Narratives of Social Change in Italy
A.Y. 2025/2026
Learning objectives
Acquisizione di alcune categorie dell'indagine formale (soprattutto narratologica, ma anche retorica) di testi letterari e saggistici. Conoscenze delle principali questioni relative al rapporto fra rappresentazione testuale e dinamiche del cambiamento storico-sociale.
Expected learning outcomes
Capacità di leggere i testi individuando connessioni tra tecniche formali e costruzione di visioni del mondo e rappresentazioni dei contesti sociali. Capacità di sviluppare letture autonome di testi letterari o di altri ambiti culturali e delle loro connessioni con i contesti socio-culturali, adoperando una terminologia tecnica appropriata e concettualmente definita.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course can be attended as a single course.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Teaching in presence is foreseen.
Course syllabus
The course is divided into two teaching units, which together form a unified discourse centered on the cases of Roberto Saviano and Elena Ferrante—Italian authors who have succeeded in reaching a vast global audience, also inspiring films and TV series based on their works.
Teaching Unit I, The Danger of Writing: Journalism, Literature and Politics in Roberto Savi-ano, is dedicated to the author who, with Gomorrah (2006) - a work of non-fiction often interpreted as a novel - revealed the global dimension of a phenomenon seemingly typical of Southern Italy, such as the Camorra. His narrative brought him international fame but also made him a target for potential retaliation by organized crime. We will also read articles from Beauty and Hell, in which Saviano, through a range of diverse stories, exposes the violence of the world and explores the power of writing to reveal truth and resist violence and oppression.
Teaching Unit II, From the Neighborhood to the Mainstream: Poetics and Narrative in Elena Ferrante, focuses first on the poetics of the mysterious Ferrante, as articulated in the writings collected in Frantumaglia, and then examines My Brilliant Friend. Childhood, Adolescence (2011), the first of the four novels in the series that brought her worldwide success. The narrator, Elena, tells the story of herself and her friend Lila, with whom she shares a complex relationship of love and rivalry. The destinies of the two friends - opposed and complementary - unfold against the backdrop of the Rione, a working-class neighborhood in Naples, portraying a tangle of family stories in which the difficult pursuit of freedom and identity clashes with the poverty, ignorance, and violence of a world that is both archaic and strikingly modern.
Teaching Unit I, The Danger of Writing: Journalism, Literature and Politics in Roberto Savi-ano, is dedicated to the author who, with Gomorrah (2006) - a work of non-fiction often interpreted as a novel - revealed the global dimension of a phenomenon seemingly typical of Southern Italy, such as the Camorra. His narrative brought him international fame but also made him a target for potential retaliation by organized crime. We will also read articles from Beauty and Hell, in which Saviano, through a range of diverse stories, exposes the violence of the world and explores the power of writing to reveal truth and resist violence and oppression.
Teaching Unit II, From the Neighborhood to the Mainstream: Poetics and Narrative in Elena Ferrante, focuses first on the poetics of the mysterious Ferrante, as articulated in the writings collected in Frantumaglia, and then examines My Brilliant Friend. Childhood, Adolescence (2011), the first of the four novels in the series that brought her worldwide success. The narrator, Elena, tells the story of herself and her friend Lila, with whom she shares a complex relationship of love and rivalry. The destinies of the two friends - opposed and complementary - unfold against the backdrop of the Rione, a working-class neighborhood in Naples, portraying a tangle of family stories in which the difficult pursuit of freedom and identity clashes with the poverty, ignorance, and violence of a world that is both archaic and strikingly modern.
Prerequisites for admission
Basic knowledge of certain categories of formal analysis (stylistic-rhetorical, narratological, structural) of literary and non-fiction narrative texts. Basic knowledge of the main issues related to the relationship between textual representation and historical-social contexts.
Teaching methods
Frontal lessons.
Teaching Resources
Teaching Unit 1.
The Danger of Writing: Journalism, Literature and Politics in Roberto Saviano
The attending students will study the notes taken during the lectures and the following texts:
Roberto Saviano, Gomorra. Viaggio nell'impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra, Milano, Mondadori;
Roberto Saviano, La bellezza e l'inferno. Scritti 2004-2009, Milano, Mondadori.
Critical Bibliography:
Raffaele Donnarumma, Misurare le distanze. Un'introduzione e i paragrafi 1, 2, 3, 9, in Id., Iper-modernità. Dove va la narrativa contemporanea, Bologna, il Mulino, pp. 11-24, 165-180, 190-195, 199-200 [disponibile in Ariel];
Walter Siti, Preghiere esaudite, in Id., Contro l'impegno. Riflessioni sul Bene in letteratura, pp. 65-90 [disponibile in Ariel].
Not attending students, in addition to the texts and bibliography listed above, are required to prepare the following essay:
Giuliana Benvenuti, Il brand Gomorra. Dal romanzo alla serie TV, Bologna, il Mulino.
TEACHING Unit 2.
From the Neighborhood to the Mainstream: Poetics and Narrative of Elena Ferrante
The attending students will study the notes taken during the lectures and the following texts:
Elena Ferrante, Il dono della Befana, Le sarte delle madri, La frantumaglia, Donne che scrivono. Risposte alle domande di Sandra, Sandro ed Eva, in Id., La frantumaglia, Roma, edizioni e/o (edi-zione 2016 e successive), pp. 11-16, 93-160, 249-280;
Elena Ferrante, L'amica geniale. Infanzia, adolescenza, Roma, edizioni e/o.
Critical Bibliography
Gianni Turchetta, Napoli planetaria: la periferia-mondo di Elena Ferrante, in Global F(r)ictions 2. Immagini e narrazioni dell'Italia nel contesto globale, Atti del Convegno di Bologna, 24-25 giugno 2019, a cura di Claudio Bisoni, Elisa Farinacci, in «Mediazioni», N. 28, Special Issue 2020, pp. 11-29 http://mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.it/images/stories/PDF_folder/document-pdf/28-2020/01turchetta.pdf [disponibile in Ariel];
Mario Pezzella, La nitidezza e il gorgo. La frantumaglia di Elena Ferrante, in Mario Pezzella, Altrenapoli, Torino, Rosenberg e Sellier, pp. 111-124 [disponibile in Ariel].
Not attending students, in addition to the texts and bibliography listed above, are required to prepare the following essay:
Tiziana de Rogatis, Elena Ferrante. Parole chiave, Roma, edizioni e/o, pp. 55-208.
The Danger of Writing: Journalism, Literature and Politics in Roberto Saviano
The attending students will study the notes taken during the lectures and the following texts:
Roberto Saviano, Gomorra. Viaggio nell'impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra, Milano, Mondadori;
Roberto Saviano, La bellezza e l'inferno. Scritti 2004-2009, Milano, Mondadori.
Critical Bibliography:
Raffaele Donnarumma, Misurare le distanze. Un'introduzione e i paragrafi 1, 2, 3, 9, in Id., Iper-modernità. Dove va la narrativa contemporanea, Bologna, il Mulino, pp. 11-24, 165-180, 190-195, 199-200 [disponibile in Ariel];
Walter Siti, Preghiere esaudite, in Id., Contro l'impegno. Riflessioni sul Bene in letteratura, pp. 65-90 [disponibile in Ariel].
Not attending students, in addition to the texts and bibliography listed above, are required to prepare the following essay:
Giuliana Benvenuti, Il brand Gomorra. Dal romanzo alla serie TV, Bologna, il Mulino.
TEACHING Unit 2.
From the Neighborhood to the Mainstream: Poetics and Narrative of Elena Ferrante
The attending students will study the notes taken during the lectures and the following texts:
Elena Ferrante, Il dono della Befana, Le sarte delle madri, La frantumaglia, Donne che scrivono. Risposte alle domande di Sandra, Sandro ed Eva, in Id., La frantumaglia, Roma, edizioni e/o (edi-zione 2016 e successive), pp. 11-16, 93-160, 249-280;
Elena Ferrante, L'amica geniale. Infanzia, adolescenza, Roma, edizioni e/o.
Critical Bibliography
Gianni Turchetta, Napoli planetaria: la periferia-mondo di Elena Ferrante, in Global F(r)ictions 2. Immagini e narrazioni dell'Italia nel contesto globale, Atti del Convegno di Bologna, 24-25 giugno 2019, a cura di Claudio Bisoni, Elisa Farinacci, in «Mediazioni», N. 28, Special Issue 2020, pp. 11-29 http://mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.it/images/stories/PDF_folder/document-pdf/28-2020/01turchetta.pdf [disponibile in Ariel];
Mario Pezzella, La nitidezza e il gorgo. La frantumaglia di Elena Ferrante, in Mario Pezzella, Altrenapoli, Torino, Rosenberg e Sellier, pp. 111-124 [disponibile in Ariel].
Not attending students, in addition to the texts and bibliography listed above, are required to prepare the following essay:
Tiziana de Rogatis, Elena Ferrante. Parole chiave, Roma, edizioni e/o, pp. 55-208.
Assessment methods and Criteria
Students will be expected to demonstrate the ability to read texts by identifying connections between formal techniques, the construction of worldviews and representations of social contexts. They will also be required to develop independent readings of both fiction and non-fiction texts, highlighting their links to socio-cultural contexts and using appropriate and conceptually precise technical terminology.
There will be no mid-term tests or exams covering only parts of the syllabus: students must present all teaching units at the final exam, with no exceptions. Students must register for the exam through the dedicated links on the University website; only in this case can the exams be officially recorded.
There will be no mid-term tests or exams covering only parts of the syllabus: students must present all teaching units at the final exam, with no exceptions. Students must register for the exam through the dedicated links on the University website; only in this case can the exams be officially recorded.
L-FIL-LET/11 - CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE - University credits: 6
Lessons: 40 hours
Professor:
Turchetta Giovanni
Professor(s)