripts, like the Cherokee alphabet and the runes, the course will survey hte greatest successes in the history of decipherment, coded cyphers and scripts that are still undeciphered, and the modern methods to uncode them.
Readings/Bibliography
Introduzioni
S. Ferrara. 2019. La grande invenzione. Feltrinelli. Also translated in English: The Greatest Invention. Picador (UK translation) and FSG (US translation).
G. Cardona. 2009. Antropologia della scrittura.
A. Robinson. 1995. The Story of Writing. London.
Materiale integrativo
Distribuito a lezione e reso disponibile in pdf o ppt sulla piattaforma di e-learning IOL.
NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS
While attendance is strictly encouraged, non-attending students will need to submit two essays (5000 words each) on two topics of their choice by the end of the course (5th May 2023). The bibliography is the same as per attending students and found on the Virtuale platform.
Teaching methods
Frontal lectures, with active participation and interaction from the students, with chosen topics to be explored individually, via presentations and short essays.
Assessment methods
Assessment revolves around:
- Regular attendance and participation in class
- individual directed study with chosen topics (ppt, essays), but this is optional.
Teaching tools
All pptx presentations of the lectures will be uploaded and made available on the e-learning platform IOL.
Office hours
See the website of Silvia Ferrara