INSTRUCTORS
Marcello Verga, Rolando Minuti, Stefano Bottoni, Francesco Salvestrini, Igor Melani, Giorgio Bacci, Chiara Renzo, Francesca Tacchi, Lorenzo Venuti
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Lesson 1 – prof. Marcello Verga
Date: September 20th
Title: Cultural Heritage
Topics: UNESCO, its history and its publications
Lesson 2 – prof. Marcello Verga
Date: September 21th
Title: Cultural Heritage and European Union
Topics: European cultural policy
Lesson 3 – prof. Marcello Verga
Date: September 22th
Title: Museums of History: the House of European History
Topics: European Parliament and History’s Museum (Bruxelles).
Lesson 4 – prof. Rolando Minuti
Date: September 27th
Title: Modernity: birth and development of a historical concept I. Approaches, concepts, methodological problems
Topics: An outline of the history of concepts. The historiographical meaning of modernity and related concepts. European modernity and ‘other’ modernities in early modern age.
Lesson 5 – prof. Rolando Minuti
Date: September 28th
Title: Modernity: birth and development of a historical concept II. From the age of Humanism to the Enlightenment
Topics: Classical heritage and the development of a new idea of modernity in early modern culture. Erudition, politics and religion in early modern historiography.
Lesson 6 – prof. Rolando Minuti
Date: September 29th
Title: Modernity: birth and development of a historical concept III. European historiography in the age of the ‘long’ Enlightenment
Topics: An outline of the approaches to historiography in the 18th century. Varieties and tensions of the idea of modernity. European expansion, ethnographical approaches and the problems of cultural diversity.
Lesson 7 – prof. Stefano Bottoni
Date: October 4th
Title: Social memory and politics of memory in post-authoritarian systems
Topics: The class examines the patterns of post-communist transition in Eastern Europe compared to post-1945 handling of Nazi and Fascist past, highliting similarities and differences
Lesson 8 – prof. Stefano Bottoni
Date: October 5th
Title: Obcjective truth? State security archives in Romania
Topics: The class examines the process that led to the opening of the communist-time archives in Romania and the controversies over the past that these materials have stirred up over the last decades
Lesson 9 – prof. Stefano Bottoni
Date: October 6th
Title: Lustratsia. How (not) to deal with the communist past
Topics: The class examines forms and outcomes of the “lustration” projects in post-communist Russia and Eastern Europe, paying special attention to the case of Romania and Poland
Lesson 10 – prof. Stefano Bottoni
Date: October 7th
Title: Representing the past in Hungary and Albania
Topics: The class compares how several museums and public institutions (House of Terror and Memento Park in Hungary; House of Leaves and the National Museum of History in Albania) have been representing the totalitarian past in the two countries, pointing out the different narratives put forward by curators and political stakeholders
Lesson 11 – prof. Stefano Bottoni
Date: October 12th
Title: Discussion of reaction papers
Topics: The class hosts a discussion of the three reaction papers presented by the students about the global role of contemporary nationalism (Florian Bieber àEri Nishida); on lustration practices in Eastern Europe (Cyntia Horne àJefferson Mendez); on memory “industry” and its future (Gavriel D. Rosenfeld à Catarina Levria)
Lesson 12 – prof. Francesco Salvestrini
Date: October 13th
Title: Rivers and human settlement in Medieval and Modern Italian cities. The case of Florence I
Topics: Medieval and Modern use of rivers in European cities. Economy, culture, religion, society. Examples from the continent and the case of Florence
Lesson 13 – prof. Francesco Salvestrini
Date: October 14th
Title: Rivers and human settlement in Medieval and Modern Italian cities. The case of Florence II
Topics: Protection of cities from river floods in Medieval and Modern periods. The case of Florence
Lesson 14 – prof. Igor Melani
Date: October 15th
Title: 20th century Authoritarian Regimes and World Expositions: “Esposizione Universale di Roma”, 1942
Topics: World Expositions between 19th and 20th centuries. The birth of the project for a World Exposition to be held in Rome in 1942. Fascism and the use of national-culture identitarian rethoric; Urban Planning and Musealization.
Lesson 15 – prof. Igor Melani
Date: October 18th
Title: Use and abuse of history: The Renaissance within the Exposition of Italian Civilization
Topics: Uses and meanings of Renaissance within Italian and European historiography (1860-1940); Italy and the Renaissance; Displaying Italian Renaissance: objects, people, meanings.
Lesson 16 – prof. Giorgio Bacci
Date: October 28th
Title: Borders, Identities and Migration in Contemporary Art
Topics: The class undertook a series of journeys into Contemporary art analysing different artists who are far from each other geographically but who often share experiences and thematic confluences. In particular, we afforded anthropological, artistic and historical themes such as walls (Fiamma Montezemolo, Rula Halawani) and inhospitable landscapes (Richard Misrach and Guillermo Galindo’sborderscapes), analyzing the capacity of contemporary art to deal with contemporary society.
Lesson 17 – Dr. Chiara Renzo
Date: November 4th
Title: International humanitarianism and the refugee problem I: WWII and the Jewish refugees.
Topics: Refugee Crisis and Humanitarianism in the first half of 1900s with a focus on the Jewish refugees escaping Nazi territories and the role of Italy, the persecution of the Jews in Italy. Class linked to the related internship (4th November, pm).
Lesson 18 – Dr. Chiara Renzo
Date: November 5th
Title: International humanitarianism and the refugee problem II: Jewish displaced persons after 1945.
Topics: Refugee Crisis after World War II with a focus on the problem of the Jewish displaced persons (DPs) after the Holocaust; Jewish DPs in refugee camps in postwar Italy; Jewish DPs’ clandestine departures to Palestine and the political role of Italy. Class linked to the related internship (5th November, pm).
Lesson 19 – prof. Francesca Tacchi
Date: December 3th
Title: Representing the “others” in the long 19th century and beyond
Focus: Analysis of the “non European” world presented by some European illustrated periodicals in the long 19th century, focussing on Japanese, Portuguese and Philippine representations. The class hosts a discussion of the reaction papers presented by the students about Representing Asia (Eri Nishida); travel accounts in general (Catarina Levria); popular images of Orient (Jefferson Mendez).