29613 - History of European Social Institutions (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the module the student is able to analyze the main social institutions which have have characterize Europe's history in the XIX and XX centuries, considering institutions in a broad way, not limited to the institutionalized social formations and bodies but also the social groups which have interacted with the institutions helping to change, or, on the contrary, to preserve them. The student is able to critically value the role of the elites , in the wide meaning of social elites and their formation and reproduction mechanisms. The student also knows how to use the sources in a critical way and the techniques used in the research historiography to study the social institutions, including data processing using computers.

Course contents

The subject of this year's course are the the European nobilities of the XX century. The aim is to think about the transformations of a social institutions which has been at the center of political, social, cultural and economic history during the early modern era and then has progressively lost importance in modern societies, despite retaining a relative political, social and cultural weight in the first part of the XX century. A particular focus will be put on Italian nobility and those sources from archives, literary works and films through which it can be studied.

Readings/Bibliography

The students who don't attend the lectures will have to study the following readings:

1. M. Malatesta, Between consent and resistence. The Italian nobility and the fascist regime, in Nobilities in Europe in the Twentieth Century, a cura di Y. Kuiper, N. BiJleveld , J. Dronkers, Leuven, Paris, Bristol, Peeters, 2015.

2. G.C. Jocteau, I nobili del fascismo, in "Studi storici", 2004, n. 3.

3. M. Malatesta, Cultura e nobiltà nell'Italia repubblicana. L'incontro postumo tra Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa e Luchino Visconti, in Per continuare il dialogo...gli amici di Angelo Varni, , a cura di A. Malfitano, A. Preti, F. Tarozzi, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2014.

In addition one of these two groups of readings (one in french, one in english) is required:

• A. Bernard, Le grand monde parisien à l’epreuve de la guerre; M.B. Vincent, L'aristocratie allemande au service de l'Etat et la césure de 1918; C. Berthezène, Le décline politique de l'aristocratie britannique, in "Vingtième siècle. Revue d'histoire", 2008, n. 99.

• S. Malinowski, A counter-revolution d'outre-tombe. Notes on the French aristocracy ans the Extreme Right during the Third republic and the Vichy Regime; E. Conze, ‘Only a dictator can help us'. Aristocracy and the radical right in Germany; C. Collado Seidel, Aristocracy, fascism and Franco dictatorship, in European aristocracies and the radical Right 1918-1939, a cura di K. Urbach, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007.

4. One book, chosen from the following ones, is required:

• I Visconti di Modrone. Nobiltà e modernità a Milano ( secoli XIX-XX), a cura di G. Fumi, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 2014.
• D. Gilmour, L’ultimo gattopardo. Vita di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1988.
• Alessandro Tasca di Cutò, Un principe in America e altrove, Palermo, Sellerio 2004.
• R. Lanza di Trabia e O. Casagrande, Mi toccherà ballare. L’ultimo principe di Trabia, Milano, Feltrinelli 2014

A COPY OF THE READINGS LISTED ON 1, 2 AND 3 IS AVAILABLE AT THE LIBRARY OF THE “STORIA CULTURE CIVILITA'” DEPARTMENT.

Teaching methods

The course aims to focus on two methodological sides:

. The comparison, chronological and geographical, intended as fundamental way of teaching to understand the social and cultural transformations of a transnational class like nobility;

. The presentation and analysis of the sources which can be used to study the XX century nobility, with a special attention towards archive sources.

Assessment methods

Students who attend the lectures will have to know the themes developed on the required readings. They will have to possibility to write an essay in place of the exam, which will have to be based on themes and issues presented and discussed during the course and will have to be related to the module tutored by prof. Sofia.

Students who do not attend the lectures will have to take an oral exam based on the required readings.

Teaching tools

To support the teaching audiovisual tools will be used, especially films by directors of aristocratic origin like Luchino Visconti.

Office hours

See the website of Maria Malatesta