- Docente: Raffaella Baccolini
- Credits: 6
- SSD: L-LIN/10
- Language: English
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Forli
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Intercultural and Linguistic Mediation (cod. 8059)
Course contents
The course (taught in the second semester) looks at the work of different twentieth-century writers from the United States and England and focuses on the interrelation of personal histories, voices, and identities in works dealing with the issues of conflict, war, trauma, and violence. Using different genres (poetry, fiction, essay, cartoons, film), each artist finds a voice and a way to say something previously unexpressed or not listened to. The course will attempt to find ways to read for and listen to that voice, in order not to erase the experiences and the identities expressed in the texts.
Readings/Bibliography
Required reading:
British and American Literature Reader.
DiStasi, Lawrence. Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment during WWII. Berkeley: HeyDey, 2001.
Folman, Ari and David Polonsky. Waltz with Bashir. New York: Metropolitan, 2009.
Hemingway, Ernest. In Our Time (1925). New York: Scribner, 1996.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Penguin, 1990.
Spiegelman, Art. MAUS. 2 vols. London: Penguin, 1998. (or any other edition).
Films:
11' 09'' 01 Dir. Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Mira Nair et al. 2002. (selected episodes)
The Secret Life of Words. Dir. Isabel Coixet (2005)
Waltz with Bashir. Dir. Ari Folman (2009)
Recommended reading:
Ezrahi, Sidra DeKoven. By Words Alone. The Holocaust in Literature. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1980.
Kaplan, E. Ann. Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2005.
La Capra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.
Tal, Kalì. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989.
Teaching methods
Attendance and participation are highly encouraged. Some initial lectures will be followed by class discussion. You are required to read the assigned readings in advance.
Students are required to enroll in the course on the e-learning page.
Assessment methods
The final exam will be written. A sample copy of the written exam is available on the e-learning page for the course.
Students will also have to hand in a short essay (1-2 page response paper) before taking the written exam. Due dates and further explanations will be given during the course.
Teaching tools
Photocopies and material available on the e-learning page.
Links to further information
http://moodle.sslmit.unibo.it/
Office hours
See the website of Raffaella Baccolini