28991 - Contemporary Italian Literature (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course intends to provide a critical and cultural awareness in contemporary Italian literature and civilization. For this purpose, literary texts are always analyzed as open shapes, focusing on the relationships among their tradition and cultural legacies. We will also read together and discuss a corpus of prose works through many examples of comparative analysis and practice on different methods.

Course contents

The course is worth twelve credits, amounting to 60 hours of lessons. The first week will be introductory and dedicated to the presentation of authors in the program. In subsequent weeks we will increase knowledge of individual authors developing a comparative reading of texts in the program. The main topic will be an analysis of books, essays and novels written by italian intellectuals after a short (or non-so-short) journey through North America and Mexico in XXth and XXIst Century.

Readings/Bibliography

Students will fully read three of the following books:

Literary Texts:

a) Emilio Cecchi, Messico (1932), Milano, Adelphi, 1985.

b) Mario Soldati, America primo amore (1935), a cura di S.S. Nigro, Palermo, Sellerio, 2003.

c) Emilio Cecchi, America amara (1940).

d) Elio Vittorini, Americana (1942), Milano, Bompiani, 2016.

d) Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Atlante americano (1946), Firenze, Vallecchi, 2007.

e) Italo Calvino, Corrispondenze dagli Stati Uniti (1960-1961), in Italo Calvino, Saggi, a cura di Mario Barenghi, tomo II, pp. 2499-2679, Milano, Mondadori.

f) Alberto Arbasino, America amore, Milano, Adelphi 2011 (only the first chapter: Harvard '59, pp. 15-160).

g) Giorgio Vasta - Ramak Fazel, Absolutely nothing. Storie e sparizioni nei deserti americani, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2016.

And the following critical texts:

a) Aby Warburg, Il rituale del serpente, Milano, Adelphi

b) Cesare Pavese, La letteratura americana e altri saggi (1950), Torino, Einaudi, 1990 (selected articles)

 

Students who cannot attend the course, will also read Martino Marazzi, Little America. Gli Stati Uniti e gli scrittori italiani del Novecento, Milano, Marcos y Marcos, 1997 or Giulia Guarnieri, Narrative di viaggio urbano: mito e anti-mito della metropoli americana, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2006.

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

Teaching methods

The lessons are, most of all, lectures held by the teacher. During the lessons, students will be encouraged to participate. We will use also some tools to support teaching, especially pictures, movies and short documentaries will be shown for the contextualization of readings scheduled.

Tuesday, 3.00-5.00 p.m., Aula B, via Zamboni 34

Thursday, 3.00-5.00 p.m., Aula A, via Zamboni 34

Friday, 3.00-5.00 p.m., Aula A, via Zamboni 34

Inizio:

Tuesday 3rd October, 2017 (I semester)

Assessment methods

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