93260 - Orality, Textual Transmission, Media (1)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course unit students will be sensitive to information and how it is communicated; they will know how to analyse sources, bearing in mind how society is conditioned by means of communication. They will be familiar with historians’ various views on the issue. They will be able to apply the basic theory and methodology to organize, preserve and disseminate the documentary heritage. They will make critical use of the main search tools and methods, and be able to apply the tools of historical analysis needed in cataloguing, appraising, disseminating and conserving the historical and cultural heritage. They will be able to collect, select, process and summarize complex documentary information, so as to formulate independent conclusions and opinions. They will organize information logically and outline it with methodological rigour, care and precision

Course contents

The emergence of the Internet and the rapid development of social media place us in the condition of constantly interacting with various forms of media in our daily lives. We can claim, without exaggeration, that we now live a 'mediatised' everyday life. This has posed new questions to historiography: how much of the everyday lives of men and women were, in the centuries before us, conditioned by the media? What were they? Who had access to them? What interests (economic, political, religious) were at stake in their use and control? And - upstream - can we also use the category 'media' in reference to the pre-technological age?

Historiography has long recognised the printing press as having an unprecedented capacity to shape ideas, imagery and behaviour, and thus to accelerate cultural and political events and processes that would characterise the modern world (such as the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the French Revolution). However, in recent years, historical studies have reviewed the role of print, taking note of the presence of a true 'multimedia system', in which manuscript and printed writing, orality and images not only coexist, but constantly interact (even today we continue to read books on paper and write with pen). The world between the late Middle Ages and the long early modern age was also inhabited and continuously transformed by words, and by ancient and new systems of producing and transmitting them. With which categories can we observe it? Through what sources can we question it?

The course covers a chronological span between the 15th and 19th centuries. Among the issues that will be addressed are:

- media, communication, information, public opinion: introduction to concepts, problems and historiographies

- orality and writing: separate rooms or worlds that coexist and influence each other?

- the invention of printing: a slow revolution

- books, readers (production, distribution and enjoyment of books; gender, social and cultural conditions of those involved)

- words that divide, words that unite: the role of communication in the confessional age

- words and images under control: forms of censorship and ways of bypassing it

- "avvisi", gazettes, newspapers: how does the 'news' come about?

- the infrastructure of communication: men and women, animals, roads, means of transport

- communicating in extraordinary times: epidemics, wars, catastrophes

- Ancien Regime psychology (theories on fantasy, power of images, visions of the human being)

Readings/Bibliography

Attending students will add to the lecture notes the study of:

Federica Formiga, L’invenzione perfetta. Storia del libro, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2021

Introduction and chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Part 1) of Andrew Pettegree, L’invenzione delle notizie. Come il mondo arrivò a conoscersi, Einaudi, Torino, 2015 

Moreover, they will add a book among the one listed below:

Lodovica Braida, Stampa e cultura in Europa tra XV e XVI secolo, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2000

Giorgio Caravale, Libri pericolosi. Censura e cultura italiana in età moderna, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2022

Robert Darnton, Editori e pirati. Il commercio librario nell'età dei Lumi, Adelphi, Milano, 2023

Sandro Landi, Stampa, censura e opinione pubblica in età moderna, il Mulino, Bologna, 2011

Germano Maifreda, Immagini contese. Storia politica delle figure dal Rinascimento alla cancel culture, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2022

Ottavia Niccoli, Muta eloquenza: gesti nel Rinascimento e dintorni, Viella, Roma, 2021

Walter J. Ong, Oralità e scrittura. Le tecnologie della parola, il Mulino, Bologna, 2014

Pasquale Palmieri, L'eroe criminale. Giustizia, politica e comunicazione nel XVIII secolo, il Mulino, Bologna, 2022

Marina Roggero, Le vie dei libri. Letture, lingua e pubblico nell'Italia moderna, il Mulino, Bologna, 2021

Rosa Salzberg, La città di carta. Stampa effimera e cultura urbana nella Venezia del Rinascimento, Officina libraria, Roma, 2023

Xenia von Tippelskirch, Sotto controllo: letture femminili in Italia nella prima età moderna, Viella, Roma, 2011

Edoardo Tortarolo, L'invenzione della libertà di stampa. Censura e scrittori nel Settecento, Edoardo Tortarolo, Carocci, Roma, 2011

Non-attending students will add the volume Tiziana Plebani, Alle donne che niente sanno. Mestieri femminili, alfabetizzazione e stampa nella Venezia del Rinascimento, Marsilio, Venezia, 2022

Teaching methods

The course will be held through lectures.

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

Six exams are scheduled each year, indicatively in January, March, May, June/July, September, and November.

The exam will take place in oral form. Students' familiarization with the concepts, issues and methodologies addressed during the course will be assessed.

The evaluation will take into account the ability of the student to orient herself within the sources and the bibliographic material, to illustrate themes and problems and to establish connections.

Therefore, the following will be assessed:

- Content knowledge

- The ability to synthesize and analyze themes and concepts

- The ability to express adequately and in language appropriate to the subject matter

If the student achieves a complete and detailed vision of the topics discussed during lectures and required for the discipline, provides an effective critical commentary, shows mastery of expression and of the specific language, the evaluation will be of excellence.

The candidate who demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the main topics of the subject, basic analytical ability and ability to synthesize, and a correct use of the language, will be given a good mark.

The candidate who demonstrates a mnemonic (and/or non-exhaustive) 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 satisfactory 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.

The candidate will be deemed to have failed the exam if she displays significant errors in her understanding and failure to grasp the overall outlines of the subject, together with a poor command of the appropriate terminology.

Teaching tools

Presentations in power point format, sources, essays, online repertoires can be provided by the teacher. The materials will be made available in the specific section of the University website.

The students who for reasons dependent on disabilities or specific learning disorders (SLDs) require compensatory or dispensatory tools should first make contact with the designated office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/it/per-studenti. 

Office hours

See the website of Fernanda Alfieri