29514 - Global History: Public Sphere and Mass Media (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will be able to use the acquired conceptual and theoretical tools to build adequate analytical frames and approach specific historical subjects. Particularly, students will master theories and methodological approaches concerning the shape and changes of public spheres in contemporary history. Thanks to the knowledge of the national and international historiography, students will be able to manage on their own further historical research on a specific topic. At the end of the two modules of the course, they will be aware of the methodological orientations prevailing in the global history, particularly with regard to economic matters, material cultures, environmental changes and changes in the public sphere. This will allow them to be critical towards the information, the texts and data and their historiographic relevance.

Course contents

National - transnationa - global: discourse space and analytical categories for the study on the publc sphere in contemporary history.

The course will focus on developments and transformations of the public sphere in contemporary times in relation to diverse, separate but interconnected spatial scales.

The first part of the course will be devoted to ithe introduction of global and transnational history in both conceptual and methodological terms. We will takle the historiographical debate on the overcoming/the surviving of the national paradigm though the increasing research interest in global inter-relations. In this same first part attention will be addressed to the concept of public sphere in the social sciences starting from the pioneering work by J. Habermas till more recent contributions. It will follow a second part that will focus on three major thematic issues and the analysis of historical cases of public sphere in relation to political aims, actors and communication means. The themes-schedule of the course will be the following:    

1. Methodological introduction to the global history by deepening  che concepts of public sphere, civil society and mass communication;

2. Public sphere as a historical concept and analytical category;

3. The role of public sphere in nation-building processes. The Italian and the German cases;

4. Transnational and international public spheres: the cases of the abolitionist, the peace movements and the Socialist International.

5. Effectivness and limits of the "new media" in building a global public sphere and forging collective action; from the movements critical toward globalization to the environmentalist movements.

Readings/Bibliography

The list is intended as reference for the topic that will be addressed in class and for the preparation of the final paper.

Mario Del Pero e Guido Formigoni (a cura di), Storia internazionale, transnazionale, globale. Una discussione, Il mulino, Bologna 2016.

Bruce Mazlish and Akira Iriyne, The global history reader, Routledge, New York 2005

Sebastian Conrad, Storia globale. Un'introduzione, Carocci, Roma 2015

Matthew Hilton and Rana Mitter (eds.), Transnationalism and contemporary global history, Oxford 2013

Gunilla Budde, Sebastian Conrad, Oliver Janz (eds.), Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Tendenzen und Theorien,
Gottingen 2006

J. Habermas, Storia e critica dell'opinione pubblica, 3. ed
Roma-Bari, Laterza 2008

Craig Calhoun(ed), Habermas and the public sphere, The Mit Press, Cambridge 1992

Nick Crossley and John Michael Roberts (eds.), After Habermas. New perpectives on the public sphere, Blackwell, Oxford 2004

Marica Tolomelli, Sfera pubblica e comunicazioni di massa, Bologna 2006

Stefan-L. Hoffmann, Civil Society 1750-1914, Palgrave New York 2006

J.R. Oldfield, Transatlantic abolitionism in the age of revolution : an international history of anti-slavery, c.1787-1820, Cambridge 2013

Maurizio Isabella, Risorgimento in esilio : l'internazionale liberale e l'età delle rivoluzioni, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2011

Fabio Bertini, Figli del '48. I ribelli, gli esuli, i lavoratori. Dalla Repubblica universale alla prima Internazionale, Roma, Aracne 2013

Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk, Transforming the public sphere: the dutch national exhibition of Women's labor in 1898
Duke university press, Durham 2004

Oliver Janz and Daniel Schönpflug (eds.), Gender history in a transnational perspective. Biographies, networks, gender orders, New York 2014

David Cortright, Peace. A history of movements and ideas,
Cambridge 2008

Georges Haupt, La II Internazionale, Firenze : La Nuova Italia, 1973

Frits van Holthoon, Marcel van der Linden (eds.),
Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940, vol. I, Brill, Amsterdam 1988

Donna R. Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta (eds.), Women, gender, and transnational lives. Italian workers of the world, University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2002

Steven Hirsch, Lucien van der Walt (eds), Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940 : the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution, Brill, Leiden 2010.

Robert Frank et al. (eds.), Building a European public sphere. From the 1950s to the present, Peter Lang, Bruxelles 2010

Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth (eds.),1968 in Europe : a history of protest and activism, 1956-77, Palgrave, New York 2008

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond borders. Advocacy networks in international politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1998

John A. Guidry, Michael D. Kennedy, Mayer N. Zald (eds.), Globalizations and social movements : culture, power, and the transnational public sphere, University of Michigan press, Ann Arbor 2000

Ramachandra Guha, Ambientalismi. na storia globale dei movimenti, Roma 2016

Teaching methods

The course will interchange classical lecture to seminar moments. Lectures aim at illustrating the conceptual tools emplyed to analyse historical phenomena and particular contexts. In order to stimulate lively debates and active participation students will be asked to prepare readings that will be provided through the "materiali didattici" linked to the course.

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

Students will write a final paper (40,000 beatings including the all text/15-18 pages) on one of the topics dealt with in one of the two modules. For attending students the assessment will take into account also dedication and active participation in class.

In addition to the final paper not-attending students have to pass a written exam on following books (the exam also applies to the second module of the integrated course):

Sebastian Conrad, Storia Globale. Un'introduzione, Carocci, Roma 2015

John R. McNeill, Peter Engelke, La grande accelerazione. Una storia ambientale dell'Antropocene dopo il 1945, Torino: Einaudi, 2018.

The exam will consist of 6 open questions (3 for each book) that students have to answer in 90'. The final grade will be the avarage between the grade assigned to the written exam and the grade assigned to the paper.

With regard to the outlined criteria the evalution will result from following assessment scale:

• Excellent (30 cum laude)
• Very Good (28-30)
• Good (25-27)
• Satisfactory (22-24)
• Sufficient (18-21)

This 6 CFU course is part of the 12 CFU Integrated Course “Profili di storia globale (C.I.) (LM)". If the student has the Integrated Course (12 CFU) in his/her study plan, the final grade for not-attending ones will result from the arithmetic average of the marks obtained in the common written exam (“Profili di storia globale: sfera pubblica e comunicazioni di massa" and “Profili di storia globale: Economia, ambiente, società") and the final paper.

The final grade will be assigned by the professor with whom the paper’s subject has been agreed (either Bonan or Tolomelli).

Teaching tools

Short texts, articles or essays will be uploaded in the "materiali didattici" linked to the course. As some of the readings are in English it is advantegeous that students have a good knowledge of the English language.

Office hours

See the website of Marica Tolomelli