The aim of the course is to give the students the historical, cultural and critical instruments that are necessary to analyze the Italian Contemporary Culture. The relationships between literature, cinema and society will be put in evidence and discussed together with the students in order to provide them with a wider idea of what Italian culture is today.

By the end of the semester the students will be able to understand what are the elements that can be considered original to contemporary Italian culture and to identify their origin in relation to the socio-historical-economical evolution of the country during the period between the unification and nowadays.

By the end of this course students should be able to:

a) analyze different works of contemporary Italian cinematic and literary texts from a literary, historical and sociological point of view;

b) gain a better understanding of properties shared by both art forms;

c) discuss the idea of Italian national identity, providing insight into major cultural and socio-political issues of modern Italy. a) an understanding of the style and of the cultural background of the writers studied in the course.

This course will examine a selection of post-1945 Italian films and novels, by internationally acclaimed directors (Fellini, Pasolini, De Sica) and writers (Calvino, Morante), who began to question the nature of national identity following the dual social upheavals of Fascist rule and World War II. All the works covered in class involve the archetypal “innocent,” naive to the evils of the world, who has remained one of the most relevant recurring figures in Italian literature since Pinocchio. By following significant variations of this theme in the postwar cultural production, students will explore major aspects of Italian cinema, literature, and society. The course is interdisciplinary and uses critical methods pertinent to the media involved and to lead students to question assumptions about both cinema and literature.

The course aims at providing students with a firm understanding of the literary, cultural and historical scene of Twentieth-Century Italy. During the course students will acquire the necessary linguistic and critical tools to analyse works of literature and cinema, discuss literary works and movies using the correct terminology, and be encouraged to make autonomous judgments. Moreover, the course wishes to stimulate an open-minded approach to recent Italian cultural history.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Novels

* Carlo Collodi, Le avventure di Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino, introduzione di Stefano Bartezzaghi, prefazione di Giovanni Jervis, con un saggio di Italo Calvino, Torino, Einaudi, 2006 (e successive ristampe)

* Italo Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (any edition); excerpts from Marcovaldo : La villeggiatura in panchina, Il bosco sull'autostrada, Marcovaldo al supermarket (any edition); selected chapters from Francesca Serra, Calvino, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2006

* Elsa Morante, L'isola di Arturo (any edition)

* Niccolò Ammaniti, Io non ho paura (any edition)

Movies

* Roberto Rossellini, Roma città aperta

* Vittorio De Sica, Miracolo a Milano

* Luchino Visconti, Bellissima

* Federico Fellini, Lo sceicco bianco

* Pier Paolo Pasolini, La ricotta (episodio del film collettivo Ro.Go.Pag)

* Dino Risi, Il sorpasso

* Pietro Germi, Sedotta e abbandonata

* Antonio Pietrangeli, Io la conoscevo bene

* Matteo Garrone, Reality

Further materials will be provided by the Instructor (please check Moodle/Blended Learning).