Unit information: Modern Italy in 2019/20

Unit name	Modern Italy
Unit code	ITAL10033
Credit points	20
Level of study	C/4
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
Unit director	Professor. Glynn
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	Must have Italian language competence
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of Italian
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit is designed to provide an introduction to the politics, culture and society of Italy from World War I to the present day. The unit works chronologically and is based around certain key texts which will be studied in detail in the seminars which accompany the lectures. The lectures will provide a broad historical, cultural and social introduction to each period. Students will be expected to engage with the history of Italy and with the use of a series of different kinds of text – film (documentary and fiction), novels, memoir, theatre, and journalism.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will:

1. Be able to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of specific historical events studied and their relation to concepts of Italian national identity;
2. Be able to demonstrate a good knowledge of the theoretical debates over Italian unification, fascism, and liberalism;
3. Be able to evaluate and analyse relevant material from a significant body of primary and secondary source materials and relate it to historical context;
4. Be able to responded to questions or problems by presenting their independent judgements in conjunction with appropriate use of secondary literature.
5. Have developed substantial essay writing skills.

Teaching Information

The unit will be taught in a combination of tutor- and student-led teaching,

one hour fortnightly lecture

one hour weekly seminar.

Assessment Information

1 x 2000 word essay to be submitted at the end of TB-1 (50%);

1 x 2000 word essay to be submitted at the end of TB-2 (50%)

The essays will require the students to demonstrate historical knowledge of the period studied (ILO 1), bringing in some theoretical knowledge of debates on Italy’s First and Second Republics (testing ILO 2). In each essay, students will be expected to analyse one or more texts (literary/filmic/historical) and demonstrate their relationship to the historical context, thus testing ILO 3, and to draw appropriately on secondary literature to formulate their own arguments effectively (ILO 4).

The 2000-word essays will allow students to develop skills at longer essay writing in preparation for work at second year, testing ILOs 1- 5. Students will be required to develop their own bibliography, thus learning to begin to work independently.

Reading and References

Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy 1943-1988, Penguin, London, 1990.

Paul Ginsborg, Italy and its Discontents: 1980-2001, Penguin, London, 2001.

Christopher Duggan, A Concise History of Italy, CUP, Cambridge, 2014

John Foot, Modern Italy, Palgrave, London, 2014

Mary Wood, Italian Cinema, Bloomsbury, London, 2005.

Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction, ed. David Forgacs and Robert Lumley, OUP, Oxford, 1996.