- Docente: Sandro Mezzadra
- Credits: 6
- SSD: SPS/01
- Language: Italian
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Bologna
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Corso:
Second cycle degree programme (LM) in
Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production (cod. 5899)
Also valid for Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Information, Cultures and Media Organisation (cod. 5698)
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from Nov 13, 2023 to Dec 20, 2023
Learning outcomes
The course aims to offer an overall picture of political thought on the role of imagination, both in European and Western classical authors, as well as in other theoretical traditions. Drawing from this historical reconstruction, several relevant issues of the contemporary debate will be faced: from the relationship between social movements and imaginary to the most recent developments in the media field; from virtual reality to changes in the concept of public opinion; from the renewed public presence of religions to the metamorphosis of the cultural industry.
Course contents
The course is dedicated to a discussion of “intersectionality”, a body of theories and methods that aims at critically analyzing the interlocking of different systems of oppression, whose operations center upon such issues as gender, race, class, and sexuality, as well as of related practices of struggle and resistance. Attention will be paid to the history of intersectionality, which starts long before the explicit formulation of the theory toward the end of the 1980s (Kimberlé Crenshaw). That history largely coincides with the history of Black feminism in the U.S. since the age of slavery. Black feminism will be also at the center of the second part of the course, devoted to a discussion of some of the most important Black feminist works of the last decades.
Readings/Bibliography
Books required for the exam:
A. One of the following two:
A. Bohrer, Marxism and Intersectionality. Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality Under Contemporary Capitalism, Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2019.
A. Carasthatis, Intersectionality. Origins, Contestations, Horizons, Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska Press, 2016.
B. One book among the following reading list:
A. Davis, Women, Race & Class, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 2019.
A. Davis, Blues and Black Feminism, New York, Vintage, 1999.
K.-Y. Taylor, How We Get Free. Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017.
A. Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Harmondsworth, Penguin classics, 2020.
A. Lorde, Zami.A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, Crossing Press, 1982.
bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman. Black Women and Feminism, London – New York, Routledge, 2014.
bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody. Passionate Politics, London and New York, Routledge, 2014.
P. Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, second edition. New York and London, Routledge, 2020.
P. Hill Collins, Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press.
E. Rigo, La straniera. Migrazioni, asilo, sfruttamento in una prospettiva di genere, Roma, Carocci, 2022.
Further readings will be suggested during the course.
Teaching methods
Lectures will be combined with seminars, with direct involvement of students and possible participation of external guests.
Assessment methods
The exam will be oral. Students attending classes are encouraged although not required to present a paper (around 4.000 words), to be discussed during the exam. Students are required to turn in the paper at least one week before the exam.
Teaching tools
The course presupposes a basic knowledge of the history of modern and contemporary political philosophy. Students who do not have such knowledge in their curriculum can refer to one of the following texts:
S.S. Wolin, Politics and Vision. Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2006
C. Galli (ed), Manuale di storia del pensiero politico, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2011
A. Pandolfi (ed), Nel pensiero politico moderno, Roma, Manifestolibri, 2004
Links to further information
http://unibo.academia.edu/SandroMezzadra
Office hours
See the website of Sandro Mezzadra