85104 - History of Material Cultures in Italy (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will have gained a general knowledge of the history of contemporary Italy and its main historiographical interpretations. They will be able to communicate the knowledge acquired using the specific terminology peculiar to the subject and in line with its scientific principles, finding their bearings in the historiographical debate; they will have learned the methodologies for researching the social classes and the tendencies of the same; they will have gained an understanding of mass culture and the processes of consumption. They will understand the impact methodological choices have on the final results.

Course contents

The course is integrated and will be held by Proff. Capuzzo and Mazzini according to the following schedule.

Attendance is highly recommended.

26 September Italy in the 1st half of the 19th century (Mazzini)

27 September Italian Nationalisms (Mazzini)

28 September Unification (Mazzini)

3 October 1 What’s material culture? A historical approach (Capuzzo)

5 October Italian food in the pre-industrial age: a geographical approach (Capuzzo)

10 October Liberal Italy and The Giolitti era (Mazzini)

11 October Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts

(Mazzini):

• Banti, Alberto Mario. ‘The Remembrance of Heroes’. In Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy., In Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy., edited by Lucy Riall and Silvana Patriarca, 171–90. Place of publication not identified: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. + in the same volume Lucy Riall, ‘Men at War: Masculinity and Military Ideals in the Risorgimento’ 152–70.
• Davis, John A, ed. ‘Culture and Society, 1796-1896’. In Italy in the Nineteenth Century: 1796 - 1900, 206–29. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.
• Duggan, Christopher. ‘Francesco Crispi, the Problem of the Monarchy, and the Origins of Italian Nationalism’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 15, no. 3 (1 June 2010): 336–53. doi:10.1080/13545711003768568.
• Grand, Alexander De. ‘Giovanni Giolitti: A Pessimist as Modernizer’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 6, no. 1 (1 January 2001): 57–67. doi:10.1080/13545710010020920.
• Gundle, Stephen. ‘The Death (and Re-Birth) of the Hero: Charisma and Manufactured Charisma in Modern Italy’. Modern Italy 3, no. 2 (November 1998): 173–89. doi:10.1080/13532949808454802.
• Isabella, Maurizio. ‘Rethinking Italy’s Nation-Building 150 Years Afterwards: The New Risorgimento Historiography*’. Past & Present 217, no. 1 (1 November 2012): 247–68. doi:10.1093/pastj/gts028.
• Lyttelton, Adrian. ‘The Middle Classes in Liberal Italy’. In Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento., edited by John Davis and Paul Ginsborg, 217–51. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Ortaggi, Simonetta. ‘Labouring Women in Northern and Central Italy in the Nineteenth Century’. In Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento., edited by John Davis and Paul Ginsborg, 152–83. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Patriarca, Silvana. ‘Indolence and Regeneration: Tropes and Tensions of Risorgimento Patriotism’. The American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (2005): 380–408. doi:10.1086/531319.
• Riall, Lucy. ‘Hero, Saint or Revolutionary? Nineteenth-Century Politics and the Cult of Garibaldi’. Modern Italy 3, no. 2 (November 1998): 191–204. doi:10.1080/13532949808454803.
• Sorba, Carlotta. ‘Ernani Hats: Italian Opera as a Repertoire of Political Symbols during the Risorgimento’, 18 August 2011. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195341867.013.0018.

12 October Italy in the First World War (Mazzini)

17 October Commercialization and Italian material culture in the first half of the 20^th century (Capuzzo)

18 October Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts

• Fasce-Bini-Gaudenzi, Comprare per credere. La pubblicità in Italia dalla Belle Epoque a oggi, Carocci, 2016 – chapter 1, pp. 15-40
• Adam Arvidsson, Marketing Modernity. Italian advertising from fascism to postmodernity, Routledge, 2003 – chapter 3 on Fascism, pp. 22-43
• Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016, chapter 2, pp. 27-51
• Capatti and Montanari, La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura, Laterza, 2005, chapter 7

  19 October Industrialisation of the Italian food and mass consumption (Capuzzo)

  24 October The rise of Fascism (Mazzini)

  25 October Fascism in power (Mazzini)

  26 October Italy in the Second World War (Mazzini)

  31 October Food in the Italian diaspora (Capuzzo)

  2 November Student presentations. Students will choose one of the following texts

• Emanuela Scarpellini, Food and Foodways in Italy from 1861 to the Present, Palgrave, 2016, chapter 5, pp. 109-140
• H.R. Diner, Hungering for America. Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, Harvard University Press, 2001, chapter 3, pp. 48-83
• S. Cinotto, The Italian American Table. Food, Family, and Community in New York City, University of Illinois Press, 2013, chapter 1, pp. 19-46
• C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil. Politics and food in Italy, Berg, 2004, chapter 5, pp. 127-50

14 November Youth and consumption (Capuzzo)

7 November (Mazzini) Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts:

• Bosworth, Richard. ‘Resistance or Civil War?’ In The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism, edited by Richard Bosworth, 180–204. London: Arnold, 2007.
• Corner, Paul. ‘Italian Fascism: Organization, Enthusiasm, Opinion’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 15, no. 3 (1 June 2010): 378–89. doi:10.1080/13545711003768584.
• ———. ‘State and Society, 1901-1922’. In Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900 - 1945, edited by Adrian Lyttelton, 17–37. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.
• ———. ‘The Road to Fascism: An Italian Sonderweg?’ Contemporary European History 11, no. 2 (2002): 273–95.
• Gentile, Emilio. ‘Fascism as Political Religion’. Journal of Contemporary History 25, no. 2/3 (1990): 229–51.
• ———. The Struggle for Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism. Westport (Conn.); London: Praeger, 2003.
• Labanca, Nicola. ‘The Italian Front’. In The Cambridge History of the First World War, edited by Jay Winter, 1:266–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Morgan, Philip. ‘“The Years of Consent”? Popular Attitudes and Forms of Resistance to Fascism in Italy, 1925–1940’. In Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe., edited by Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• Pezzino, Paolo. ‘The Italian Resistance between History and Memory’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10, no. 4 (1 December 2005): 396–412. + Dondi, Mirco. ‘Division and Conflict in the Partisan Resistance’. Modern Italy 12, no. 2 (June 2007): 225–36. doi:10.1080/13532940701362748.
• Wanrooj, Bruno. ‘Italian Society under Fascism’. In Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900 - 1945, edited by Adrian Lyttelton. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.
• Wilcox, Vanda. ‘“Weeping Tears of Blood”: Exploring Italian Soldiers’ Emotions in the First World War’. Modern Italy 17, no. 2 (May 2012): 171–84.

8 November (Mazzini) Italy in the Cold War

9 November (Mazzini) Economic Miracle

15 November The city and the home: spaces of material cultures (Capuzzo)

16 November Student presentations – students will choose one of the following texts:

• Paolo Capuzzo, Gli spazi della nuova generazione, P. Capuzzo (ed.), Genere, generazione e consumi. L'Italia degli anni Sessanta, Carocci, pp. 217-247
• Bonomo, «Rivoluzione in famiglia»? Televisione e vita domestica nell’Italia del boom, «Contemporanea», XVIII, 2015, 1, pp. 3-31
• J. Foot, Cinema and the city. Milan and Luchino Visconti's Rocco and his Brothers (1960), in Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2/1999, pp. 209-35

• E. Asquer, Storia intima dei ceti medi. Una capitale e una periferia nell’Italia del miracolo economico, Laterza, 2011, chapter 2, pp. 41-84

21 November From 1968 to “Anni di Piombo” (Mazzini)

22 November The end of the 1st Republic and Berlusconi’s Italy (Mazzini)

23 November Students presentations and discussion. Students will present one of the following texts:

• Acanfora, Paolo. ‘Myths and the Political Use of Religion in Christian Democratic Culture’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 12, no. 3 (1 September 2007): 307–38. doi:10.1080/13545710701455692.
• Crainz, Guido. ‘Italy’s Political System since 1989’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 20, no. 2 (15 March 2015): 176–88. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2015.997490.
• Dunnage, Jonathan. ‘Social, Cultural and Economic Transformation in Post War Italy’. In Twentieth Century Italy: A Social History, 148–96. Oxon: Routledge, 2014.
• Fantone, Laura. ‘Precarious Changes: Gender and Generational Politics in Contemporary Italy’. Feminist Review, no. 87 (2007): 5–20.
• Ginsborg, Paul. ‘The Post-War Settlement, 1945-48’. In A history of contemporary Italy: society and politics, 1943-1988, 72–121, 2003.
• Ginsborg, Paul. ‘The Economic Miracle, Rural Exodus and Social Transformation’. In A history of contemporary Italy: society and politics, 1943-1988, 210–54, 2003.
• Glynn, Ruth. ‘The “Turn to the Victim” in Italian Culture: Victim-Centred Narratives of the ‘Anni di Piombo’. Modern Italy 18, no. 4 (November 2013): 373–90. doi:10.1080/13532944.2013.816473.
• Leavitt, Charles. ‘“An Entirely New Land”? Italy’s Post-War Culture and Its Fascist Past’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 21, no. 1 (1 January 2016): 4–18. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2016.1112060.
• Pasquino, Gianfranco. ‘The Five Faces of Silvio Berlusconi: The Knight of Anti-Politics’. Modern Italy 12, no. 1 (February 2007): 39–54. doi:10.1080/13532940601134817.
• Salvati, Mariuccia. ‘Behind the Cold War: Rethinking the Left, the State and Civil Society in Italy (1940s-1970s)’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8, no. 4 (1 January 2003): 556–77. doi:10.1080/1354571032000147764.
• Saraceno, Chiara. ‘The Italian Family from the 1960s to the Present’. Modern Italy 9, no. 1 (May 2004): 47–57. doi:10.1080/13532940410001677494.

28 November Mapping the Italian economic miracle: gender and consumption (Capuzzo)

29 November Italian consumer society: political and commercial aspects (Capuzzo)

30 November Student presentations

• Arvidsson chapter 6 Housewife
• Capuzzo, Le forze politiche
• E. Asquer, La rivoluzione candida. Storia sociale della lavatrice in Italia (1945-1970), Carocci, 2007, chapter 4, pp. 103-41
• E. Scarpellini, Shopping American-Style: The Arrival of the Supermarket in Postwar Italy, “Enterprise & Society”, vol. 5 n. 4, dicembre 2004

5 December Italian consumptions within the globalisation process (Capuzzo)

6 December Italian material cultures in the economic crisis (Capuzzo)

Readings/Bibliography

Part 1: Italy in the XIX century

Banti, Alberto Mario. ‘The Remembrance of Heroes’. In Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy., In Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy., edited by Lucy Riall and Silvana Patriarca, 171–90. Place of publication not identified: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. + in the same volume Lucy Riall, ‘Men at War: Masculinity and Military Ideals in the Risorgimento’ 152–70.

Davis, John A, ed. ‘Culture and Society, 1796-1896’. In Italy in the Nineteenth Century: 1796 - 1900, 206–29. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.

Duggan, Christopher. ‘Francesco Crispi, the Problem of the Monarchy, and the Origins of Italian Nationalism’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 15, no. 3 (1 June 2010): 336–53. doi:10.1080/13545711003768568.

Grand, Alexander De. ‘Giovanni Giolitti: A Pessimist as Modernizer’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 6, no. 1 (1 January 2001): 57–67. doi:10.1080/13545710010020920.

Gundle, Stephen. ‘The Death (and Re-Birth) of the Hero: Charisma and Manufactured Charisma in Modern Italy’. Modern Italy 3, no. 2 (November 1998): 173–89. doi:10.1080/13532949808454802.

Isabella, Maurizio. ‘Rethinking Italy’s Nation-Building 150 Years Afterwards: The New Risorgimento Historiography*’. Past & Present 217, no. 1 (1 November 2012): 247–68. doi:10.1093/pastj/gts028.

Lyttelton, Adrian. ‘The Middle Classes in Liberal Italy’. In Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento., edited by John Davis and Paul Ginsborg, 217–51. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ortaggi, Simonetta. ‘Labouring Women in Northern and Central Italy in the Nineteenth Century’. In Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento., edited by John Davis and Paul Ginsborg, 152–83. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Patriarca, Silvana. ‘Indolence and Regeneration: Tropes and Tensions of Risorgimento Patriotism’. The American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (2005): 380–408. doi:10.1086/531319.

Riall, Lucy. ‘Hero, Saint or Revolutionary? Nineteenth-Century Politics and the Cult of Garibaldi’. Modern Italy 3, no. 2 (November 1998): 191–204. doi:10.1080/13532949808454803.

Sorba, Carlotta. ‘Ernani Hats: Italian Opera as a Repertoire of Political Symbols during the Risorgimento’, 18 August 2011. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195341867.013.0018.

Part 2: World Wars and Fascism

Bosworth, Richard. ‘Resistance or Civil War?’ In The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism, edited by Richard Bosworth, 180–204. London: Arnold, 2007.

Corner, Paul. ‘Italian Fascism: Organization, Enthusiasm, Opinion’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 15, no. 3 (1 June 2010): 378–89. doi:10.1080/13545711003768584.

———. ‘State and Society, 1901-1922’. In Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900 - 1945, edited by Adrian Lyttelton, 17–37. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.

———. ‘The Road to Fascism: An Italian Sonderweg?’ Contemporary European History 11, no. 2 (2002): 273–95.

Gentile, Emilio. ‘Fascism as Political Religion’. Journal of Contemporary History 25, no. 2/3 (1990): 229–51.

———. The Struggle for Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism. Westport (Conn.); London: Praeger, 2003.

Labanca, Nicola. ‘The Italian Front’. In The Cambridge History of the First World War, edited by Jay Winter, 1:266–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Morgan, Philip. ‘“The Years of Consent”? Popular Attitudes and Forms of Resistance to Fascism in Italy, 1925–1940’. In Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe., edited by Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Pezzino, Paolo. ‘The Italian Resistance between History and Memory’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10, no. 4 (1 December 2005): 396–412. + Dondi, Mirco. ‘Division and Conflict in the Partisan Resistance’. Modern Italy 12, no. 2 (June 2007): 225–36. doi:10.1080/13532940701362748.

Wanrooj, Bruno. ‘Italian Society under Fascism’. In Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900 - 1945, edited by Adrian Lyttelton. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008.

Wilcox, Vanda. ‘“Weeping Tears of Blood”: Exploring Italian Soldiers’ Emotions in the First World War’. Modern Italy 17, no. 2 (May 2012): 171–84.

Part 3: Republican Italy

Acanfora, Paolo. ‘Myths and the Political Use of Religion in Christian Democratic Culture’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 12, no. 3 (1 September 2007): 307–38. doi:10.1080/13545710701455692.

Crainz, Guido. ‘Italy’s Political System since 1989’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 20, no. 2 (15 March 2015): 176–88. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2015.997490.

Dunnage, Jonathan. ‘Social, Cultural and Economic Transformation in Post War Italy’. In Twentieth Century Italy: A Social History, 148–96. Oxon: Routledge, 2014.

Fantone, Laura. ‘Precarious Changes: Gender and Generational Politics in Contemporary Italy’. Feminist Review, no. 87 (2007): 5–20.

Ginsborg, Paul. ‘The Post-War Settlement, 1945-48’. In A history of contemporary Italy: society and politics, 1943-1988, 72–121, 2003.

Ginsborg, Paul. ‘The Economic Miracle, Rural Exodus and Social Transformation’. In A history of contemporary Italy: society and politics, 1943-1988, 210–54, 2003.

Glynn, Ruth. ‘The “Turn to the Victim” in Italian Culture: Victim-Centred Narratives of the ‘Anni di Piombo’. Modern Italy 18, no. 4 (November 2013): 373–90. doi:10.1080/13532944.2013.816473.

Leavitt, Charles. ‘“An Entirely New Land”? Italy’s Post-War Culture and Its Fascist Past’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 21, no. 1 (1 January 2016): 4–18. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2016.1112060.

Pasquino, Gianfranco. ‘The Five Faces of Silvio Berlusconi: The Knight of Anti-Politics’. Modern Italy 12, no. 1 (February 2007): 39–54. doi:10.1080/13532940601134817.

Salvati, Mariuccia. ‘Behind the Cold War: Rethinking the Left, the State and Civil Society in Italy (1940s-1970s)’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies8, no. 4 (1 January 2003): 556–77. doi:10.1080/1354571032000147764.

Saraceno, Chiara. ‘The Italian Family from the 1960s to the Present’. Modern Italy 9, no. 1 (May 2004): 47–57. doi:10.1080/13532940410001677494.

Assessment methods

Attending students.

For the final oral exam all students will have to read

Duggan, Christopher. The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796. London; New York: Allen Lane, 2007

from chapter 6 to chapter 18 (included).

And three chapters of their choice from

Barański, Zygmunt G, and Rebecca J West. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Italian Culture. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 2009

At the end of each part students will critically read, present to the class and discuss with the teacher and their colleagues one of the readings listed in the Reading/Bibliography section. At the end of the course all students will have presented at least one text. The presentation and the following discussion will be evaluated and will be part of the final vote. All the texts will be provided to the students in electronic format. All the following essays are suggested reading for all students.

Non attending students

For the final oral exam non-attending students are required to read the totality of C. Duggan’s The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796, three chapters of their choice from Baranski’s and West’s The Cambridge Companion to Modern Italian Culture and six readings (two for each module) of their choice from the list above

Teaching tools

All the texts listed in the Readings/Bibliography section, with the exception of Duggan's manual and Barański's Companion will be provided to the students in electronic format. A

Every lesson will be illustrated through slide presentations that will be made available to the students at the end of each part.

Office hours

See the website of Federico Mazzini