90031 - History of Genres and Sexualities in Early Modern Age (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the module the student is aware that gender identity, for men and women, is in part a historical and social construction that has its roots in the Christian tradition and in the evolution of the control apparatus of the early modern age (systems of repressive justice, medical knowledge, legal culture and theological classifications). The student knows how to contextualize the history of expressions of sexuality, knows how to compare the different social realities, knows how to reconstruct the history of personal relationships and the conditioning they have undergone throughout history. The student can critically evaluate historiography on women, homosexuals and gender and can master the language of the discipline by identifying the most appropriate sources for undertaking research.

Course contents

The course will address the history of sexuality from the late Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century, focusing in particular on the history of male homosexuality and its stigmatization in the Western Christian tradition.

These are the topics that will be covered during the lessons:

Gender: an interpretative category and its use to understand the early modern age

The history of women and their affirmation

The representation of women: theology, medicine, law

Stories of women: the social elites

Stories of women: Christianity and female religiosity

Stories of women: living on the margins

Stories of women: a global perspective

Sodomy, or sexuality against nature

The late medieval elaboration

The repression of sodomy from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century

Being male and homosexual in the early modern age

Being women and lesbians in the early modern age

Crossing genres: transvestism

Readings/Bibliography

All students, whether attending or not, should study the following texts:

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Le donne nell'Europa moderna, nuova edizione, Torino, Einaudi, 2017

Umberto Grassi, Sodoma. Persecuzioni, affetti, pratiche sociali (secoli V-XVIII), Roma, Carocci, 2019

Fernanda Alfieri, Il corpo negato. Tre discorsi sulla castità in età moderna, Bologna, Edb, 2014

Fernanda Alfieri, L’età della disciplina cristiana: confronti e comparazioni, in Storia del cristianesimo, vol. 3, L’età moderna, ed. V. Lavenia, Roma, Carocci, 2015, pp. 321-349

They will also have to choose one of the following books:

1. Natalie Zemon Davis, Donne ai margini: tre vite del XVII secolo, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2001

2. Linda Colley, L’odissea di Elisabeth Marsh: sogni e avventure di una viaggiatrice instancabile, Torino, Einaudi, 2010

3. Marzio Barbagli, Storia di Caterina che per ott’anni vestì da uomo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008

Students who do not attend should add the following text:

Joan W. Scott, Usi e abusi del genere, in Ead., Genere, politica, storia, a cura di I. Fazio, Roma, Viella, 2013, pp. 105-127.

Teaching methods

The teacher will use texts and images to get the students able to reading the sources and to understanding the representations in history. Any teaching materials will be made available online in the appropriate section of the University's website

Assessment methods

The oral examination will take place in the exam sessions provided at the end of the course.To evaluate the exam, the teacher will take into account the student's ability to master the contents of the course, to understand the historical concepts, to orientate himself in the bibliography, to know how to read a source, to connect the informations acquired, to expose what he has learned in a synthetic way and with an appropriate language. The student who will meet these demands will have an excellent mark. The student who will simply repeat the informations acquired in a mnemonic way and with a language not entirely adequate will have a discreet evaluation. The student who will show that he knows the contents superficially and with some gaps, using an inappropriate language, will have a sufficient evaluation. The student unprepared and incapable of orientation in the subject will have a negative evaluation.

The vote of the integrated course "History of genres" (12 CFU) will result from the arithmetic average of the marks obtained in this module and in that of prof. Casalena

Teaching tools

Attendance of the course may also include participation in seminars promoted by the teacher and visits to archives and libraries to contact the sources on the subject kept in the city of Bologna and its surroundings. The Internet will be used to access sites that contain manuscript sources, images, texts and materials of interest.

Office hours

See the website of Vincenzo Lavenia