85103 - HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ITALY (1) (LM)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

At the end of the course, students will have gained knowledge of the specificities that characterise contemporary Italian history and in particular of the social, political, economic transformations, in addition to those related to the mentality and customs, of Italy in the 20th century. Students will have acquired the methodological competences necessary for reaching an adequate level of critical and interpretative awareness in the field of contemporary Italian history and will be capable of reading specific sources and autonomously planning their research.

Contenuti

The course is integrated and will be held by Proff. Capuzzo and Mazzini according to the following schedule.

Attendance is highly recommended.

 

26 September Italy in the 1st half of the 19th century (Mazzini)

27 September Italian Nationalisms (Mazzini)

28 September Unification (Mazzini)

 

3 October 1 What’s material culture? A historical approach (Capuzzo)

5 October Italian food in the pre-industrial age: a geographical approach (Capuzzo)

 

10 October Liberal Italy and The Giolitti era (Mazzini)

11 October Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts

(Mazzini):

• Banti, Alberto Mario. ‘The Remembrance of Heroes’. In Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy., In Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy., edited by Lucy Riall and Silvana Patriarca, 171–90. Place of publication not identified: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. + in the same volume Lucy Riall, ‘Men at War: Masculinity and Military Ideals in the Risorgimento’ 152–70.

• Davis, John A, ed. ‘Culture and Society, 1796-1896’. In Italy in the Nineteenth Century: 1796 - 1900, 206–29. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.

• Duggan, Christopher. ‘Francesco Crispi, the Problem of the Monarchy, and the Origins of Italian Nationalism’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 15, no. 3 (1 June 2010): 336–53. doi:10.1080/13545711003768568.

• Grand, Alexander De. ‘Giovanni Giolitti: A Pessimist as Modernizer’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 6, no. 1 (1 January 2001): 57–67. doi:10.1080/13545710010020920.

• Gundle, Stephen. ‘The Death (and Re-Birth) of the Hero: Charisma and Manufactured Charisma in Modern Italy’. Modern Italy 3, no. 2 (November 1998): 173–89. doi:10.1080/13532949808454802.

• Isabella, Maurizio. ‘Rethinking Italy’s Nation-Building 150 Years Afterwards: The New Risorgimento Historiography*’. Past & Present 217, no. 1 (1 November 2012): 247–68. doi:10.1093/pastj/gts028.

• Lyttelton, Adrian. ‘The Middle Classes in Liberal Italy’. In Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento., edited by John Davis and Paul Ginsborg, 217–51. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

• Ortaggi, Simonetta. ‘Labouring Women in Northern and Central Italy in the Nineteenth Century’. In Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento., edited by John Davis and Paul Ginsborg, 152–83. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

• Patriarca, Silvana. ‘Indolence and Regeneration: Tropes and Tensions of Risorgimento Patriotism’. The American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (2005): 380–408. doi:10.1086/531319.

• Riall, Lucy. ‘Hero, Saint or Revolutionary? Nineteenth-Century Politics and the Cult of Garibaldi’. Modern Italy 3, no. 2 (November 1998): 191–204. doi:10.1080/13532949808454803.

• Sorba, Carlotta. ‘Ernani Hats: Italian Opera as a Repertoire of Political Symbols during the Risorgimento’, 18 August 2011. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195341867.013.0018.

12 October Italy in the First World War (Mazzini)

 

17 October Commercialization and Italian material culture in the first half of the 20^th century (Capuzzo)

18 October Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts

• Fasce-Bini-Gaudenzi, Comprare per credere. La pubblicità in Italia dalla Belle Epoque a oggi, Carocci, 2016 – chapter 1, pp. 15-40

• Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003 – chapter 3 on Fascism, pp. 22-43

• Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016, chapter 2, pp. 27-51

• Capatti and Montanari, La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura, Laterza, 2005, chapter 7

19 October Industrialisation of the Italian food and mass consumption (Capuzzo)

 

­­­­24 October The rise of Fascism (Mazzini)

25 October Fascism in power (Mazzini)

26 October Italy in the Second World War (Mazzini)

 

31 October Food in the Italian diaspora (Capuzzo)

2 November Student presentations. Students will choose one of the following texts

• Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016, chapter 5, pp. 109-140

• H.R. Diner, Hungering for America. Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, Harvard University Press, 2001, chapter 3, pp. 48-83

• S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013, chapter 1, pp. 19-46

• C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil. Politics and food in Italy, Berg, 2004, chapter 5, pp. 127-50

 

7 November (Mazzini) Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts:

• Bosworth, Richard. ‘Resistance or Civil War?’ In The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism, edited by Richard Bosworth, 180–204. London: Arnold, 2007.

• Corner, Paul. ‘Italian Fascism: Organization, Enthusiasm, Opinion’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 15, no. 3 (1 June 2010): 378–89. doi:10.1080/13545711003768584.

• ———. ‘State and Society, 1901-1922’. In Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900 - 1945, edited by Adrian Lyttelton, 17–37. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.

• ———. ‘The Road to Fascism: An Italian Sonderweg?’ Contemporary European History 11, no. 2 (2002): 273–95.

• Gentile, Emilio. ‘Fascism as Political Religion’. Journal of Contemporary History 25, no. 2/3 (1990): 229–51.

• ———. The Struggle for Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism. Westport (Conn.); London: Praeger, 2003.

• Labanca, Nicola. ‘The Italian Front’. In The Cambridge History of the First World War, edited by Jay Winter, 1:266–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

• Morgan, Philip. ‘“The Years of Consent”? Popular Attitudes and Forms of Resistance to Fascism in Italy, 1925–1940’. In Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe., edited by Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

• Pezzino, Paolo. ‘The Italian Resistance between History and Memory’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10, no. 4 (1 December 2005): 396–412. + Dondi, Mirco. ‘Division and Conflict in the Partisan Resistance’. Modern Italy 12, no. 2 (June 2007): 225–36. doi:10.1080/13532940701362748.

• Wanrooj, Bruno. ‘Italian Society under Fascism’. In Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900 - 1945, edited by Adrian Lyttelton. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.

• Wilcox, Vanda. ‘“Weeping Tears of Blood”: Exploring Italian Soldiers’ Emotions in the First World War’. Modern Italy 17, no. 2 (May 2012): 171–84.

8 November (Mazzini) Italy in the Cold War

9 November (Mazzini) Economic Miracle

 

14 November Youth and consumption (Capuzzo)

15 November The city and the home: spaces of material cultures (Capuzzo)

16 November Student presentations – students will choose one of the following texts:

• Paolo Capuzzo, Gli spazi della nuova generazione, P. Capuzzo (ed.), Genere, generazione e consumi. L'Italia degli anni Sessanta, Carocci, pp. 217-247

• Bonomo, «Rivoluzione in famiglia»? Televisione e vita domestica nell’Italia del boom, «Contemporanea», XVIII, 2015, 1, pp. 3-31

• J. Foot, Cinema and the city. Milan and Luchino Visconti's Rocco and his Brothers (1960), in Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2/1999, pp. 209-35

• E. Asquer, Storia intima dei ceti medi. Una capitale e una periferia nell’Italia del miracolo economico, Laterza, 2011, chapter 2, pp. 41-84

 

21 November From 1968 to “Anni di Piombo” (Mazzini)

22 November The end of the 1st Republic and Berlusconi’s Italy (Mazzini)

23 November Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts:

• Acanfora, Paolo. ‘Myths and the Political Use of Religion in Christian Democratic Culture’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 12, no. 3 (1 September 2007): 307–38. doi:10.1080/13545710701455692.
• Crainz, Guido. ‘Italy’s Political System since 1989’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 20, no. 2 (15 March 2015): 176–88. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2015.997490.
• Dunnage, Jonathan. ‘Social, Cultural and Economic Transformation in Post War Italy’. In Twentieth Century Italy: A Social History, 148–96. Oxon: Routledge, 2014.
• Fantone, Laura. ‘Precarious Changes: Gender and Generational Politics in Contemporary Italy’. Feminist Review, no. 87 (2007): 5–20.
• Ginsborg, Paul. ‘The Post-War Settlement, 1945-48’. In A history of contemporary Italy: society and politics, 1943-1988, 72–121, 2003.
• Ginsborg, Paul. ‘The Economic Miracle, Rural Exodus and Social Transformation’. In A history of contemporary Italy: society and politics, 1943-1988, 210–54, 2003.
• Glynn, Ruth. ‘The “Turn to the Victim” in Italian Culture: Victim-Centred Narratives of the ‘Anni di Piombo’. Modern Italy 18, no. 4 (November 2013): 373–90. doi:10.1080/13532944.2013.816473.
• Leavitt, Charles. ‘“An Entirely New Land”? Italy’s Post-War Culture and Its Fascist Past’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 21, no. 1 (1 January 2016): 4–18. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2016.1112060.
• Pasquino, Gianfranco. ‘The Five Faces of Silvio Berlusconi: The Knight of Anti-Politics’. Modern Italy 12, no. 1 (February 2007): 39–54. doi:10.1080/13532940601134817.
• Salvati, Mariuccia. ‘Behind the Cold War: Rethinking the Left, the State and Civil Society in Italy (1940s-1970s)’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8, no. 4 (1 January 2003): 556–77. doi:10.1080/1354571032000147764.
• Saraceno, Chiara. ‘The Italian Family from the 1960s to the Present’. Modern Italy 9, no. 1 (May 2004): 47–57. doi:10.1080/13532940410001677494.

 

28 November Mapping the Italian economic miracle: gender and consumption (Capuzzo)

29 November Italian consumer society: political and commercial aspects (Capuzzo)

30 November Student presentations

• A. Arvidsson chapter 6 Housewife

• P. Capuzzo, I partiti politici di fronte alla società dei consumi, in “Mondo Contemporaneo”, 3/2014, pp. 129-53E. Asquer, La rivoluzione candida. Storia sociale della lavatrice in Italia (1945-1970), Carocci, 2007, chapter 4, pp. 103-41

• E. Scarpellini, Shopping American-Style: The Arrival of the Supermarket in Postwar Italy, “Enterprise & Society”, vol. 5 n. 4, dicembre 2004

5 December Italian consumptions within the globalisation process (Capuzzo)

6 December Italian material cultures in the economic crisis (Capuzzo)

Testi/Bibliografia

• Fasce-Bini-Gaudenzi, Comprare per credere. La pubblicità in Italia dalla Belle Epoque a oggi, Carocci, 2016

• Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003

• Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016, 

• Capatti and Montanari, La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura, Laterza, 2005

• H.R. Diner, Hungering for America. Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, Harvard University Press, 2001

• S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013

• C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil. Politics and food in Italy, Berg, 2004

• P. Capuzzo (ed.), Genere, generazione e consumi. L'Italia degli anni Sessanta, Carocci

• E. Asquer, Storia intima dei ceti medi. Una capitale e una periferia nell’Italia del miracolo economico, Laterza, 2011

 

 

Metodi didattici

The course is articulated through lectues and seminars discussions. Students are expected to participate actively by reading in due time the texts which are in the programme, writing papers as well as participating in class discussions.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Attendant students will have to write a short paper (about 500 words) in which they summarise the main points of the chosen text. The paper has to be delivered at least one day before the scheduled discussion. 

At the end of the course attendant students will have to write a paper (about 2000 words) on a subject which has to be decided along with the professor.

 

Not attending students will have to study the following texts:

Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016

Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003 

Massimo Montanari, Italian Identity in the Kitchen, Columbia University Press, 2013

S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013

 

They will than have to pass a written exam in which they are required to answer to 4 questions concerning the four volumes they have read. They will have 60 minutes to answer the questions.

 

It is recommended that not-attending students get in touch with the professor before the exam.

 

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Paolo Capuzzo