Learning objectives
The aim of the course is to provide the students with the skills needed to investigate the production of contemporary literature from a perspective that does not look only at the author's or cultural movement's history but to conceive literary work as a fruit of A mediation between a literary and editorial system, in the background of a dynamic interaction between different kinds of instances (commercial, cultural, etc.).
Objectives of the course according to the descriptors of Dublin:
• Knowledge and understanding: the teaching of Contemporary Italian Literature and editorial system will allow students a critical and articulate understanding of the most important phenomena of 20th-century literary publishing.
• Applying knowledge and understanding: the course will include some lessons specifically aimed at reading, understanding and evaluating literary texts (usually short stories), from multiple points of view (narrative, stylistic, commercial) with the aim of introducing students to a professional reading, Which is today demanded by the cultural industry.
• Making judgments: at the end of the course, students, on the basis of acquired historical-literary knowledge and classroom exercises, should have gained the ability to grasp the interconnections between publishing and literature even outside the lessons learned and evaluate the Commercial and cultural potential of narrative text. Communication skills: at the end of the course students should have acquired the specific technical language of this subject and (on the side of the textual understanding) should be able to translate reading impressions into critically articulated evaluations.
Learning Skills: the course as a whole would like to provide the cultural knowledge and the critical tools essential to facilitate mature and conscious inclusion in the editorial world and, more generally, in the cultural industry.
Prerequisites
Access to the course requires a basic knowledge of the
Contemporary Italian literature (especially of the twentieth century).
Course unit content
The course title is:
Literary publishers
In the first part of the course some fundamental topics will be introduced in order to understand the following topics, such as: what are the subjects of the literary system of modernity, how does this system relate to the editorial system, what are the hegemonic literary genres in modernity And what relation exists with the genres or editorial segments.
In the second part we will analyze the areas of the influence of the editorial work on the literary one, in relation to the material creation of the bookstore object (foretold in terms of presentation, interpretation and promotion of texts by a publisher), and correction, stabilization Sometimes even rewriting the literary text in the publishing house.
In the third part we will focus on analyzing several cases of particularly important literary editors of the twentieth century.
During the course, there will be space dedicated to reading / evaluating narrative texts.
Full programme
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Bibliography
1) All students are required to review contemporary Italian literature (precisely the twentieth century), for essential coordinates, which include the works and fundamental themes of the following authors: Italo Svevo, Luigi Pirandello, Umberto Saba, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italo Calvino. In addition, it is necessary to add knowledge of the temporal coordinates and the most important characters of the following movements: Modernism, Hermetism, Neorealism, Neo-avant-garde, Postmodernism. 2) All students have to also study:
• Alberto Cadioli, Letterati editori. Attività editoriale e modelli letterari nel Novecento, Milano, il Saggiatore, 2017 (only the essays set out in lessons).
• Marta Occhipinti, Il genere anarchico. Storie di quarte e di risvolti, Milano, Unicopli, being published.
• Cadioli, Vigini, Storia dell’editoria italiana dall’Unità ad oggi. Un profilo introduttivo, Milano, Bibliografica, 2012.
• All the materials (critical and narrative) that will be loaded on the ellylass platform, are currently being restructured.
Teaching methods
The lessons, which will take place through frontal teaching, will develop theoretical reflections, suitably accompanied by historical-literary exemplifications. In order to make some examples clearer, we will use the projection of cover images, and other parasitic elements. The final part of the course includes a seminar devoted to literary editors, in order to compare the work model of several literary editors of the twentieth century with the various figures currently engaged in literary design outside and inside publishing houses.
Assessment methods and criteria
Frontal lessons are interwoven with open questions addressed to students on the topics they are discussing. During the course, students will also be given the opportunity to read some short texts (usually stories).
The final evaluation is in thirtieths and takes into account the knowledge of contemporary Italian literature, the materials developed during the course and the bibliography indicated.
Other information
Closely related to the course is the laboratory titled THE TEXT IN REDATION, held by Dr. Cacchioli, of which the attendance is strongly recommended.
