Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores historical changes in masculinity and femininity. Using a thematic and transnational/comparative approach, it will examine how gender identities are formed and refashioned within different historical contexts. It will also explore the interaction between gender and other systems of power such as race, class, and ethnicity. Students with credit for HIST 425 may not take this course for further credit. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

Gender in Modern Italy through Film

In this chronologically structured course we will explore how film both portrays and shapes gender expression in the Italian cultural realm, while also comparatively investigating how the Italian model converges or diverges culturally and historically from its broader European and global counterparts. The emphasis of the course will be on the organic link between “culture” and “history” that defines the best Italian filmmaking tradition, and in particular the works of its celebrated auteurs–such as Fellini, Visconti, Pasolini, and Bertolucci.  

Through the selected films and supporting readings we will answer questions referring to the way Italian film meets but also explodes gender stereotypes—and more broadly to the extent to which artistic representation provides a plausible version of reality. We will analyze the factors that impact the expression of gender (including class, economic and social standing, and historical context), as well as test the consistency or evolution of gender paradigms across time—by looking at Italy’s past—and across space, by comparing the representations of gender in the peninsula to those in other cultural contexts.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING: