This module invites students to review the way in which the fascist period (1922-43) in Italy and its colonies have been represented and remembered in Italian cultural production, during the period itself and in subsequent years. Students will analyse the historical background to the period, and then examine textual and filmic representations of fascism developed during the period and in the immediate postwar era, and the later legacy of fascism and Italian colonialism. This will include discussion of the British-Italian community, Students will use historical research to inform their analysis of cultural production. Students should be aware that although historical understanding of the period provides crucial background to the module, the majority of lectures and seminars will focus on cultural studies.

• Use historical knowledge to inform understanding of cultural representations of fascism
• Discuss the way in which the memory of fascism has changed over historical periods
• Compare and contrast films and text which explore the fascist legacy, produced in different periods and different countries
• Relate British-Italian cultural representations of fascisms to Italian equivalents.

The module will be delivered through a combination of lectures and student-led seminars  

Academic Independent research

Critical thinking

Subject-specific

Close textual analysis of a range cultural forms

Italian language skills

Employability

Oral presentation

Group work

Producing high-quality written outputs

Two essay, 50% each.

Historical background: The rise of fascism, fascism in power, ideology, foreign policy, fascist empire, the resistance and the fall of fascism

Remembering fascism in the postwar era: neorealism and the resistance

Remembering fascist empire in the 1990s: colonial memoirs

Remembering fascism in the British-Italian community

The rehabilitation of fascism?

Rossellini, Roma città aperta (1945, film)

Selection of Resistance writing (supplied)

Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947)

Dell’oro, Asmara addio (1998)

Mary Conti, Dear Olivia (2006)

Fascism (general)

Blinkhorn, Martin, Mussolini and Fascist Italy (London: Methuen, 1984)  DG 575. M8.B5

Cassels, Alan, Fascist Italy (London : Routledge & K. Paul, 1969) DG 571.C2

Clark, Martin, Modern Italy 1871 to the Present (Harlow : Pearson/Longman, 2008) DG 555.C5

Gregor, A. James, Interpretations of Fascism (Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press, 1974) JC 481. G7

Lyttelton, Adrian, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy 1919-1929 (London: Weidnenfeld and Nicolson, 1973)  DG571. L9

Whittam, John, Fascist Italy (Manchester: MUP, 1995). DG 571. W4

Fascist ideology

Falasca Zamponi, Simonetta, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). DG 571. F2

Koon, Tracey H, Believe, Obey Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy, 1922-1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985) DG571.K6

Gentile, Emilio, The Sacrilization of Politics in Fascist Italy, trans. By Keith Botsford (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP. 1996) DG 571. G3

Gillette, Aaron, Racial Theories in Fascist Italy (London: Routledge, 2002) DG 571. A2.G4

Stone, Marla, The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1998) 700. 945 S

Italian Colonialism

Ben Ghiat, Ruth, and Mia Fuller, eds., Italian Colonialism (New York: Macmillan, 2005)

Bottai, Giuseppe, Quaderno Affricano (Florence: Giunti, 1995) [first published 1939]

Burdett, Charles, ‘Memories of Italian East Africa, Journal of Romance Studies 1.3 (2001 Winter) 69-84

De Grand, A, Bottai e la cultura fascista (Rome: La Terza, 1978) DT387.8.6

Del Boca, Angelo, The Ethiopian War 1935-41, trans by P. D. Cummings (Chicago, University of Chicago press, 1969)

Del Boca, Angelo, Gli italiani in Africa orientale:la conquista dell’impero (Rome: Laterza, 1979)

Del Boca, Angelo, Gli italiani nel Africa orientale: la caduta dell’impero (Rome: Laterza, 1982)

Del Boca, Angelo, Gli italiani nel Africa orientale:nostalgie delle colonie (Rome: Laterza, 1984)

Dell’Oro, Erminia, Asmara addio (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1997) [first published 1988]

Lee, Jo Ann, ‘Revisiting Italy’s Colonial Past: Journeys Through Memory in Erminia Dell’oro’s Asmara addio and La Gola del Diavolo’, The Italianist, 29: 3( 2009), 448-463

Le Gouez, Brigitte, ‘L’Africa di Erminia Dell’Oro’, Narrativa, 14 (July 1998), 309-26

Le Gouez, Brigitte, ‘Storie eritree di Erminia dell’Oro: Luci e ombre’ Narrativa, 16 (Sept 1999), 63-72

Matteo, Sante, ed., Italiafrica: Bridging Continents and Cultures, (Stonybrook, NY: Forum Italicum, 2001)

Panicali, Anna, Bottai: Il fascismo come rivoluzione capitale (Bologna: Cappelli, 1978) DG575.B6.B6

Neorealism

Bencivenni, Alessandro, Luchino Visconti (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1982) PN 1998 A3 V4 B3

Bloom, Harold, Italo Calvino (Philadephia: Chelsea House, 2001) PQ4809.A5.A8.I8

Bonandella, Peter, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (New York: Continuum, 1990) PN 993 5.I8 B6

Fowler, Catherine, ed., The European Cinema Reader (London: Routledge, 2002) PN 1993 5 E8 E8

Hay, James, Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy: The Passing of the Rex (Bloomigton Indiana, Indiana UP. 1987) PN 1993.5.I8.H2

Landy, Marcia, Fascism in Film: The Italian Commercial Cinema, 1931-1943 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1986) PN 1993 5.I8 L2

McLaughlin, Martin, Italo Calvino (Edinburgh: EUP, 1998) PQ4849.A5A8.M2

Nocentini, Claudia, Italo Calvino and the Landscape of Childhood (Leeds: NUP, 2000) PQ4849.A5.A8.N6

Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, Luchino Visconti (London: British Film Institute, 2003) PN 1998 A3 V4 N6

Pilz, Kirstin, Mapping Complexity: Literature and Science in the Works of Italo Calvino (Leicester: Troubador, 2005) PQ4809.A5.A8.P4

Risso, Linda, and Monica Boria, Politics and Culture in Postwar Italy (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2006) DG577 P6

Rondolino, Gianni, Luchino Visconti, (Turin: UTET, 1981) PN 1998 A3 V4 R6

Sorlin, Pierre, Italian National Cinema 1896-1996 (London: Routledge, 1996) PN 1993 5.I8. S6

Wood, Mary P, Italian Cinema (Oxford: Berg, 2005) PN 1993 5.I8  W6

Changing interpretations

Lebow, Kansteiner and Fogu (eds.), The Politics of War in Postwar Europe (Durham NC: Duke UP, 2006): see the introduction by Lebow and the chapter by Fogu

Ventresca, ‘Mussolini’s Ghost: Italy’s Duce in History and Memory’, History and Memory 18.1 (2006)  86-199 (electronic copy)