12805 - History of English Culture

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the students will have a wide overview of the main  historical, geographical and social aspects and contexts of British Culture from the end of world war two to the end of the second millennium. The students will also be able to contextualize and analyze various texts and documents, placing them in relationship with the most relevant and significant changes of the cultural and linguistic area of reference

Course contents

Ordinary People: la rappresentazione della gente comune nella cultura inglese del secondo Novecento

The aim of the course is to analyse the representation of everyday life and ordinary people in English Culture (literature, cinema, theatre, paintings, photography, music) from 1945 to the end of the second millennium.

Readings/Bibliography

Compulsory readings:

M. Cometa, Studi Culturali, Napoli, Guida, 2011 (prefazione, seconda parte - paragrafi 1, 2,3,4 - e quarta parte).

Alan Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner

Sam Selvon, Lonely Londoners

Jonathan Coe, The Rotters' Club

Farrukh Dhondy, Come to Mecca

Geoff Dyer, The Colour of Memory

John Osborne, Look Back in Anger

Salman Rushdie, “The New Empire Within Britain”, “A General Election”, “An Unimportant Fire” in Id., Imaginary Homelands

Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities”

The students must know the following films:

Karel Reisz, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Tony Richardson, The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner

Ken Loach, Family Life

Stephen Frears, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

The students must know also the following artists: David Hockney, Tony Ray-Jones, Martin Parr and the most important musicians of the period.

For further reading: 

P. Colaiacomo, V. Caratozzolo, La Londra dei Beatles, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1996

A. Marzola, Englishness. Percorsi nella cultura Britannica del Novecento, Roma, Carocci, 1999

R. Perdetti, I. Vivan, Dalla Lambretta allo skateboard. Teoria e storia delle sottoculture giovanili britanniche, Milano, Unicopli, 2009.

A. Polito, Cool Britannia, Roma, Donzelli, 1998.

L. Spaziante, Dai Beat alla generazione dell'Ipod. Le culture musicali giovanili, Roma, Carocci, 2010.

M. Wiener, Il progresso senza ali. La cultura inglese e il declino dello spirito industriale (1850-1980), Bologna, il Mulino, 1985.

The students who do not attend the lessons must also study the following book:

S. Albertazzi, Belli e perdenti. Antieroi e post-eroi nella narrativa contemporanea di lingua inglese, Roma, Armando Editore, 2012.

Teaching methods

Traditional lectures will be alternated with an approach on seminar base, encouraging students to participate in class discussion. Reading and analysis of document and texts. Erasmus and Overseas students must have a good knowledge of the Italian Language in order to attend this course.

Assessment methods

The evaluation of the students' competencies and abilities acquired during the course consists in a written text in Italian at the end of the course for those students who attended classes regularly. For those who do not attend classes, the exam consists in an oral examination. All the following sessions of the exams after the first one will be oral

The written test will include multiple choice and open questions concerning the  specific topics dealt with during the course.

The oral test consists in an oral talk which has the aim of evaluating the critical and methodological ability of the students in relating British history, critical approach to texts, authors and movements analysed during the course. The student must demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of the bibliography used during the course and added to the course program.

Those students who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the course, and are able to use these critically and who master the field-specific culture and history 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.

Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use, lack of familiarity with the literature in the programme bibliography will not be given a pass mark.

Teaching tools

Traditional lectures will be alternated with an approach on seminar base, encouraging students to participate in class discussion. Reading and analysis of document and texts. Video and Audio supports will be used. Experts, PhD students and young reasearchers will take active part in the course.

During the last week of the course, the students will attend the conference "L'immaginario politico. Impegno, resistenza, ideologia" (Bologna, 17-19 December). Some questions of the written exam will concern the papers of the panel "Ouside the Whale".

Office hours

See the website of Silvia Albertazzi