27280 - Seminars (1) (G.A)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the seminar students will be able to interpret issues related to specific historical phenomena in a diachronic and transversal perspective, thought the elaboration and synthesis of the data coming from the analysis of written records and material sources and from the collective debate originated from the contact with other people. They will be able to formulate autonomously and in an organized way a research path or an intellectual work, using the specific acquired tools with methodological rigour, precision and accuracy.

Course contents

The seminar is aimed at deepening the different aspects that characterize in a peculiar way the so-called "age of Enlightenment". In particular, the different disciplines that take shape then will be analyzed (psychology, linguistics, philology, anthropology, statistics, history of religions) in such a way as to represent a fundamental change in the Western way of thinking. Consideration will then be given to the reflections on power and the different solutions that should have been used to create the conditions for a more free and conscious human existence . Finally, the focus of European philosophes on others will be highlighted and new forms of sociability will be illustrated, in such a way as to produce an innovative twist on the expression of "public opinion".

Readings/Bibliography

Essential bibliography:

V. Ferrone, D. Roche (a cura di), L'illuminismo. Dizionario storico, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1997

G. Paganini, E. Tortarolo, L'Illuminismo: un vademecum, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2008

V. Ferrone, Il mondo dell'illuminismo. Storia di una rivoluzione culturale, Torino, Einadi, 2019

E. Tortarolo, L'Illuminismo. Ragioni e dubbi della modernità, Roma, Carocci,

Primary sources:

Voltaire, Trattato sulla tolleranza, a cura di D. Felice, Torino, Einaudi 2022

Voltaire, Saggio sui costumi e sullo spirito delle nazioni, a cura di D. Felice, Torino, Einaudi, 2017

Enciclopedia, o Dizionario ragionato delle scienze, delle arti e dei mestieri ordinato da Diderot e d'Alembert, a cura di P. Casini, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019

Montesquieu, Lettere persiane, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2019

G. T. Raynal, Storia delle due Indie, a cura di A. Pandolfi, Milano, Rizzoli, 2010

J.-J. Rousseau, Scritti politici, vol. I, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009

D. Diderot, Potere politico e libertà di stampa, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 2021

Further indications will be given during the seminar

Teaching methods

The seminar will be divided into two phases:


1) the first ten meetings will be devoted to traditional lectures, during which the teacher will expound the relevant topics of the seminar


2) the last five will be devoted to the students' critical exposition (individual or in group) of one of the sources indicated in the bibliography and agreed during the first part of the seminar.

Assessment methods

To achieve the 6 credits of the Seminars activity, students will have to attend at least 12 seminar meetings, for a total of 24 hours out of 30.
Attendance will be recorded by signature.
The verbalization of the activity is subordinated  to a class discussion of one of the sources cited in the bibliography

Office hours

See the website of Francesca Sofia