Political and Cultural History of Italy

ITAL30341 Political and Cultural History of Italy 20 Semester 1 Undergraduate Level 3 Michele Maiolani Unit coordinator Italian Studies 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Last part of a Bachelors ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0 This course unit examines how Italian literature, cinema, and the arts engaged with the sudden changes happening to the natural environment of the peninsula from the second half of 20th-century to present day, concentrating on selected works by major novelists and directors, from Anna Maria Ortese to Pier Paolo Pasolini and Italo Calvino, from Michelangelo Antonioni to Matteo Garrone and Paolo Virzì. Through the analysis of key texts addressing the changes in the social, economic, cultural, and natural environments postwar and contemporary Italy, students will gain a substantial understanding of the evolution of ecological discourses in Italian culture and acquire new critical tools to address the pressing questions of today.   This course examines how Italian literature and cinema engaged with the sudden changes happening to the natural environment of the Italian peninsula covering the years spanning from the postwar period and the ‘economic miracle’ (1956-1963) to the 2020s. After tracing a general historical and methodological framework of the theoretical perspectives adopted in the environmental humanities, the course will provide students with close readings of selected works by major novelists, directors, and artists, like Anna Maria Ortese, Italo Calvino, Michelangelo Antonioni, Primo Levi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Elsa Morante, Roberto Saviano, Matteo Garrone, Paolo Virzì, in addition to selected examples of mural art – chosen among those studied in the research project New Muralism: Urban Futures Through the Arts in Italy. The course aims to trace a genealogy of the debate on the ecological consequences of Italy’s modernisation and industrialisation, looking at how literature and cinema thematised issues such as mass-scale unregulated urbanisation, the excessive exploitation of natural resources, and the pollution of the natural environment. In these crucial decades of the history of modern and contemporary Italy, intellectuals critically discussed the transformations happening to the country, often pointing out the interconnection between new ecological and cultural issues created by the country’s mass industrialisation, and stressing how environmental changes created new social and cultural habits among the Italian population. Through the analysis of key texts addressing the changes in the social, economic, cultural, and natural environments of 20th- and 21st-century Italy, students will gain a substantial understanding of the evolution of ecological discourses in Italian culture and acquire new critical tools to address the pressing questions of today. These aims align with the long-term objectives and challenges of the University of Manchester’s commitment to Sustainable Futures and with the 2035 Strategy, which places climate and geopolitics at its centre and encourages interdisciplinary perspectives, bridging the Humanities with Social Sciences and STEM disciplines. All literary and cinematic texts considered in the course will be available to students both in Italian and in English translation. The course is divided into three block which focus on different moments of Italian history. Each block comprises of an introductory lecture and of two or three further sessions which will analyse each time different aspects of the environmental and cultural history of postwar and contemporary Italy. The structure of the course is symmetrical and students will be tested through different assignments, each suitable to the content of the block: commentary for the first part of the course (1945-1960s); essay for blocks two and three on authors and topics from the 1970s to present days; and, finally, formative group oral presentations throughout the semester on assigned short storis, films, and artworks.   This course aims to provide students with:  <ul><li>in-depth knowledge of key works by major Italian authors of the 20th and 21st century;  </li><li>an insight into the most recent theoretical developments in the environmental humanities; </li><li>an awareness of some of the crucial debates on ecological themes from the post-war years to the present day;  </li><li>an ability to analyse and comment on texts and films in great detail;  </li><li>an overview of Italy’s position within the growing global ecological movements.  </li></ul>On successful completion of this course unit, students will be able to:  <ul><li>discuss key aspects of various Italian novels and films from the 1950s to present day;  </li><li>discuss the complex results of the rapid and sudden modernisation of Italy;  </li><li>show an understanding of the different representations of the environment in Italian culture;  </li><li>analyse critically and originally primary sources, engage in an active dialogue with secondary sources, employ theory and historiography to read texts;  </li><li>present their ideas and produce original arguments in written tasks, group discussion, and oral presentations. </li></ul> On successful completion of this course unit, students will be able to:<ul><li>analyse the selected texts in detail;  </li><li>use different analytical and digital languages;</li><li>move across diverse analytical frameworks;</li><li>understand key questions in 20th- and 21st- century Italian culture;  </li><li>demonstrate a critical awareness of the relationship between ecology, literature, film, and the arts. </li></ul> On successful completion of this course unit, students will be able to:<ul><li>demonstrate an ability to carry out independent research;</li><li>recognise the importance of social and historical contexts in the study of literature, cinema, and the arts;</li><li>demonstrate an ability to deal with abstract ideas;</li><li>demonstrate an ability to engage with different type of texts;</li><li>demonstrate an ability to use different analytical languages;</li><li>gain a solid historical knowledge of 20th-century and 21st-century Italy;</li><li>gain a critical awareness of the relationship between ecology, the arts, and society. </li></ul> On successful completion of this course unit, students will be able to:<ul><li>communicate ideas and sustain an argument, using relevant critical material, in discussion, essays, and seminars;</li><li>present complex ideas in clear form;</li><li>sustain public debate;</li><li>work in a team. </li></ul> On successful completion of this course unit, students will gain:<ul><li>An ability to work towards deadlines;</li><li>An ability to communicate and discuss ideas in public fora;</li><li>An ability to write complex arguments;</li><li>An ability to critically assess conceptual problems.  </li></ul> Analytical skills Demonstrate power of analysis dealing with a variety of media. Project management Initiate and carry out projects; Manage a project independently and work in a team; Manage time and meet deadlines. Written communication Demonstrate good presentation, writing, and language skills. Other Deal with personal responsibility and autonomous planning. This unit aims to mostly promote research-led and discussion-based learning.Students will be engaged in their own individual research, which will result in written work (e.g.: commentary, essay) and a series of focused group presentations (seminars).  Students’ research will be supported through lectures and seminars, aimed to: provide a background of essential knowledge on Italian twentieth-century history, culture, politics, art, and cinema, seen from the theoretical perspective of the environmental humanities; enable students to develop a critical attitude and analytical skills; make the class acquire the relevant methodology to interrogate written texts, visual art, and moving images.Students will work independently on their written assessments and engage in teamwork in preparation for their oral seminar presentations. They will actively contribute in seminar discussions, and lectures will include Q&A sessions at the end, in order to facilitate intellectual engagement and students’ debate.  2 Written assignment (inc essay) 60% 3 Report 40% <ul><li>Oral feedback on group seminar presentations (Formative)</li><li>Written feedback on essays and commentaries; Written feedback on essays and commentaries will be available within two weeks of the submission date; Global feedback on commentary and essay will be posted on Canvas (Summative)</li><li>Additional one-to-one feedback (during the consultation hour or by making an appointment) (Formative or Sunmmative)</li></ul>   Y Primary Texts- Italo Calvino, La speculazione edilizia (1957) [selected passages]  - Michelangelo Antonioni, Il deserto rosso (1964)  - Giuseppe Ferrara and Leonardo Sciascia, Gela antica e nuova (1964)  - Anna Maria Ortese, Il mare non bagna Napoli (1953) [selected short stories]  - Elsa Morante, Pro o contro la bomba atomica (1965)  - Pier Paolo Pasolini, Le mura di Sana’a (1971) and Pasolini e… la forma della città (1973)  - Primo Levi, Vizio di forma (1978) [selected short stories]  - Gianni Celati, Verso la foce (1989) [selected passages]  - Matteo Garrone, Gomorra (2008)  - Paolo Virzì, Siccità (2022)  - A selection of images of Public Art (2000-present) Basic Bibliography- Joni Adamson , William A. Gleason and David Pellow (eds.), Keywords for Environmental Studies (New York: New York University Press, 2016);  - Marco Armiero and Marcus Hall (eds.), Nature and History in Modern Italy (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010) [chapters 1 and 9-14];  - Enrico Cesaretti, Elemental Narratives: Reading Environmental Entanglements in Modern Italy (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2020), pp. 46-89;  - Donna Haraway, ‘Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin’, Environmental Humanities, 6, 1 (2015), 159-65;  - Damiano Benvegnù, and Matteo Gilebbi (eds.), Italy and the Ecological Imagination: Ecocritical Theories and Practises (Wilmington: Vernon Press, 2022), pp. 21-38;  - Elena Past, Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019), pp. 23-86;  - Karen Pinkus, Fuel: A Speculative Dictionary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016);  - Monica Seger, Landscapes in Between: Environmental Change in Modern Italian Literature and Film (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015) [chapters 1-4].  Lectures 11 Seminars 11 0 178