28991 - Contemporary Italian Literature (LM)

Academic Year 2019/2020

  • Docente: Luigi Weber
  • Credits: 12
  • SSD: L-FIL-LET/11
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Italian Studies, European Literary Cultures, Linguistics (cod. 9220)

    Also valid for Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Visual Arts (cod. 0977)
    Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Visual Arts (cod. 9071)

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

Title: L'isola pianeta: scrittori e scritture della Sicilia nel secondo Novecento 

The course is worth twelve credits, amounting to 60 hours (30 lectures). The first week will be introductory and dedicated to the presentation of the authors whose novels will be discussed during the course. In subsequent weeks we will approach their works with  closer and deeper reading and analysis.

The aim of the course is to explore the development of Sicilian narrative during the second half of XX century through the works of Leonardo Sciascia, Gesualdo Bufalino and Vincenzo Consolo. The second section of the program will be dedicated instead to a close reading of Stefano D'Arrigo's masterpiece, a Sicilian odyssey entitled Horcynus Orca.

Readings/Bibliography


Students will fully read:

a) Leonardo Sciascia, Il consiglio d'Egitto (1963)

b) Vincenzo Consolo, Il sorriso dell'ignoto marinaio (1975) or Retablo (1987)

c) Gesualdo Bufalino, Diceria dell'untore (1981) or Le menzogne della notte (1988)


and the following critical essays:

a) Giuseppe Traina, Siciliani ultimi? Tre studi su Sciascia, Bufalino, Consolo. E oltre, Modena, Mucchi editore, 2014

b) Gianni Turchetta, Da un luogo bellissimo e tremendo, preface to Vincenzo Consolo, L'opera completa, Milano, Mondadori, 2015, pp. XXIII-LXXIV

c) Giuseppe Traina, "La felicità esiste, ne ho sentito parlare". Gesualdo Bufalino narratore, Cuneo, Nerosubianco, 2013

 

Students who cannot attend the lectures will also read:

Giuliana Benvenuti, Microfisica della memoria. Leonardo Sciascia e le forme del racconto, Bologna, Bononia university Press, 2013

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

Teaching methods

The professor will hold 30 lectures of 2 hours each. Discussion will be encouraged immediately after.

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

Wednesday, 9.00-11.00 a.m.

Aula II, Via Zamboni 38 (First half)

Aula B, Via Zamboni 34 (Second half)

Friday, 9.00-11.00 a.m.,

Aula Tibiletti Via Zamboni, 38 (First half)

Aula B Via Zamboni, 34 (Second half)

Beginning:

Tuesday October, 1st, 2019 (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 texts 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, possibly slides and notes from the lessons.

Office hours

See the website of Luigi Weber