00932 - Contemporary History

Learning outcomes

The course will provide a critical understanding of the historical evolution of Europe and of the main non-European countries from the Congress of Vienna (1815) to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). The student at the end of the course is able to know and understand the main historical events and the development of economic, social, cultural and political phenomena, which have characterized the last two centuries, in order to have a reference grid for his studies , in particular in the field of conservation, protection and enhancement of cultural heritage.

Course contents

The main objective of the course is to provide some tools for critical analysis of the main events of contemporary history, particularly in Europe. More specifically, the course aims to offer students some means to analyze and understand the origins and dynamics of some key moments in the political, economic and social history of the contemporary age, in order to promote a critical knowledge of the past and our present.

The course will be divided into two parts: an institutional part and a monographic one.

The first, of an institutional nature, intends to provide a critical re-reading, at university level, of contemporary history (more precisely for the period 1815-1989). 

The course will be structured on some historiographical paths related to the great themes of contemporary history. Some key concepts and events of this period will be analyzed, especially as regards the economic and social development of the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries; scientific and technological development, revolutions, the birth of nation states, nationalisms, liberalism, imperialism, colonialism, the wars of the twentieth century, the birth of totalitarian states until the cold war and the fall of the Berlin wall.

The second part will be monographic and will be dedicated to the theme of the origins of the consumer society, from the second half of the nineteenth century to the birth and emergence of fordism.

Through the phenomenon of universal exhibition, considered by the recent historiography at the basis of the processes of globalization of the contemporary world, the module will analyze some related processes: from new forms of cultural industry to the birth of cinema, from the emergence of new forms of consumption to the emergence of department stores, from the development of mass tourism to the origins of fordism, etc.

 

Readings/Bibliography

For all attending students: the specific bibliography of the course will be provided at the beginning of the lessons.

For non-attending students is required the study of:

1. a work chosen among those listed below under point A) (textbooks);
2. a work among those in point B (monographs);
3. two works chosen among those of group C (specific texts for the monographic part of the course).
   
   

 

GROUP A : TEXTBOOKS

1) A. De Bernardi, R. Balzani, Storia del mondo contemporaneo, Milano, B.Mondadori, 2003

2) AA.VV., Storia Contemporanea, Roma, Donzelli, 1999;

GROUP B : MONOGRAPHS

S. Lupo, Il passato del nostro presente. Il lungo Ottocento 1776-1913, Bari, Laterza, 2010.

H. Hobsbawn, Il secolo breve. 1914-1991: l’era dei grandi cataclisimi, Milano, Rizzoli, 1994.

S. Ciriacono, La rivoluzione industriale: dalla protoindustrializzazione alla produzione flessibile, Milano, Mondadori, 2000.

J. Kocka, Borghesie europee dell’Ottocento, Venezia, Marsilio, 1989.

E.J. Hobsbawn, Nazioni e nazionalismi dal 1870. Programma, mito, realtà, Torino, Einaudi, 1990.

G. L. Mosse, La nazionalizzazione delle masse, Simbolismo politico e movimenti di massa in Germania (1815-1933), Bologna, Il Mulino.

Gilles Pécout, Il lungo Risorgimento. La nascita dell’Italia contemporanea (1770-1922), Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 1999.

C. Pinto, La guerra per il Mezzogiorno: italiani borbonici e briganti 1860-1870, Bari-Roma, Laterza 2019.

R. Romanelli, L’Italia Liberale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1990. 

M. Colucci, S. Gallo, L' emigrazione italiana. Storia e documenti, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2015.

E. Leed, Terra di nessuno. Esperienza bellica e identità personale nella prima guerra mondiale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1985.

E. Collotti, Fascismo, fascismi, Firenze, Sansoni, 1989.

E. Gentile, Il culto del littorio. La sacralizzazione della politica nell’Italia fascista, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009 (ed. or. 1993).

G. L. Mosse, Le guerre mondiali. Dalla tragedia al mito dei caduti, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2014 (5a ed.)

C. Pavone, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2006.

P. Ginsborg, Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi. Società e politica, Torino, Einaudi, 1989.

Federico Romero, Storia della guerra Fredda. L'ultimo conflitto per l'Europa, Torino, Einaudi, 2009.

GROUP C  - two works chosen among those :

G.L. Fontana, A Pellegrino, Esposizioni Universali in Europa. Attori, pubblici, memorie tra metropoli e colonie, 1851-1939, atti del convegno tenutosi a Padova dal 13 al 15 novembre 2014, numero monografico della rivista Ricerche Storiche, 1-2, 2015.

L. Massidda, Atlante delle grandi esposizioni universali. Storia e geografia del medium espositivo, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2011.

C.T. Geppert, M. Baioni, Esposizioni in Europa fra Otto e Novecento. Spazi, organizzazione, rappresentazioni, numero monografico di “Memoria e Ricerca”, 2004, n. 17.

Daniel Roche, Storia delle cose banali. La nascita del consumo in Occidente, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 2002.

A. Pellegrino, Viaggi fantasmagorici. L'odeporica delle esposizioni universali, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2018.

P. Capuzzo, Culture del Consumo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006.

Vanni Codeluppi, Lo spettacolo della merce. I luoghi del consumo dai passages a Disney World, Milano, Bompiani, 2000.

Walter Benjamin, Parigi Capitale del XIX secolo. I “passages” di Parigi, a cura di Rolf Tiedmann, Torino, Einaudi, 1982.

G. Ritzer, La religione dei consumi. Cattedrali, pellegrinaggi e riti dell'iperconsumismo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012.

R. Sassatelli, Consumo, cultura e società, Bologna, il Mulino, 2004.

Storia d'Italia, Annali, vol.27: I consumi in Italia, a cura di Stefano Cavazza e Emanuela Scarpellini, Torino, Einaudi, 2018 (pp. 1-70; 103-200; 546-620) (oppure: pp. 1-70 e 6 saggi a scelta).

B. Settis, Fordismi. Storia politica della produzione di massa, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016.

 

 

Teaching methods

The course will be based on lectures; some screenings of documentary materials, films and images will also be held; in the second part of the course there will also be a series of exercises on some samples of sources, to introduce some problems relating to the reconstruction and interpretation of historical events, and to the methodology of historical work in relation to the use of the sources of the themes in object.

Assessment methods

For attending students, in addition to forms of participation throughout the course, a written and oral exercise on a topic of your choice and on first-hand sources during the course and a final check on the day of the exam are expected.
The final exam will cover the knowledge acquired during the first module of the course, related to the institutional part, to be prepared on one of the manuals recommended in the "texts" section of this Web Guide. The exam will consist of an oral test consisting of at least three questions on some episodes events and phenomena of contemporary history whose knowledge was acquired during the course.
The exam score is given by the average of the scores obtained in the exercises during the course and by the final exam.

For non-attending students: the knowledge of contemporary history for the manual part includes the ability to correctly frame the events in their historical context, to remember the protagonists and the most important moments, to know how to place them in a correct diachronic scale. For the part relating to monographic and methodological works, it is also necessary to highlight the essential questions addressed in the volume and the main historiographical issues.

Teaching tools

The teaching will take place in the form of lectures and guided exercises in the classroom; a basic instrumentation (video projector) for the presentation of slides, illustrations and short films will be used. 

Office hours

See the website of Anna Pellegrino