30163 - Literature of English-speaking Countries 2 (2nd cycle)

Course contents

“Of other spaces”: politics of the body, violence and healing in post-conflict communities.

 The course intends to analyse the issue of ‘race' and gender and politics of the body in the representations, transmissions and elaborations of traumatic events in literary (with specific reference to utopian and dystopian fiction) and visual texts. The discourse on trauma implies a dialogue between memory and oblivion, between memories and counter-memories, between the ethics of bearing witness and the (possible) manipulations or omissions of memory. The course will explore texts representing founding traumas,  the heritage of individual and collective memory, post-traumatic conflicts, the need for reconciliation. The analysis of traumas will focus on the ways in which the individual and the collectivity are transformed, lacerated, disrupt, or unified, through traumatic events. The study of traumas reveals a complex dynamics between the past, present and future, the private and the public spheres, remembrance and oblivion, power and resistance, history and myth, trauma and nostalgia, conscious and unconscious desires and fears. Within this perspective, lessons will analyse the relationship between the individual and the community, his/her ethical and political complicity, his/her loneliness and need to belong.

 

The course intends: to enable the analysis of  the ways in which communities are transformed, lacerated, disrupt, or unified, through traumatic events; to enable the analysis of the construction of ‘race', gender, diversity, in diverse forms of text (theoretical, literary, visual); to approach the study of traumatic events as a critical field within an intercultural perspective; to analyse politics of representation and interpretation in the inheritance and transmission of traumatic events within a community; to gain critical tools to reflect upon diverse cultural debates, to elaborate on the interconnections between texts and contexts, the individual and the community, to favour critical thinking; to analyse politics of the body within utopian and dystopian communities in a gender perspective.

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

Primary texts:

Burdekin, Katharine, Swastika Night, 1937.

Butler , Octavia E., Kindred, Boston : Beacon Press, 1988, f. p. 1979.

Gearhart, Sally Miller, The Wanderground, London: The Women's Press, f. p. 1979.

Atwood, Margaret,  The Handmaid's Tale, 1985.

J. M Coetzee, Disgrace, London: Seeker & Warburg, 1999.

(Students are requested to choose four books from the reading list of the five primary sources)

 The Village (movie), U.S.A, director M. Night Shyamalan, 2004

Secondary texts (essays, articles, volumes):

Lesson will make reference to the following critical sources:(Students will be requested to choose texts/essays/articles from the following list and the ones proposed during the course, in accordance with the lecturer):

 Albertazzi, Silvia, Nel bosco degli spiriti. Senso del corpo e fantasmaticità nelle nuove letterature di lingua inglese. Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 1998. (selected chapters).

Appadurai, Arjun "The Heart of Whiteness" in Callaloo, 16 (4), Autumn 1993, pp. 796-807

Baccolini, Raffaella “Gender and Genre in the Feminist Critical Dystopias of Katharine Burdekin, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler.” Future Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism. Ed. Marleen S. Barr. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 13-34.

Baccolini, Raffaella and Tom Moylan (ed.) Dark Horizon. Science Fiction and The Dystopian Imagination. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. (selected chapters)

Baccolini, Raffaella, 2005, Le prospettive di genere. Discipline, soglie e confini. Bologna: BUP (selected chapters)

Bauman, Zygmunt, Seeking Safety in an Insecure World, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001. (selected chapters)

Braidotti, Rosi “Difference, Diversity, and Nomadic Subjectivity” documento Internet, http://women.ped.kun.nl , 2000.

Butler , Judith, 1993, Bodies that Matter. On the Discoursive Limits of “Sex”. New York and London: Routledge, 1996, Corpi che Contano. I limiti discorsivi del “sesso” Trad. S. Capelli. Milano: Feltrinelli. (selected chapters and Introduction)

Corona, Daniela, 2004, "Critica letteraria femminista" in M. Cometa, a cura di, Dizionario degli studi culturali. Roma: Meltemi, pp. 122-145

Demaria, Cristina, 2006, Semiotica e memoria. Analisi del post-conflitto. Roma: Carocci (selected chapters)

Fortunati, Vita, Gilberta Golinelli, Rita Monticelli (a cura di) Studi di genere e memoria culturale. Women and Cultural Memory. Bologna: Clueb, 2004. (selected chapters)

Foucault, Michel, Utopie eterotopie ( Les Héterotopies Les corps utopique) a cura di A. Moscati. Napoli: Cronopio, 2006

Gates, Henry. Louis., ed., 1986, “Race”, Writing, and Difference, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. (selected essays)

Gilroy, Paul, "Urban Social Movements, 'Race' and Community" in P. Williams and L. Chrisman, eds, Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory. A Reader, New York: Columbia UP, 1994, pp. 404-420

Hall, Stuart "Culture, Community, Nation" in Cultural Studies, October 1993, 7 (3), pp. 349-63

Hirsch, M., 2001, Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory, <<The Yale Journal of Criticism>>, n. 14, 1, pp. 5-37. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/yale_journal_of_criticism/v014/14.1hirsch.html, 20 Gennaio 2007.

Hirsch, Marianne, Smith, Valerie, a cura, 2002, <<Signs>>, n. 28, 1 (Spec. Issue Gender and Cultural Memory). (selected essays, GEMMA students only)

Irigaray, Luce, “Donne Divine" in Sessi e Genealogie, 1989. Trad. L. Muraro. Milano: La Tartaruga. Sexes et parentés Paris: Minuit, 1987, Divine Women, Occasional Paper, Sydney, 1986, trans. S. Muecke

Kaplan, E., A.,Wang, B., 2004, “Introduction. From Traumatic Paralysis to the Force Field of Modernity” in E. A. Kaplan, B. Wang, a cura, Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations, Hong Kong, Hong Kong UP, pp. 1-18.

Mediazioni online, Special issue on The Village(reperibile online) www.mediazionionline.it

Monticelli Rita, 2006, “‘Nei "giardini delle nostre madri': memorie e riscritture del corpo”. Postfazione. In Gatti come angeli. L'eros nella poesia femminile di lingua inglese, a cura di Loredana Magazzeni e Andrea Sirotti. Milano: Medusa, pp. 209 - 232.

Monticelli, Rita Be/coming Women: Luce Irigaray's Utopian Process and Radical Utopias (in corso di stampa), capitoli su The Wanderground and Divine Women (reperibili presso la docente)

Monticelli, Rita, 1997, sezione "Soggetti corporei", in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie, Bologna: Clueb, pp. 205-255 (selected essays)

Monticelli, Rita, 2007, “Contronarrazioni e memorie ri-composte negli studi di genere e delle donne” in Agazzi, Elena, Vita. Fortunati, a cura, Memoria e saperi. Percorsi transdisciplinari, Roma, Meltemi., pp 605-624.

Monticelli, Rita, forthcoming, “Seeking Light in Darkness and Harmony in Confusion”: Death, Memory, and Resistance in Swastika Night (1937) by K. Burdekin and Kindred (1979) by O. Butler. (reperibile presso la docente)

Monticelli, Rita,   “There was, first of all, the displacement of the reality (onto the photographs themselves)”: tecnologie e trasmissioni della memoria”, in Guardare oltre: riproducibilità tecnica e rappresentazioni in conflitto, a cura di S. Albertazzi e F. Amigoni, Roma: Meltemi, in corso di stampa.

Monticelli, Rita, « Utopie, Utopisme, Féminisme » in Histoire transnationale des utopies littéraires et de l'utopisme Coordonné par Vita Fortunati et Raymond Trousson. Paris, Honoré Champion, France, 2008, (pp. 1127 - 1143). Bibliothèque de Littérature générale et comparée. 

Nancy, Jean Luc, La comunità inoperosa. A cura di A. Moscati., Cronopio, 1992 (selected chapters)

Rich, Adrienne, 1979, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-vision” in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. New York: Norton.

Rivisiting Feminism: Cultural trajectories ed. Kalpana Das and Fréderique Apffel Marglin. iim, InterCulture, Intercultural Institute of Montreal, n. 150. INTERCULTURE. vol. 150. anno 2, n. 6. Edizione italiana della rivista canadese dell'Intercultural Institute of Montreal. (selected essays, GEMMA students only)

Sargent, Lyman Tower, The Problem of the « Flawed Utopia »: a Note on the Costs of Eutopia » in Baccolini, Raffaella and Tom Moylan (ed.) Dark Horizon. Science Fiction and The Dystopian Imagination . London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Sargisson, Lucy, "The Curious Relationship Between Politics and Utopia" in Moylan, Tom and Raffaella Baccolini, (eds) in Moylan, Tom and Raffaella Baccolini, (eds) Utopia Method Vision: The Use Value Of Social Dreaming, Berne and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007

Sontag, Susan, “Regarding the Torture of Others”, published NY May 23, 2004. reperibile online

Sontag, Susan, Regarding the Pain of Others, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003 (selected chapters)

Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book”, in Diacritics. A Review of Contemporary Criticism 17 (2), 1987, pp. 65-81. “Figli/e di madre, del padre forse: una grammatica Americana” in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie . A cura di Raffaella Baccolini; M. Giulia Fabi, Vita Fortunati, Rita Monticelli. Bologna: CLUEB, 1997, pp. 255-279, trad. Lucia Gunella e Rita Monticelli..

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1981, “French Feminism in an International Frame”, in Yale French Studies, No. 62, Feminist Readings: French Texts/American Contexts.

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1985, “Imperialism and Sexual Difference”, in Oxford Literary Review 8, pp. 224-240.

Spivak, Gayatri C., 2003, Death of a Discipline, New York: Columbia Up, 2003; Morte di una disciplina, Roma: Meltemi. (selected chapters)

Zaki, Hoda M., "New Spaces for Utopian Politics: Theorizing About Identity, Community, and The World Conference Against Racism" in Moylan, Tom and Raffaella Baccolini, (eds) Utopia Method Vision: The Use Value Of Social Dreaming, Berne and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007 .

 

GEMMA Students (I and II Year) ONLY:  SOLTANTO per studentesse/studenti GEMMA (I e II anno) :

Warner, Marina, Cancellanda, in Raritan, vol. 23, n. 2, fall 2003, pp. 24-42 (short story) Cancellanda, a cura di Marcella Romeo Lovison, postfazione Daniela Corona; Palermo: Quattrosoli, 2004.

Corona, Daniela, 2004, “L'elogio del sale della moglie di Lot. Guerra e memoria in fuga in Cancellanda di Marina Warner”, in V. Fortunati, G. Golinelli, R. Monticelli, a cura, 2004, Studi di genere e memoria culturale. Women and Cultural Memory, Bologna, clueb, pp. 211-30.

Please do check this web page for further notice and information

Gli studenti e le studentesse di Letteratura dei Paesi di lingua inglese 2 LM dovranno analizzare 4 testi primari (da scegliersi tra i cinque in elenco) e saggi/ capitoli di volumi/articoli da scegliere tra le  fonti critiche in elenco per un numero di 200/220 pagine. E' inoltre richiesta l'analisi del film The Village, che sarà proiettato a lezione.

Students of the course Letteratura dei paesi di lingua inglese 2 LM are requested to analyse 4 primary texts (to be chosen amongst the 5 volumes in the Reading list of the primary sources) and articles/essays/chapters (about 200/220 pages) from the Reading list of the Secondary sources; the analysis of the movie The Village.

Le studentesse e gli studenti  Gemma del I Anno (Feminist Theory between Difference and Diversity) dovranno analizzare 4 testi primari (da scegliersi tra i cinque in elenco) e saggi/ capitoli di volumi/articoli da scegliere tra le  fonti critiche in elenco per un numero di 250 pagine. E' inoltre richiesta l'analisi del film The Village, che sarà proiettato a lezione.

Gemma students (first year) are requested to analyse 4 primary texts (to be chosen amongst the 5 volumes in the Reading list of the primary sources) and articles/essays/chapters (about 250 pages) from the Reading list of the Secondary sources; the analysis of the movie The Village.

 

 

 

Teaching methods

·        Lessons

·        Seminars

·        Class Discussion

·        Meetings with the tutor(s)

·        Student are required to lead one class discussion on a chosen theme and are expected to participate in class discussions.

·        Lessons will be taught in English.

·        Some lessons will be taught by experts in the field .

 

Students are invited to check the web page and the program also during the course for further notice and information.

Other contacts:  Dr. Amanda Nadalini and Dr. Gilberta Golinelli (for Gemma students)

Undergraduate students are not admitted to the course.

Students who cannot attend lessons are requested to contact the lecturer for information about the course.

 

Assessment methods

The requirements for the course include:

Active class participation 25%

(Possible) Leading class discussion 25%

One oral final exam: 50%

Teaching tools

Literary texts, power point, videos, films.

Office hours

See the website of Rita Monticelli