07918 - English-Speaking Countries Literature

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student knows the historical, geographical and social aspects and contexts of English culture. He/she knows how to express specific socio-cultural issues in an appropriate manner and knows the most suitable critical tools to contextualise, analyse and comment on knowledge, experiences, objects and cultural productions of various kinds and to relate them to the most significant transformations linked to the English-speaking environment, according to an interdisciplinary, intercultural and intertextual methodology.

Course contents

1969, 1970

 

1969 is the last year of the decade that saw Britain briefly regain culturally what it had lost politically after the WWII. 1970 is the first year of a decade in which the economic, social and cultural crisis manifests itself in dramatic form. According to many critics, the 1970s marked the end of the dream of a revolution through consumerism that had characterised the 1960s, but perhaps things are (fortunately) a little more complicated.

The two years indicated will be taken as examples for a broader discourse that will analyse the two decades, examining some central figures of 1960s British pop culture, investigating their impact on the culture and society of the time and the role of the media in the construction of their image. It will examine figures from the worlds of music (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, David Bowie), film (Richard Lester, Antonioni, Hammer House, as well as actors and actresses such as Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Rita Tushingam, Michael Caine), photography (Bailey, Duffy), visual arts (David Hamilton, Paolozzi, Peter Blake, Jann Haworth, Pauline Boty), football (George Best), fashion (Mary Quant, Biba). And the scandals of the time, from the obscenity trial of the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover to the Profumo scandal.

It is possible to choose this course with the name 07918 - LITERATURE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE COUNTRIES. Students who include this latter course in their syllabus,must read three novels.

The students must choose among

Samuel Selvon, Lonely Londoners (1956)

Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners (1959)

Edna O'Brien, The country girls (1960)

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

Readings/Bibliography

Silvia Albertazzi, Questo è domani, Lissone, paginauno, 2020

Roberto Bertinetti, Dai Beatles a Blair: la cultura inglese contemporanea, Roma, Carocci, 2001 

Raymond Williams, “Culture”, in Keywords, London, Fontana, 1985, pp.87-93

Assessment methods

Oral exam (15-20 minutes).
In the oral exam the critical and methodological abilities of the students will be valued, as for the materials discussed and analysed during the course.

Office hours

See the website of Gino Scatasta