86940 - CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

This course introduces students to the analysis of 19th and 20th centuries history. A special attention will be paid to political-institutional systems. The chronology of the course ranges from the European Revolutions of 1848 to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). The course provide a compared analysis of the main historical events which concerned Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain and Russia in addition to the most relevant extra-European facts.

Contenuti

This course analyses the modern world in order to understand its historical development and present condition. It does so by pursuing three main themes:

• The evolution of the nation state in global and transnational perspective
• Fundamental discontinuities in political life
• The changing balance between Europe and the wider world

The course will be divided into 3 parts:

ON LINE LESSONS

• The first part will focus on political transformation in the World during the XX century until the Second World War
• The second part of the course will concentrate on the Second post-war period, with particular attention on Cold War, transformation in political systems

ON LINE LESSONS AND IN PRESENCE - TWO GROUPS: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours)

• The third part will focus on a main aspect of Contemporary History (a seminar session)
  

Testi/Bibliografia

Mandatory Textbooks for attending and non-attending students: 

International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond (third edition) (all chapters from 1 to 12, from chapter 13 to chapter 22 the period to study is 1945-1989)

Attending students will have to choose one book among the list and to discuss it at the oral examination

 Non-attending students will have to choose one book among the list and add:

Sebastian Conrad, What is global history? (Princeton, 2016) 

LIST:

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: ordinary life in extraordinary times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, 1999)

John Foot, Italy's divided memory (New York 2009)

Emilio Gentile, The sacralization of politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge, 1996)

Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End (London, 2016)

Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy. Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (London 1990)

Eric Hobsbawm, The age of extremes, 1914-1991 (London 1994)

Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York, 2005). (Part one and part two or part two and part three)

Peter Kenz, The Coming of the Holocaust. From Antisemitism to Genocide (Cambridge, 2013)

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent (London, 1999)

Stuart Woolf(ed.), Nationalism in Europe: From 1815 to the Present (London, 1995)

Enzo Traverso, Fire and blood: the European Civil War, 1914-1945 (London 2016).

Odd Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge, 2005)

Metodi didattici

The course is organized in lectures and seminars for a total amount of 32 hours for each student. Lectures (20 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline and to explain the main concepts and events of contemporary history, especially in the 20th century. Seminars (12 + 12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of themes by means of documents, essays and class materials. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours).

6 hours will be dedicated to the examinations on MS TEAMS.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Attending Students:

Two short written examinations composed of 3 open and 3 closed questions will be held during the term period in order to understand how familiar the students have become with the arguments of the course. The questions will be based on the lessons of the teacher and on the books in the “mandatory textbooks” section of the readings above [details on the chapters to be studied will be communicate to the students during the term]. Only student who attended the 80% of the classes will be admitted to the mid-term tests. The time at students’ disposals will be 30 minutes.

The multiple choice questions are composed by 3 sub-questions with 3 possible answers, only one is correct. The highest possible mark in each mid-term test will be 30/30. Student will pass the mid-term term if he will get at least 18/30.

The last mid-term text is on the seminar (one open question) in 30 minutes, at the end of the course.

Students who will succeed the three mid-term tests will be admitted to the final oral examination where they will be asked to discuss one chosen book.

Students who failed one or two of the three mid-term tests will have the chance to repeat it the same day of the final oral examinations.

Students who failed three mid-term tests will be considered Non-Attending Students

Non-Attending Students:

Non-attending students will have to will have to undergo a written examination composed of 15 open and closed questions on all the module’s teaching program.

Students who will succeed the written examination (18/30) will be admitted to the final oral examination where they will be asked to discuss the two chosen books.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Printed and audiovisual material, PPT, on line resources.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Simona Salustri