Learning objectives
<br />Relate – from a scientific standpoint and personal knowledge – the history of the losers, the poor and the alienated through the documentary and human wealth of fontes et testimonia. Rigorous and authentic memory - sine ira et studio, Tacitus wrote – of the subordinate classes, common men and women in their daily lives and activities. Those, in short, who made history but don’t know it!
Course unit content
<br /> <br />[Compulsory part]. History of Rome and the ancient Roman world, from its Italic origins to the fall of the Western empire: geo-political and socio-economic overview.<br />[introductory section]. General introduction to the study of (ancient) history. Documentary sources: fontes et testimonia.<br />[Specialised readings]. The course will cover a long-term study of the relationship between women, sex and society in the ancient world and will examine the conception, the fears and the taboos of woman in the male world of ancient Rome, according to the following general outline:<br /> <br />- male and female in the ancient Mediterranean world;<br />- sexuality and eroticism in the ancient world;<br /><br />- the gradual collapse of the patriarchal ethic in Rome from matrimonium to libido; <br /><br />- eros and sexus in Roman Italy: original taboos and myths;<br />- female roles: matrona e, mulieres, meretrices, ...;<br />- inferiority, subalternity and alienation: freemen and slaves;<br />- Roman women during the imperial age: from the pagan to the Christian world.<br />Exercises. Exercises will cover the daily life and memory of lower-class women and men through the messages and images of Latin epigraphy.
Bibliography
<br />S. Roda, Profilo di storia romana, rist., Roma, Carocci, 2003 – and a good historical atlas <br /> . Vita e morte nei "carmina Latina epigraphica" della Padania centrale, cur. N. Criniti, 2 ed., Parma, La Pilotta Editrice, 1998<br />"Res publica Veleiatium". Veleia, tra passato e futuro, cur. N. Criniti, Parma, MUP Editore, 2006<br />N. Criniti, <Imbecillus sexus>. Le donne nell?Italia antica, Brescia, Grafo, 1999<br />Gli affanni del vivere e del morire. Schiavi, soldati, donne, bambini nella Roma imperiale, cur. N. Criniti, 2 ed., Brescia, Grafo, 1997, pp. 17-148
Teaching methods
classroom, with frequent specialised seminars and field trips to museums and archeological sites (Veleia being the most important) which serve as periodic laboratories for enhanced knowledge, including from a technical standpoint, of the female experience.
