29514 - Global History: Public Sphere and Mass Media (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will be able to use the acquired conceptual and theoretical tools to build adequate analytical frames and approach specific historical subjects. Particularly, students will master theories and methodological approaches concerning the shape and changes of public spheres in contemporary history. Thanks to the knowledge of the national and international historiography, students will be able to manage on their own further historical research on a specific topic. At the end of the two modules of the course, they will be aware of the methodological orientations prevailing in the global history, particularly with regard to economic matters, material cultures, environmental changes and changes in the public sphere. This will allow them to be critical towards the information, the texts and data and their historiographic relevance.

Course contents

National - transnational - global: analitycal categories and keywords to unterstand contemporary history

A first, short part of the course will be devoted to the introduction to the global and to the transnational history from a conceptual and methodological point of view. It will be also tackled the historiographical debate on the demise/persistence of the national paradigm despite the “global turn”. In the second part of the course the categories “national, transnational, global” will be handled as keywords for the investigation of contemporary history with regard to some political and social phenomena. Particular attention will be devoted to two topics:

1. formation, development and changes of the public sphere with regard to the formation of nation-states and, later, the spread of transnational mass media;
2. formation and development of collective actors between national, transnational and global spaces with a particular focus on the workers movement, students movements and movements for social justice at the end of the 20^th century.

Readings/Bibliography

The list is intended as reference platform for the topic that will be dealt in class and for the preparation of the final paper.

Mario Del Pero e Guido Formigoni (a cura di), Storia internazionale, transnazionale, globale. Una discussione, Il mulino, Bologna 2016.

Bruce Mazlish and Akira Iriyne, The global history reader, Routledge, New York 2005

Sebastian Conrad, Storia globale. Un'introduzione, Carocci, Roma 2015

Matthew Hilton and Rana Mitter (eds.), Transnationalism and contemporary global history, Oxford 2013

Craig Calhoun(ed), Habermas and the public sphere, The Mit Press, Cambridge 1992

Nick Crossley and John Michael Roberts (eds.), After Habermas. New perpectives on the public sphere, Blackwell, Oxford 2004

Massimo Rospocher (ed), Beyond the public sphere : opinions, publics, spaces in early modern Europe, Bologna-Berlin 2012

Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk, Transforming the public sphere: the dutch national exhibition of Women's labor in 1898
Duke university press, Durham 2004

Robert Frank et al. (eds.), Building a European public sphere. From the 1950s to the present, Peter Lang, Bruxelles 2010

Mark Mazower, No enchanted palace. The end of empire and the ideological origins of the United Nations,
Princeton and Oxford : Princeton university press, 2009

Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth (eds.),1968 in Europe : a history of protest and activism, 1956-77, Palgrave, New York 2008

Matteo Pasetti, Tra classe e nazione: rappresentazioni e organizzazione del movimento nazional-sindacalista (1918-1922), Carocci, Roma 2008

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond borders. Advocacy networks in international politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1998

John A. Guidry, Michael D. Kennedy, Mayer N. Zald (eds.), Globalizations and social movements : culture, power, and the transnational public sphere, University of Michigan press, Ann Arbor 2000

Teaching methods

The course will interchange classical lecture to seminar moments. Lectures aim at illustrating the conceptual tools emplyed to analyse historical phenomena and particular contexts. In order to stimulate lively debates and active participation students will be asked to prepare readings that will be provided through the "materiali didattici" linked to the course. They will be discussed weekly.

Assessment methods

Students will write a final paper (40,000 beatings including the all text/15-18 pages) on one of the topics handled by the teachers (De Bernardi and Tolomelli). The exam can also be devided in two parts, i.e. in two shorter papers (20,000 beatings/7-9 pages), each for module on two different topics.

In addition to the final paper non-attending students have to pass a written exam on following books:

S. Conrad, Storia Globale. Un'introduzione, Carocci, Roma 2015

A. De Bernardi, Da mondiale a globale. Storia del XX secolo, Milano 2008

The exam will consist of 6 open questions (3 for each book) that students have to answer in 90'.

Teaching tools

Short texts, articles or essays will be uploaded in the "materiali didattici" linked to the course. As some of the readings are in English it is advantegeous that students have a good knowledge of the English language.

Office hours

See the website of Marica Tolomelli