Topic: Fascism & Resistance in Italy
| Time | Days | Location | Instructor | GER | Credit | OPUS Class Number | Syllabus (Tentative) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2:00pm-4:30pm | W | Ignatius Few Building_129 | Walter Adamson. | FSEM. | 4 | 1021 | TBA. |
Content: Recent historical research on Italian fascism is suggesting a picture of the politics of that era which is murky, ambivalent, and even internally contradictory, especially in contrast to what used to be thought even a decade ago. Opponents of the regime, it now appears, sometimes also collaborated with it; seemingly stalwart supporters had hidden qualms; and mainstream support, while numerically very large until the onset of World War II, did not run very deep. For example, the novelist Ignazio Silone, a one-time communist who appeared at the time as one of the Mussolini regime’s loftiest opponents, has recently been accused of some quite startling moral-political compromises. This seminar seeks to determine what we now know about support for and resistance to Italian fascism, and to reflect on the implications of this analysis for modern politics more generally.
Required Texts: De Grand, Alexander, Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development; Silone, Ignazio, Bread and Wine; Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy; Levi, Carlo, Christ Stopped at Eboli; Stille, Alexander, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism; Luzzatto, Sergio, The Body of Il Duce; Pugliese, Stanislao, ed., Fascism, Antifascism, and the Resistance in Italy; Katz, Robert, The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944.
Particulars: The seminar will not involve examinations. Course evaluation will be based on three short (1000 words) papers (50% together), a final, somewhat longer paper (2000-2500 words) (25%), and class participation (25%).
The schedule of courses on O.P.U.S. is the official listing of courses, including days and times they meet and the General Education Requirements they satisfy. Students should use course descriptions as general guidelines. Course requirements, grading details, book lists, and syllabi are subject to change.