81792 - Didactics of Italian Literature (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student will be able to suggest the right didactic and academic resources for a given task related to Italian literature, from text analysis to literary history and the relationship between literature and society.

Course contents

Disciplinary teaching, to quote the thoughts of an established Italianist such as Claudio Giunta, is teaching about what and how, not about "fluff". The first reference is to the sedimentation of the contents of Italian literature which are not always learned in a homogeneous way during the three-year university education. The course therefore cannot fail to propose them again and deepen them, favoring the discussion of those that are often left out of the school canon, e.g. the phantom centuries, the authors always cited and never read. The second reference refers to the teaching methods that represent the teacher's know-how.

Who teaches how to teach? Is teaching a secret alchemy, a mix between knowledge and empathy, is teaching erotic, does it implement a kind of transference? The answer cannot only be in the specifics of the discipline but also in what the class allows the teacher. It may seem like a paradox but those who teach us to teach are first and foremost our students who, with their attention, mark the stages of our success or failure in the classroom. Teaching is a form of persuasion that is not valid once and for all but is repeated over time. Teaching is the curiosity that remains.

With the collaboration of Professor Claudia Colombo of ADI-Scuola, the Didactics of Literature course aims to activate a cycle of lessons with teachers and students of the Copernico High School. We intend to reproduce teaching situations in contact with those who attend school every day to make the teaching situations imagined during the course more realistic.

 

Course topics, academic year 24/25

I The body between theater and literature

We have identified a first theme that can be divided into genders and genres which, with due caution, can be carried out at school.

1 Passions of women from Venexiana to Tosca, from private comedy to opera, from the 16th to the 20th century. The route crosses Mandragola, Calandria, Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira, Donna Anna and Zerlina), The innkeeper, Lucrezia Borgia by Donizetti

2 The body between life in art and the art of life: Cellini, Caravaggio and Casanova lives of artists and biographical and autobiographical genre

II Read the text

There are no MIUR guidelines that do not recommend reading the text as central to the teaching of Italian literature. How to propose this activity to students, how to organize the web of connections that unites the text to the world will be one of the main concerns of our work this year.

Analysis of the literary text: a journey from Dante to Tomasi di Lampedusa.

III The writers of the 20s of our century.

It is generally said that the twentieth century is not taught in school. But the twentieth century is the last century. Perhaps it would benefit students both in the first two years and in the fifth year to study truly contemporary authors. This year we start from a trilogy of novels by Michela Murgia

Michela Murgia's novel.

IV Everyone at school III: lessons with the students of the Niccolò Copernico High School:

Proposed themes

Faber's poetry: the literary structure of the songwriting

Novel poetry in the 1920s: Patrizia Cavalli, Patrizia Valduga, Michele Mari.

The novel that tells the story of the persecution of the Jews and the war against the Nazi-Fascists: Bassani, Calvino, Fenoglio, Pavese, Vittorini.

Advertising that tells the story of Italy: analysis of Barilla's signature commercials

Armida's novel: from witch to woman in love. Cantos XVI and XX of Gerusalemme Liberata

Readings/Bibliography

Before entering class. Reading of the following texts:

M. Nussbaum, Non per profitto. Perché le democrazie hanno bisogno della cultura umanistica, Bologna, Il Mulino 2011.:

C. Giunta, E se non fosse la buona battaglia? Sul futuro della educazione umanistica, Bologna, Il mulino, 2017

S.Tatti, Classico. Storia di una parola. Roma, Carocci, 2022.

Classroom teaching (a text of your choice)

G. Ruozzi G. Tellini (a cura di), Didattica della letteratura italiana, Milano, Mondadori, 2020.

R. Carnero, Il bel viaggio. Insegnare letteratura alla generazione Z, Milano, Bompiani,2020.

S. Giusti, Didattica della letteratura italiana: la storia, le richerche, le pratiche, Roma, Carocci, 2023

Reading with the class: reading experiences (a text of your choice)

G.M. Anselmi, L. Chines ( a cura di), Leggere i classici italiani: un'antologia. Bologna Patron, 2019.

B. Capaci, Chiara Festa, Paola Licheri, Elvira Passaro, Trappole per Topoi. La retorica che non ti aspetti nella letteratura e nella vita, Città di Castello, I libri di Emil-Odoya, 2023, II ed. (solo parte II)

Letteratura, teatro, arti figurative e corpo

(a text of your choice)

P. Camporesi, I balsami di Venere, Milano, Il saggiatore, 2022

B. Capaci, F. Hartmann (a cura di) I Casanova. Una famiglia d'arte del secolo XVIII, Bologna, Patron, 2025.

Avvertenza:

Gli studenti non frequentanti sono tenuti a presentarsi al ricevimento per concordare con il docente una lettura supplementare

Teaching methods

The methods of verifying learning will be explained orally during the exam which for this reason will be structured in such a way as to allow students to describe not only what they have learned during the lessons and in reading the texts, but also their own approach to teaching and, more generally, schools

Assessment methods

The methods of assessment of learning will be explained orally during the exam which for this reason will be structured in such a way as to allow students to describe not only what they have learned during the lessons and in reading the texts, but also their own approach to teaching and, more generally, to school.

Office hours

See the website of Bruno Capaci