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• Topic 1: Rome in Italian Cinema
• Topic 2: Questioning the Post/Decolonial through Italian Cultures
• Topic 3:ÌýFondata sul lavoro': Labour Narratives in Post-war Italy
• Topic 4:Ìý'Anni di piombo': history, cinema, memoryÌý(TBC)
• Topic 5:ÌýFascism and Culture

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Topic 1: Rome in Italian Cinema

This topic will examine some of the most important films in Italian cinema from the perspective of the representation of the city of Rome, as the site of cinema, of modernity and migration, of socio-political protest, of Italian national identity or simply as autobiography. Films studied will include: R. Rossellini, Roma città aperta (1945); V. De Sica, Ladri di biciclette (1948); Steno, Un americano a Roma (1954); F. Fellini, La dolce vita (1960), Roma (1970); P. P. Pasolini, Accattone (1961), Mamma Roma (1962); M. Antonioni, ³¢â€™e³¦±ô¾±²õ²õ±ð (1963); N. Moretti, Caro diario (1993); G. Rosi, Sacro GRA (2013)

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Topic 2: Questioning the Post/Decolonial through Italian Cultures

Italy’s colonial project took off in the second half of the 19th century and ended just after the Second World War, when Italy lost all its colonies. Yet the lasting effects and the legacy of this relatively small and short-lived empire remain present in several aspects of Italian cultural life. This topic looks at how – in open or hidden ways – Italian colonialism keeps returning in Italian culture, and how (and if) coloniality influences the way Italians interact with the Global South, including the contemporary migration crisis.Ìý

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Topic 3: Ìý'Fondata sul lavoro': Labour Narratives in Post-war Italy

The first article of the Italian Constitution states that ‘Italy is a democratic republic, founded on labour’. This is revelatory of the centrality of questions of labour and work in Italian culture in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. As part of this module, we will see how literature and film have been two of the media through which questions of labour and work have been problematised, explored in their harsh contradictions and interrogated most acutely. We will look at how writers and film directors have engaged, directly or indirectly, with these aspects from the second half of the 20th century to the present, across different media, genres and aesthetics and through the use of a variety of techniques and tropes. Ìý

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Topic 4: 'Anni di piombo': history, cinema, memory (TBC)

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Topic 5: Fascism and Culture

This topic will examine the web of relations between the Fascist regime in Italy, through its two decades and more of rule in Italy (1922-1943/5), and the fields of culture, from literature, cinema, theatre and art to the ‘public’ culture of architecture and the institutions of cultural promotion and control. Study will include Fascist culture in mainland Italy and Italian colonial and occupied territories. Emphasis will be on the two-way traffic between state and culture (and individual artists), rather than on simplistic models of state control. We will work through a combination of study of historical material and of cultural texts and artefacts.

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