Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Interdisciplinary study of a selected theme that has made a lasting contribution to the humanistic tradition in more than one field of endeavour (e.g., philosophy, politics, literature, economics, religion). May be repeated once for credit when a different topic is taught. Students who have credit for a course with this content under another Humanities course may not take this course for further credit. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Great Themes in the Humanistic Tradition: Antifascism in Italian Cinema 

A communist fugitive, a Catholic priest, an expectant mother, an underground typographer, and a group of rebellious children – these are the heroes of Roberto Rossellini's iconic Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City, 1945), the first feature film in Italy to represent the recent experience of fascism, war, and the nation's antifascist Resistance during World War II. Set in a working-class district of Rome in the winter of 1943-44, the film narrates how a small band of antifascists resists the Nazi-Fascist forces occupying Italy's capital. Rossellini's raw, realistic, and moving depiction of the wartime experience – and the antifascist ethos that drives the plot – made this masterpiece one of the greatest films in twentieth-century world cinema. It is also the starting point for HUM 360, a course that invites you to watch, analyze, and write about a series of antifascist films about Italy under the violent, repressive strongman rule of Benito Mussolini (1922-1945), the world’s first fascist and totalitarian dictator. The main objective of HUM 360 is to examine why Italian filmmakers from Rossellini to today have taken an unceasing interest in revisiting and representing the Fascist past, and through a distinctly antifascist lens. We will study how and why antifascist films first emerged in 1945; why postwar representations of life under totalitarian rule have evolved over time; and to what extent filmmakers have helped Italians to "come to terms" with and assume responsibility for Italy's Fascist past.  

The question of how Mussolini’s dictatorship should be understood and remembered is critically important in contemporary Italy, where the current government is led by an extreme-right party with neofascist roots. But examining this legacy is just as urgent in today's global context, as millions of people around the world are increasingly attracted to authoritarian populism as an alternative to liberal democracy. 

This version of HUM 360 offers more than just an opportunity to watch outstanding films of global relevance. It’s a chance to develop the skills of analyzing films as audio-visual humanistic texts and reading them in their social and political contexts. In this course, we will assess the strengths and limitations of Italian antifascist cinema as an artistic medium for representing the history of Mussolini’s Italy. We will also evaluate how effective these filmmakers are at interpreting the Fascist past, shaping collective memories of life under Mussolini’s police state, and transmitting the values of antifascism to postwar audiences. 

This course will be remote. All class meetings will be live on Zoom. You will watch one film out of class each week. Films will be streamed on Canvas and subtitled in English. To situate films in their social and political contexts, supplemental readings will be assigned each week.  

No background in Italian or film studies is necessary. 

Grading

Materials

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