96436 - Social Movements, Cultures and Arts (1)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course the student: knows the history of Italian and international social movements of the last century; knows how to analyse the cultural and artistic forms of these movements; knows how to relate the political transformation to the production of the artistic imagination; is able to recognize the influence of social movements on contemporary art forms.

Course contents

The course aims to investigate the relationship between XX-century political-social movements and the artistic imaginery that these contribute to create, disseminate, transform and by which they are in turn influenced.

Each artistic expression (from painting to design, from theater to music, from architecture to literature) has its own specific relationship with the historical conditions in which it was born and which in turn it contributed to create.

The connection between art and politics - albeit in a non-deterministic and often tortuous way - is in fact inherent in the actions of men and women, both in its conservative and transformative forms.

The course presents a series of specific conjunctions between artistic forms and political-social events of the last 150 years, each investigated in one lesson.

 

CONTENT OF THE LESSONS

1. Introduction: art of politics or politics of the art?

2. Communal Luxury and revolutionary urbanism in the Paris Commune

3. Revolutionary graphics and songs of the Industrial Workers of the World

4. Constructivism, Montage, and the Russian Revolution

5. Bauhaus and mass democracy in the Weimar Republic

6. Futurism, Fascism, and Reactionary Modernism

7. The American folk tradition and the New Deal

8. Blues and the struggles of African Americans

9. Workerism, counterculture at the Dams and the '77 movement

10. Rap, hip-hop and the 90s-2000s globalization

Readings/Bibliography

The assesment takes place through an oral exam both for those who attend and for those who do not attend lessons, in the following ways:

 

ATTENDING STUDENTS

(attending students are those who have attended at least 80% of the lessons, i.e. 12/15).

The exam will cover all the topics taught in class + one group of texts to choose on one of the topics, according to this scheme:

Communal Luxury and revolutionary urbanism in the Paris Commune

1) Rosa Tamborrino, Parigi nell’Ottocento. Cultura architettonica e città, Marsilio, 2005.

2) Enrico Zanette, Uno e centomila. La Comune di Parigi del 1871, manifestolibri, Roma, 2021.

3) Kristin Ross, Lusso comune. L’immaginario politico della Comune di Parigi, Rosenberg & Sellier, 2020.

Revolutionary graphics and songs of the Industrial Workers of the World

1) Bruno Cartosio, Wobbly! L’Industrial Workers of the World e il suo tempo, ShaKe, 2007.

2) John L. Thomas, La nascita di una potenza mondiale: gli Stati Uniti dal 1877 al 1920, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1988.

3) Giancarlo Buonfino, Il muschio non cresce sui sassi che rotolano: grafica e propaganda IWW, in "Primo Maggio", 1, 1973, pp. 67-88.

Constructivism, Montage, and the Russian Revolution

1) Anatole Kopp, Città e rivoluzione. Architettura e urbanistica sovietiche degli anni Venti, Feltrinelli, 1972.

2) Sheila Fitzpatrick, La rivoluzione russa, Sansoni, 1997.

1) Antonio Somaini, Ejzenštejn. Il cinema, le arti, il montaggio, Einaudi, Torino, 2012, pp. XIII-79.

Bauhaus and mass democracy in the Weimar Republic

1) Peter Gay, La cultura di Weimar, Dedalo, 1978.

2) Detlev J.K. Peukert, La Repubblica di Weimar, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1996.

3) Giulio Carlo Argan, Walter Gropius e la Bauhaus, Einaudi, Torino, 1974, pp. 11-84.

Futurism, Fascism, and Reactionary Modernism

1) Monica Cioli, Il fascismo e la «sua» arte. Dottrina e istituzioni tra futurismo e Novecento, Olschki, 2001.

2) Emilio Gentile, Fascismo. Storia e interpretazioni, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2002.

3) Emilio Gentile, Il futurismo e la politica, in R. De Felice (ed.), Futurismo, cultura e politica, Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, 1988, pp. 105-159.

The American folk tradition and the New Deal

1) Alessandro Portelli, Canzone politica e cultura popolare in America. Il mito di Woody Guthrie, DeriveApprodi, 2004.

2) William Leuchtenburg, Roosevelt e il New Deal, Laterza, 1976.

3) Umberto Fiori, Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan. Storia della canzone popolare in Usa, Mazzotta, 1978.

Blues and the struggles of African Americans

1) Leroi Jones, Il popolo del Blues, Einaudi, 1980.

2) Bruno Cartosio, I lunghi anni Sessanta: movimenti sociali e cultura politica negli Stati Uniti, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2012.

3) Philippe Carles, Jean-Louis Comolli, Free jazz Black power, Einaudi, 1973, pp. 77-153.

Workerism, counterculture at the Dams and the '77 movement

1) Pier Vittorio Aureli, Il progetto dell'autonomia. Politica e architettura dentro e contro il capitalismo, Quodlibet, 2016.

2) Giovanni De Luna, Le ragioni di un decennio: 1969-1979. Militanza, violenza, sconfitta, memoria, Feltrinelli, 2011.

3) Michele Filippini, Le origini intellettuali della rivoluzione italiana: il '68 e la sua genesi, "Scienza & Politica", 59, 2018, pp. 79-103. 

Rap, hip-hop and the 90s-2000s globalization

1) Cornel West, La razza conta, Feltrinelli, 1995.

2) Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip Hop, Basic Civitas Books, 2007.

3) The Cornel West Reader, Civitas books, 1999, pp. 3-18 (The making of an American radical democrat of African descent), 87-118 (Black strivings in a twilight civilization), 251-265 (Race and social theory), 372-379 (Religion and the left), 425-434 (Prophetic christian as organic intellectual: Martin Luther King Jr.), 474-484 (On Afro-American music: from bebop to rap).

 

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Those who do not attend the course are required to read one group of texts chosen from the previous list + John Willett, L'avanguardia europea. Anni venti a Mosca e a Weimar, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1983 + Nello Ajello, Il lungo addio. Intellettuali e Pci dal 1958 al 1991, Laterza, 2013.

 

Teaching methods

Lectures.

The material utilized in class is always summarized in Virtual. For each lesson will be available: 1) bibliography of the cited books, 2) texts of the citations and links of the audio/video materials, 3) folder of the images.

Assessment methods

For both attending and non-attending students the assesment takes place through an oral exam.

The exam can be done in Italian or English.

Office hours

See the website of Michele Filippini