04177 - Sociology of Literature

Course contents

ILLEGAL TRAVELLERS. MIGRANTS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Italian medias and popular imagery are overwhelmed by news about the constant and tragic arrival of illegal immigrants on the coasts of our rich and happy nation. The dangerous boats used by migrants, however, are in fact the unfashionable side of the complex mobility system of a globalised Western world.

The foreign, sometimes hostile, individuals who appear on Italian shores travelling from poor, primitive, far-away places are immediately faced with destructive machines and threatening technologies, such as cars, trains, undergrounds, planes and industrial machinery. On the other hand, however, many migrants soon become able to exploit the resources of the new media with skill and creativity, and to develop complex international networks.

This course focuses on the close-reading of literary texts composed by twentieth-century Italian immigrants and present-day international migrants to Italy in order to explore the various and complex experiences of real and virtual travellers as well as the significant developments brought about by migration processes both in the home and destination countries.

More detailed information concerning the course, including teaching timetable and reading list, will be available online by the middle of September.

 

Readings/Bibliography

 See italian page.

The programme and the bibliography are the same both for students who attend and for students who do not attend the lessons.

Teaching methods

FRONTAL LESSONS

Classes start in October 2013.

Assessment methods

ORAL EXAMINATION

 

The evaluation of the students' competencies and abilities acquired during the course consists in an oral interview which has the aim of evaluating the critical and methodological ability of the students. The students will be invited to discuss the tests on the course programme. The student must demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of the bibliography in the course programme.

Those students who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the lessons, are able to use these critically and who master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence.

Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject with a more superficial analytical ability and ability to synthesize, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a ‘fair' mark.

A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a pass mark or just above a pass mark.

Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use, lack of familiarity with the literature in the programme bibliography will not be given a pass mark.

 

Office hours

See the website of Fulvio Pezzarossa