26029 - CRITICAL UTOPIAS - UTOPIA CRITICA

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

Lo studente acquisisce conoscenze storico-letterarie sulla letteratura popolare delle donne, in particolare sulla letteratura di viaggio femminile e sui temi dell'utopia critica

Contenuti

(In)tensional Communities and solidarity: violence and healing in critical dystopias and science fiction

The course will explore texts representing founding traumas, the heritage of individual and collective memory, post-traumatic conflicts, the need for solidarity and reconciliation. The analyses will focus on the ways in which the individual and the collectivity are transformed, lacerated, disrupt, or unified, through traumatic events or negation of human and civil rights, elaborating on the relationship between the individual and the community, their ethical and political positioning, their loneliness and need to belong, the relationship between violence and resistance, and solidarity. The notion of critical utopia and dystopia, and science fiction within a gender perspective exemplifies these genres as critical tools to investigates the relationship between macro-histories and micro-stories, individual and communities, memories and countermemories and the function of literature and art. Critical dystopias invite readers to mobilize against the present and the risks of its possible outcomes. showing that literature can be a tool to decolonize the imaginary and to develop critical thinking and solidarity. Within this perspective, utopian and dystopian spaces will be also read as spaces for the imaginary – including archetypical experiences - and the deconstruction of the symbolic and social order. The feminist communities gathered around the Handmaid’s Tale as a cultural product do not only represent a fidelization to the multimedial text, but they also testify to the force of critical dystopia to inspire concrete actions and forms of cultural and political resistance.

 

 

 

 

Testi/Bibliografia

Primary Sources:

- The Village, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, 2004

- Butler, Octavia E., Kindred, 1979

- Faber, Michel, Under the Skin, 2000

- Atwood, Margaret, The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985

Critical Sources:

- Baccolini, Raffaella; Benvenuti, Giuliana; Elefante, Chiara; and Monticelli, Rita. “Transmedia Science Fiction and New Social Imaginaries.” In The Edinburgh Companion to the New European Humanities, edited by Rosi Braidotti et al., 229-254. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.

- Baccolini, Raffaella, and Tom Moylan. “Introduction: Dystopia and Histories.” In Dark Horizons, 1-12. Routledge, 2003

- Baccolini, Raffaella. “Gender and Genre in the Feminist Critical Dystopias of Katharine Burdekin, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler.” In Future Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism, 13-34. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

Braidotti, Rosi “Difference, Diversity, and Nomadic Subjectivity” online document, http://women.ped.kun.nl, 2000 (available on Virtuale)

- Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the late Twentieth century.” In Manifestly Haraway, 5-90. University of Minnesota Press, 2016 [1985].

Monticelli, Rita, Lorenzo Mari (a cura di) Small Islands? Transnational Solidarity in Contemporary Literature and Arts, Benevento, Edizioni Labrys, 2017, Introduction, https://www.degenere-journal.it/index.php/degenere/article/

- Monticelli, Rita. “Under the Skin: Science Fiction as Posthuman Cultural Ecology.” Between 9, no. 17 (2019).

- Monticelli, Rita. ““I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”: Genealogies, Re-Visions of the Body, and Feminist Figurations”. In Women’s Voices and Genealogies in Literary Studies in English, 41-56. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019.

- Monticelli, Rita. “‘Seeking light in darkness and harmony in confusion’: Death, Memory and Resistance in Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin and Kindred by Octavia E. Butler.” DEDALUS, 11 (2008): 53-66.

- Sargent, Lyman Tower. “The Problem of the ‘Flawed Utopia’: A Note on the Costs of Eutopia.” In Dark Horizons, 225-232. Routledge, 2003.

Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book”, in Diacritics. A Review of Contemporary Criticism, vol. 17, n. 2, 1987, pp. 65-81.

- Varsam, Maria. “Concrete Dystopia: Slavery and Its Others.” In Dark Horizons, 203-224. Routledge, 2003.

- Dossier on The Village published on Mediazioni, 2006. Available online: https://www.mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.it/index.php/no2-anno2006/48-dossierno2-anno2006.html

Further Reading: 

Gearhart, Sally Miller The Wanderground, 1979 (critical utopia)

Burdekin, Katharine, Swastika Night, 1937 ('critical' dystopia)  

All critical sources are available on VIRTUALEor in the library

 

 

Metodi didattici

Lessons, seminars, class discussions, students' presentations. Languages employed: English, some seminars might be in Italian.

Bibliography and other information will be provided also during the lessons (and then published in the online reading list and program). The course includes both lessons with the active participation of the students. Students who cannot attend lessons must contact the lecturer during her office hours, or via e-mail before the end of the course. Students are requested to check the online program also during the course for further notice and information.

B.A students are not admitted. Erasmus students are requested to contact the lecturer before enrolling in the course.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

For the final oral exam students are requested to choose texts from the list of the critical sources (about 150 pages) AND three texts from the primary sources, and one of the movies proposed

Please do check this web page for further notice

Active participation in class discussions: 25%. By participation in class we mean the ability of the student to enter the debates, contributing with questions and/or elaborations of the topics proposed by the lecturer. This participation does not aim at testing students' specific preparation in the field, rather, they want to favor their ability to take part in discussions and their capability to discuss in group.

Students' presentation: Students (organised in groups) are required to present one text (to be chosen in accordance with the lecturer) in class: 25%

Final oral exams: 50%

The final oral exam will test the student's critical capability, his/her knowledge of the methodologies employed, her/his ability to combine theories with the analyses of the texts chosen. The close reading of the texts aims at showing the student's critical ability, their knowledge not only of the texts but also of their context of creation together with the cultural politics that inform them. Students are requested to use an appropriate language, to be able to articulate their thought in English (high level)and to have an accurate knowledge of the bibliography chosen for the exam.

Grades:

Excellent: Students' high capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, originality of thought and excellent knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography selected, accurate and appropriate language.

Very good level: Students' capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, originality of thought and very good knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography selected, and appropriate, accurate language.

Good level: Students' capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography selected, and appropriate language.

Pass: Students' capability to enter the exiting debates on the topics chosen, knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography selected, and appropriate language.

Fail: Student's lack of knowledge of the theories employed during the course, incapability to critical reading of the texts, inappropriate and inaccurate language.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

movies, videos, slides, meeting with tutors

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Rita Monticelli