02609 - Contemporary Italian Literature (G-N)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course the student: has a non-abstract and non-manualistic awareness of the main lines of development of Italian literary culture from National Unity to the present day; knows how to apply appropriate methods of analysis to the literary text in prose and verse, distinguishing its relations with different linguistic, artistic and cultural traditions; is able to read the literary text as an open form, in dialogue with the ideological and social horizon of his time, against the background of the wider European context.

Course contents

 

Course title: Italian Culture and the Colonial Heritage II

The recent passing of historian Angelo Del Boca, maximum scholar of Italian Colonialism, offered last year an occasion to study, starting from one of his most appreciated works, entitled Italiani, brava gente?, a dramatic and still removed or misrepresented part of italian history, the colonization in Africa between the late XIXth Century and the Thirties of XXth Century. While the present political situation in Italy shows every day more and more raging episods of racism and sexism, this new course would like to try the recovering of a more objective historical knowledge through the words of male and female writers telling the truth about colonialism as a whole and in particular about italian colonialism, its war crimes, its brutality, its injustice. 

 

Readings/Bibliography

Literary texts:

Students will fully read in italian three of the following books:

E. Flaiano, Tempo di uccidere (1947), Milano, Adelphi, 2020

C. Malaparte, Viaggio in Etiopia e altri scritti africani, Firenze, Vallecchi, 2006

B. Barilli, Il sole in trappola: diario del periplo dell'Africa (1931), Firenze, Sansoni, 1943.

Riccardo Bacchelli, Mal d'Africa (1934), Milano, Rizzoli, 1990

Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Lontano da Mogadiscio, Datanews, 1994

A. Camilleri, La presa di Macallé, Palermo, Sellerio, 2003

G. Ghermandi, Regina di fiori e di perle, Roma, Donzelli, 2011

A. Lakhous Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio, Roma, E/O 2011

Wu Ming 2, Antar Marincola, Timira. Romanzo meticcio, Torino, Einaudi, 2012

 

Critical essays:

a) A. Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente? Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2005

b) R. Bonavita, Spettri dell'altro, Bologna, il Mulino, 2010

 

The students who cannot attend the course will also read:: Nicola Labanca, Oltremare. Storia della espansione coloniale italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012

Most of the books in this bibliography are available at Libreria Ubik – via Irnerio 27, or can also be found in the FICLIT Library, the BDU Library, the BUB Library: please check the National OPAC website (www.sbn.it) or the Polo Bolognese OPAC website (https://sol.unibo.it).

Teaching methods

The professor will hold 30 lectures of 2 hours each. Discussion will be encouraged immediately after.

Timetable:

Tuesday 3,00 - 5, 00 P.M. (Aula Cruciani, Palazzo Marescotti)

Wednesday 11,00 A.M - 1.00 P.M (Aula Cruciani, Palazzo Marescotti)

Friday 1,00 P.M. - 3.00 P.M. (Aula Cruciani, Palazzo Marescotti)

Lessons begins on:

Tuesday, January 31st, 202 (II semester)

Assessment methods

The written test consists in a paper (5-7 standard pages, approximately 10.000/14.000 keystrokes, characters including spaces) about one or more arguments of the course. The paper must be previuosly approved by the teacher and must be send with an e-mail atttachment at least 10 days before the oral test.
The oral test consists in an oral interview which has the aim of evaluating the critical and methodological ability of the students. The students will be invited to discuss the tests on the course programme. The student must demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of the bibliography in the course programme. Those students who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the lessons, are able to use these critically and who master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence.
Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject with a more superficial analytical ability and ability to synthesize, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a ‘fair' mark. A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a pass mark or just above a pass mark.

Teaching tools

Video projector, PC, overhead projector, eventually slides and notes from the lessons.

Office hours

See the website of Luigi Weber