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

Napoleonic Era and the Restoration (25 Sept)

The Rise of Italian nationalism and 1848 Revolutions (26 Sept)

The Unification of Italy (1850-1870) (27 Sept)

Liberal Italy (2 Oct)

Students presentations (3 Oct)

 

The Giolitti era and First World War (9 October)

The rise of Fascism (10 October)

The Fascist regime and the Italian society (11 October)

The Second World War: the end of the Fascist regime, occupation and Resistance (16 October)

Students presentations (17 October)

 

1948 elections and the Cold War (23 October)

The Economic Boom (24 October)

From 1968 to the Lead years (25 October)

The Collapse of the “prima repubblica” (30 October)

Students presentations (31 October)

Testi/Bibliografia

Readings: primary sources and articles

PART 1

The Napoleonic Era and the Restoration (25 September)

Primary source: Ugo Foscolo, The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis (2002), pp. 34-37.

 

The Rise of Italian nationalism and 1848 Revolutions (26 September)

Primary source: Giuseppe Mazzini, General Instructions for the Members of Young Italy (1831).

 

The Unification of Italy (27 September)

Primary source: Goffredo Mameli, Il canto degli italiani (1847).

 

Liberal Italy (2 October)

Primary source: Edmondo De Amicis, The Sardinian Drummer-Boy, in Heart. A schoolboy journal (1886).

 

Texts for students presentations (3 October)

• S. Patriarca, Italian Vices. Nation and character from the Risorgimento to the Republic (Cambridge 2010), ch. 1.
• D. Laven, “Law and order in Habsburg Venetia 1814-1835”, The Historical Journal, 39, (1996), pp. 383-403.
• M. Isabella, “Rethinking Italy’s nation-Building 150 Years Afterwards: The New Risorgimento Historiography”, Past and Present, 217, (2012), pp. 247-68.
• A. Banti, The Remembrance of Heroes, in Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy edited by Lucy Riall and Silvana Patriarca, pp. 171–90.
• L. Riall, Garibaldi, The Invention of a hero, (London, 2007), ch. 7.
• C. Sorba, Ernani Hats: Italian Opera as a Repertoire of Political Symbols during the Risorgimento, in The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music [http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195341867.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195341867] (2011).
• N. Moe, The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and The Southern Question, (Los Angeles Berkeley, 2002), pp.156-183.
• E. Bacchin, “Brothers of Liberty. Garibaldi’s British Legion”, The Historical Journal, 58 (2015),
• B. Tobia, Urban Space and Monuments in the “Nationalisation of the Masses”. The Italian Case, in Woolf S. ed., Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present (New York, 1996), pp.171-191.

 

 

PART 2

The Giolitti era and WW1 (9 October)

Primary source: F.T. Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto (1909)

 

The rise of Fascism (10 October)

Primary source: Benito Mussolini, Afternoon Speech of 23 March 1919.

 

The Fascist regime and the Italian society (11 October)

Primary source: Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism in the Enciclopedia italiana (1932).

 

The Second World War: the end of the Fascist regime, occupation and Resistance (16 October)

Primary source: Alcide Cervi, My seven sons (1944).

 

Texts for students presentations (17 October)

• P. Corner and G. Procacci, The Italian Experience of “total” mobilisation, 1915-1920, in John Horne ed., State, Society and Mobilisation in Europe during the First World War, (Cambridge, 1997)
• P. Corner, “The Road to Fascism: an Italian Sonderweg?” Contemporary European History, 11-2, (2002), pp.273-295.
• G. Albanese, ‘Reconsidering the March on Rome’, European History Quarterly, 42/3 (2012), p. 403-21.
• E. Gentile, ‘Fascism as Political Religion’, Journal of Contemporary History, 25/2-3 (1990), pp. 229-51
• P. Corner, ‘Italian fascism: organization, enthusiasm, opinion’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 15/3 (2010), pp. 378-89
• V. De Grazia, How Fascism ruled women: 1922-1945 (1992), ch. 3
• M. Ebner, ‘The political police and denunciation during Fascism: a review of recent historical literature’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 11/2 (2006), pp. 209-226
• G. Barrera, ‘Mussolini’s colonial race laws and state-settler relations in Africa Orientale Italiana (1935-41), Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 8/3 (2003), pp. 425-43.
• E. Aga Rossi, A Nation Collapses. The Italian surrender of September 1943 (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), pp. 103-112 and 125-38
• F. Focardi, ‘Reshaping the Past: Collective Memory and the Second World War in Italy, 1945-55’, in D. Geppert (ed.), The Postwar Challenge. Cultural, Social, and Political Change in Western Europe, 1945-1958 (Oxford: OUP, 2003), pp. 41-63
• P. Pezzino, ‘The Italian Resistance between History and Memory’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 10/4 (2005), pp. 396-412

 

 

PART 3

1948 elections and the Cold War (23 October)

Primary source: Italian constitution, Fundamental principles.

 

The Economic Boom (24 October)

 

From 1968 to the Lead years (25 October)

Primary source: Testimonies from the 1968, published in Luisa Passerini, Autobiography of a generation (1996), pp. 95-100.

 

The Collapse of the “prima repubblica” (30 October)

 

Students presentations (31 October)

• I. Favretto, M. Meriggi, D. Laven, G. Albanese, J. Foot, Round Table. The ‘British School’ and Italian historiography, Modern Italy, 22 (2017), pp. 471-83.
• D.W. Ellwood, ‘The 1948 Elections in Italy: a cold war propaganda battle’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 13/1 (1993), pp. 19-33
• M. Salvati, ‘Behind the Cold War: rethinking the left, the state and civil society in Italy (1940s-1970s), Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 8/4 (2003), pp. 556-577
• E. Scarpellini, Material nation: a consumer's history of modern Italy (Oxford: OUP, 2011), chapter 7 ‘Society during the Golden Age of Capitalism’, pp. 125-75
• S. Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy 1965-1975 (1989), pp. 35-58
• R. Clifford, ‘Emotions and gender in oral history: narrating Italy’s 1968’, Modern Italy, 17/2 (2012), pp. 209-21
• R. Lumley, ‘The Red Brigades: sons and daughters of ’68?’, in idem, States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978 (London: Verso, 1990), pp. 279-293
• P. Ginsborg, Explaining Italy’s Crisis, in Gundle Parker (eds.), The New Italian Republic. From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi, (1996), pp.19-39.
• Interpretations of the Lega Nord’, in A. Cento Bull and M. Gilbert (eds.), The Lega Nord and the Northern Question in Italian Politics, (2001), pp. 42-66

Metodi didattici

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

The module is divided into 3 parts. At the end of each part students are expected to present a brief paper (at the end of the course all students will have presented at least one text). While for each lecture they are expected the read a primary source.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

This module will be assessed by a combination of:

- presentation. Students are expected to prepare a short (maximum 12-minute) talk based on a chosen text and write a short paper (500 words) to be delivered one day in advance of the scheduled discussion (all students are expected to present at least one text). The presentation and the following discussion will be evaluated and will be part of the final mark. Readings will be provided to the students in electronic format and are suggested reading for all students.

- 1 essay of 2000 words on a subject discussed in advance with the professor. All essays must include a full scholarly apparatus of footnotes or endnotes to indicate the source of all information, quotations and arguments, as well as a full bibliography.

Not-attending students have to get in touch with the professor.

Not attending students are expected to study the following texts and write 2 essays of  2000 words on a subject discussed in advance with the professor. All essays must include a full scholarly apparatus of footnotes or endnotes to indicate the source of all information, quotations and arguments, as well as a full bibliography.

• Lucy Riall, Risorgimento: the History of Italy from Napoleon to Nation State (2009);
• Nick Carter, Modern Italy in historical perspective (2010);
• and 3 chapters from: S. Patriarca, Italian Vices. Nation and character from the Risorgimento to the Republic (2010).
  

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

All the texts listed in the Readings/Bibliography section (with the exception of materials required for non-attending students) will be provided to the students in electronic format.

Slide presentations will be available to students at the end of each part.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Elena Bacchin