IT1980 Fascist Italy
Terms 1 and 2
Convenor: Dr Daniela Cerimonia
Assessment
10% Oral presentation
30% Essay 1 (1,500 – 2,000 words)
60% Essay 2 (1,500 – 2,000 words)
Overview
The aim of the course is to explore the main issues of a critical period in Italian history (1919-1945) both in an historical and in a cultural perspective. You will be introduced to Fascism as an ideological phenomenon, to the events that led to its rise to power, and to the most important features of the Fascist regime. Attention will be paid to social and cultural aspects of the Fascist movement and the regime it gave rise to. At the end of the course you will have developed an understanding of the birth and development of Italian Fascism, and of Fascism’s impact on Italian society. You will acquire familiarity with some of the major interpretations of Fascism and be able to evaluate these.
Reading list:
- Ben-Ghiat, Ruth, Fascist Modernities, 1922-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
- Duggan, Christopher, A Concise History of Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994)
- Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
- Forgacs, David (ed.), Rethinking Italian Fascism: Capitalism, Populism and Culture (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1986)
- Golsan, Richard, Fascism, Aesthetics, and Culture (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992)
- Lyttelton, Adrian (ed.), Liberal and Fascist Italy 1900-1945 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002)
- Passmore, Kevin, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002)
- Paxton, Robert, The Anatomy of Fascism (London: Penguin, 2005)
- Reich, Jacqueline, and Piero Garofalo, Re-viewing Fascism: Italian cinema, 1922-1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002)