Literature, Fashion and Costume in Contemporary Italy

A.Y. 2023/2024
9
Max ECTS
60
Overall hours
SSD
L-FIL-LET/11
Language
Italian
Learning objectives
The course aims to study the relationship between Italian literature, cultural context and collective imagination through the analysis of works belonging to different genres and levels of literary production. These include traditional genres such as the novel, but also mixed types and forms of written production which transcend the boundaries of institutional literature: memorialist, honorific, or journalistic literature. These are formulas practiced by writers of various backgrounds - writers, journalists, protagonists of cultural communication - who interpret new professional roles and dialogue for specific audiences through works capable of intercepting their tastes and interests, orienting them in different ways. These are fashionable works, therefore, both in the role of a best-seller, and because they record the new trends of cultural and material consumption, reworking them.
Expected learning outcomes
The course aims to lead the participants to the acquisition of an in-depth understanding of the relationship between literary, semi-literary and extra-literary dimensions within the context of nineteenth and twentieth century production. It is a capacity to orient the main genres (novel, memorial, travel and journalistic writings) by linking literary and paraliterary phenomena, cultural context and collective imagination, through the decisive role of the target audience. Thus, through the assimilation of different perspectives of investigation into not only literary texts, the student matures their respective capacity to identify the authorial intentionality within the full awareness of the relationships between work and context, focusing stereotypes and new proposals capable of shaping the imagination of the recipients.
Single course

This course can be attended as a single course.

Course syllabus and organization

Single session

Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
Everybody at the seaside

Unite A deals with the novel as the most characteristic genre of modern bourgeois society and it concentrates on: Agostino (1944) by A. Moravia, Ferito a morte (1961) by R. La Capria, Rimini (1985) by P.V. Tondelli and Oceano mare (1993) by A. Baricco.
Unite B focuses on Il viaggiatore meravigliato, edited by L. Clerici (2023) and Unit C on H. Pratt, Corto Maltese, una ballata del mare salato (1967) and M. Serra, Tutti al mare (1992)..
La parte B studia le caratteristiche delle scritture di viaggio e il loro sviluppo in Italia attraverso la lettura guidata dell'antologia Il viaggiatore meravigliato. Italiani a spasso per l'Italia (1700-2000), con particolare attenzione ai resoconti lungo le coste. La parte C mette a fuoco il ruolo della mediazione giornalistica e si concentra sul graphic novel di H. Pratt Corto Maltese, una ballata del mare salato (1967) e sulla serie di articoli di M. Serra raccolti in Tutti al mare (1992).
Prerequisites for admission
Basic knowledge of 19th and 20th italian literature: outstanding authors and literary movements.
Ability to read critical and methological studies.
Teaching methods
Front lessons with the aid of slides, audiovisual materials, learners and teacher interaction. Attendance is not compulsory but it is highly suggested. The criteria to evaluate the learning process will be explained to students.
Attendance is not compulsory but haihighly recomanded.
Teaching Resources
-The students who are taking the exame for 6 credits must study units A and B
-The students who aren't attending lessons must study both the bibliography of attending students and the bibliography of non attending students

Course syllabus for attending students
Unit A: Novels
Students must read one work among the following, with critical essays:
A. Moravia, Agostino, Nuova edizione a c. di S. Casini, con testi di U. Saba e C.E. Gadda, disegni di R. Guttuso, Milano, Bompiani / Giunti, 2017 - S. Casini, "Un tempo oscuro". L'estate di Agostino e la rivelazione della realtà. Introduzione; U. Saba, Il caso Moravia e C.E. Gadda, "Agostino" di Moravia, in A. Moravia, Agostino, Nuova edizione a c. di S. Casini, con testi di U. Saba e C.E. Gadda, disegni di R. Guttuso, Milano, Bompiani / Giunti, 2017, rispettivamente pp. 5-44, pp. 173-4 e pp. 175-182
R. La Capria, Ferito a morte, Milano, Mondadori ("Oscar Moderni Cult"), 2021 - S. Veronesi, Prefazione, in R. La Capria, Ferito a morte, Milano, Mondadori ("Oscar Moderni Cult"), 2021, pp. V-XII
Students must read one work among the following, with critical essays:
P.V. Tondelli, Rimini, a c. di F. Panzeri, postfazione di E. Sgarbi, Milano, Bompiani / Giunti, 2021 - P. Pellini, L'ambiguo incanto del paesaggio postmoderno. Su "Rimini" di Pier Vittorio Tondelli, in "Contemporanea", 2004, n. 2, pp. 39-52
A. Baricco, Oceano mare, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2022 - D. Bini, La voce del mare: da "Oceano mare" di Baricco a "La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano" di Tornatore, in "Italica", Vol. 79, n. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 44-61 - acquistabile su https://www.jstor.org/stable/3655971

Unit B: Travel literature:
Il viaggiatore meravigliato, a cura di L. Clerici, Milano, Luni Editrice, 2023 (during the lessons the chapters to be read will be suggested)

Unit C: Not only journalism
Students must read the following work, with critical essays:
H. Pratt, Corto Maltese, una ballata del mare salato, Milano, Rizzoli Lizard, 2020 - S. Cristante, Corto Maltese e la poetica dello straniero. L'atelier carismatico di Hugo Pratt, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2016, pp. 117-136 (chapter III: La stranezza dello straniero: implicazioni teoriche di Corto Maltese)
M. Serra, Tutti al mare, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2015 - Elvio Guagnini, Da Alfredo Panzini a Michele Serra. Alcune linee del viaggio novecentesco in Italia, in Il viaggio in Italia: modelli, stili, lingue, Atti del Convegno, Venezia 3-4 dicembre 1997, pp. 213-223 - on Ariel

Course syllabus for non attending students
Unit A: Novels
L. Bani, La prova dell'anima. La borghesia in spiaggia nella letteratura europea tra Ottocento e Novecento. Sei letture, Introduzione di C. Magris, Cori (Latina), Casa editrice Moderata durant, 2005, pp. 5-44 (chapter I, La spiaggia) - on Ariel
For students who have chosien Agostino di A. Moravia:
T. Tornitore, Introduzione, in Alberto Moravia, Agostino, Presentazione di Enzo Siciliano, Introduzione e note a c. di T. Tornitore, Milano, Bompiani Per Le Scuole Superiori, 1995, pp. IX-LI
For students who have chosien Ferito a morte di R. La Capria:
S. Perrella, Il mondo come acqua, in R. La Capria, Opere, a c. e con un saggio introduttivo di S. Perrella, Milano, Mondadori, 2003 ("I Meridiani"), XI-XLV
For students who have chosien Rimini di P.V. Tondelli:
P. Pieri, "Rimini" di Pier Vittorio Tondelli, in "Poetiche", 2010, n. 1, pp. 133-155 - acquistabile online sul sito della rivista - Bonus Track, in P. Tondelli, Rimini, a c. di F. Panzeri, postfazione di E. Sgarbi, Milano, Bompiani / Giunti, 2021, pp. 331-358
For students who have chosien Oceano mare di A. Baricco:
M. Marino, Wueakening the exotic in silky seas. Exotic imagery in Alessandro Baricco's novels "Oceano mare" and "Seta", in Italian Studies in Southern Africa / Studi d'Italianistica nell'Africa Australe, vol. 25, n. 1, (2012) - https://www.ajol.info/index.php/issa/article/view/75123

Unit B: Travel literature
Il viaggiatore meravigliato, a cura di L. Clerici, Milano, Luni Editrice, 2023 (the following authors: L. Spallanzani, F. d'Austria-Este, G. Revere, C. Roccatagliata Ceccardi, A. Beltramelli, B. Barilli, V. Cardarelli, P. Monelli, A. Baldini, R. Bacchelli, M. Serra, E. Rea)
L. Clerici, Introduzione, in Il viaggiatore meravigliato, a cura di L. Clerici, Milano, Luni Editrice, 2023, pp. 9-33

Unit C: Not only journalism
A. Papuzzi, Letteratura e giornalismo, Bari, Laterza, 1998
M. Cuozzo, Pratt, Hugo, in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani, Volume 85 (2016) - https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/hugo-pratt_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/
Assessment methods and Criteria
Oral test/Interview. The oral test is based on the discussion of the topics included in the syllabus. Students are required to have good knowlwdge of the works and the skill to analyse them critically showing methodological awareness with reference to the 20th century literary output.
Assessement criteria: clear answers using appropriate language; ability to use critical thinking.
Evaluation will be based on marks; maximum score 30. The exame is passed with 18/30.
International or Erasmus incoming students are kindly requested to contact the teacher of the course. Also students with disabilities should contact the teacher of the course, in order to discuss alternative examination methods, in agreement with the competent Office.
L-FIL-LET/11 - CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE - University credits: 9
Lessons: 60 hours
Professor: Clerici Luca