30811 - History of English Culture (LM)

Learning outcomes

Students are requested to show knowledge of the critical debates on cultural studies, gender studies, history of culture with specific reference to the UK. 

Course contents

History of British Culture

(Lecturers: Rita Monticelli, Federica Zullo)

This course shares with other programs  of the Laurea Magistrale in Letterature moderne, comparate e postcoloniali (M.A in Comparative and Postcolonial Modern Literatures) the analysis of the intersections between “identity, otherness, differences and diversity”

 Module 1 Monticelli

Genealogies and methodologies of gender studies and queer theories in the history of culture.

Lessons will introduce students to the history of culture and cultural theories focusing on the main debates in cultural studies, gender studies, queer theory. The methodologies of cultural, gender and queer studies will be employed in the analyses of the notion of identity/difference, and diversity; gender as a social construction;  re-visions of the symbolic and social order; the construction of sexual difference; politics of location and situated knowledge. The course will include gender and queer re-readings of ‘classical' texts (visual and literary), with specific reference to the U.K and the U.S.

Module 2, Zullo

After the Empire. New Perspectives on British Identity in Cultural and Postcolonial Studies.

This module aims at articulating the debate on British culture and identity after the end of the Empire and during the period of mass migrations from the former colonies, in post-war times. Raymond Williams's foundational work will be the starting point to map the dynamics of contemporary British culture, seeking to identify its new configurations in the enlargement of the unitary and fixed notion of Englishness. Critics, sociologists, anthropologists such as Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Paul Gilroy and others will be considered as representatives of cultural and postcolonial theoretical reflections on the issues of ‘race', ethnicity, migration that challenged the cultural debates in the UK across the 1980's and 1990's on national identity. We will examine how postcolonial studies have influenced the field of cultural studies, offering useful methodologies to understand notions of Britishness, multiculturalism/interculturalism, blackness, community and diaspora.

 

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

Module 1

Lessons will make reference to the following texts:

Santoro, Marco, “Che cos'è cultura?” in Studi culturali. Temi e prospettive a confronto. A cura di Cristina Demaria e Siri Nergaard. Milano, McGraw-Hill, 2008, pp. 39-66 (available in the Reader)

Burke, Peter (e P. Capuzzo), La storia culturale. Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009.

Burke, Peter, What is Cultural History?. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1988, 2004, 2008

Baccolini, R., Fortunati V., Fabi, M.G., Monticelli, R. 1997, (eds) Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie. Bologna: Clueb. (selected essays, available in the library)

Rich, Adrienne (1986) “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-vision” in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, Selected Prose 1979-1985, London, Virago, pp. 136-155 (Reader)

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 (Reader)

Cavarero, Adriana, 1996, “Introduzione” in Butler, Judith, 1996, Corpi che Contano. I limiti discorsivi del “sesso”. Milano: Feltrinelli. (library and Reader)

Butler, Judith, 1993, Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York and London: Routledge, 1996, Corpi che Contano. I limiti discorsivi del “sesso”. Milano: Feltrinelli. Introduzione di A. Cavarero. ( library)

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1989, “Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” in Catherine Belsey e Jane Moore (eds) The Feminist Reader. Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan., pp. 65-81. (Reader)

Further Reading:

Sinfield, Alan, Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2004. (introduction and selected chapters, available in the library)

Sinfield, Alan, Cultural Politics – Queer Reading. London, Routledge, 2005. (introduction and selected chapters, available in the library)

Monticelli Rita, “(Counter)Theories and Gender Studies in a Transnational Perspective”, in Questioning the European Identity/ies. Deconstructing Old Stereotypes and Envisioning New Models of Representation., Eds V. Fortunati and F. Cattani, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012, pp. 133-151 (library)

Case studies:

Novel: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)

Movie: Edward II by Derek Jarman (1991)

Movie: My Beautiful Laundrette by Stephen Frears, screenplay Hanif Kureishi (1985) 

For module 1 students have to choose three essays/chapters from the reading list, and one case study.

Module 2:

“Studi (post-)coloniali”, “Studi Culturali” e “Studi sulla diaspora”, in Michele Cometa, Dizionario degli studi culturali, (a cura di F. Mazzara e R.Coglitore), Roma, Meltemi, 2004. (reader)

Raymond Williams, “Introduction” in Culture and Society. 1780-1950, (1958); “The New Metropolis” and “Cities and Countries” in The Country and the City, (1973). (reader)

Catherine Gallagher, “Raymond Williams and Cultural Studies”, in Social Text, 1992. (reader)

Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities”, “Minimal Selves”, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”. (reader)

Paul Gilroy, “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity”, in Id., Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness, London, Verso, 1993. (available in the library)

Paul Gilroy, “Urban Social Movements, ‘Race' and Community”, in P. Williams, L. Chrisman, eds., Colonial Discourse, Postcolonial Theory, New York, Columbia University Press, 1994. (available in the library)

Homi Bhabha, “Introduction” and  “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative and Margins of the Modern Nation”, in Id., The Location of Culture, London-New York, Routledge, 1994. (available in the library)

For module 2 students have to choose three essays/chapters from the reading list.

Teaching methods

Lessons, seminars, discussions in class.

Assessment methods

Participation in class 25%

Final Oral exam: 75%

By participatation in class we mean the ability of the student to enter the dabates, contributing with questions and/or elaborations of the topics proposed by the lecturer. This participation does not aim at testing students' specific preparation in the field, rather, their ability to take part in discussions and their capability to discuss in group. The final oral exams will include both the programmes of the first AND the second module together. Students will have to choose one case study and three articles/essays from the reading list of module 1 AND three articles/essays from the reading list of module 2. The oral exam will test the student's ability to elaborate on the topics exposed in class, to show the knowledge acquired thorugh the study of the proposed bibliography, and their capability for critical thinking.

Teaching tools

Videos, power point, movies

Office hours

See the website of Rita Monticelli

See the website of Federica Zullo