12805 - History of English Culture

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student knows the historical, geographical and social aspects and contexts of English culture. He/she knows how to express specific socio-cultural issues in an appropriate manner and knows the most suitable critical tools to contextualise, analyse and comment on knowledge, experiences, objects and cultural productions of various kinds and to relate them to the most significant transformations linked to the English-speaking environment, according to an interdisciplinary, intercultural and intertextual methodology.

Course contents

Scandals


Is it possible to analyse a culture through its scandals? A scandal indicates a rupture in the values of an era, the display of what a society considers unacceptable or even the clash between two different social attitudes. Scandal can indicate an irremediable cultural rupture or a progress in society. In any case, we will try to see through a series of English scandals (political, sexual, literary) what their cultural signficance is and what they tell us about the society of the time.

A first group of scandals will concern the Victorian era (the divorce between John Ruskin and Effie Gray, the popular press of the 1880s, the Wilde trials of 1895); we will then continue with the Nazi aristocracy of the 1930s and the scandals of the 1960s (youth fashion and the Profumo case). This will be followed by music-related scandals, those concerning the Northern Irish Troubles and conclude with the Windrush Scandal, about the forced deportation of immigrants to Britain in 2018.

Students are asked to select four scandals from those analysed in class and indicate their cultural relevance.

This course may be taken as 07918 - English-Speaking Countries Literature. Students who include this course in their syllabus will be required to read three literary texts related to the topics of the History of Culture course in the list of the following section. Critical texts for the  novels will also be provided.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliographic material on the topics covered in the course of History of English Culture will be provided on Virtual.


The three novels to be read for those who include English-Speaking Countries Literature in their syllabus are to be chosen from the following list:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

Samuel Selvon, Lonely Londoners (1956)

Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners (1959)

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (1981)

Seamus Deane - Reading in the dark (1996)

Assessment methods

Oral exam (15-20 minutes).
The oral interview aims to assess the critical and methodological skills acquired by the student, who will be invited to compare the texts addressed during the course. Particularly assessed will be the student's ability to move within the sources and bibliographical material in order to be able to identify useful information that will allow him to illustrate the cultural aspects and areas of the discipline. The student's attainment of an organic vision of the themes addressed in the lessons together with their critical use, the demonstration of a mastery of expression and specific language will be assessed with marks of excellence. The mostly mechanical and/or mnemonic knowledge of the subject, unarticulated synthesis and analysis skills and/or correct but not always appropriate language will lead to fair grades; formative gaps and/or inappropriate language - albeit in a context of minimal knowledge of the examination material - will lead to grades that do not exceed sufficiency. Inadequate training, inappropriate language, lack of orientation in the bibliographic materials offered during the course will lead to negative marks.

Erasmus or Overseas students could sit the exam as the Italian students or write an essay (about 10-15 pages), whose topic must be approved by the teacher.

Office hours

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