Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding.
The course will provide the students with a basic understanding of the rhetorical, stylistuc, thematic and ideological structures of literary, dramatic, and cinematic texts.
Applying knowledge and understanding.
By providing a constant guide to the activity of reading, and showing a specific interest in the single points of view, as expressed by the rewritings, the course aims at generating a peculiar consciousness of the way both characters and narrators voice one’s own vision of literature and of the world. Students should be able to apply their knowledge and interpretive skills to the classical tradition, as well as to a wider set of texts and artistic genres, developing a learned and critical spectatorship. A peculiar form of understanding will result from the practice of analysis of the processes of intersemiotic translation.
Making judgements.
By the end of the course, students should be able to apply their judgements to a theoretically grounded, supranational level of textual reading. They should also be able to show the capacity to correctly situating the texts in the epoch and cultural atmosphere which gave them life. Students will interpret them in a critically founded way, paying attention to narrative devices, themes, genres, poetics, as consistently employed by their authors.
Communication skills.
By the end of the course, students ought to show the capacity to master the expression of textual contents, knowing how to point out and communicate the identifying and connecting elements which run across a defined series of texts.
Learning skills.
Trained to read literary as well as artistic texts which belong to geographically and historically different cultures, students should develop critical skills, in order to successfully study the contemporary art panorama. They should also improve their judgement abilities about what they have learnt in order to structure their final dissertation, as well as to prepare themselves to the reading abilities, as required by the second cycle of studies.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
Cinematic and Literary Cities: Italian modernity and the consecration of a characteristic theme
Making up for the accumulated delay, the Italian XXth Century novel celebrates the ambiguous seduction of the city, in particular displaying the alternate relationships between the character and the urban spiral. The course will take into account some classics from Italian contemporary literature as well as the so-called tetralogy of incommunicability by Antonioni, in order to show the signs of perception and representation of the new spatial order in Italy, from Modernism to the crucial passage from the years of reconstruction to the industrial boom.
Full programme
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Bibliography
1. Bernardelli, Ceserani, Il testo narrativo, Il Mulino, 2005 (only for students attending the workshop)
2. Giovannetti, La letteratura italiana moderna e contemporanea. Guida allo studio, Carocci, 2016 (excl. ch. 3-4-8)
3. Pirandello, Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio operatore, Garzanti/Feltrinelli
4. Pratolini, Il quartiere, Mondadori
5. Pasolini, Ragazzi di vita, Garzanti
6. Bianciardi, La vita agra, Feltrinelli
Filmography
Antonioni, L’avventura (1960)
Antonioni, L’eclisse (1961)
Antonioni, La notte (1962)
Antonioni, Il deserto rosso (1964)
NB: There is no differentiated program for students who cannot attend the lessons
NB2: See the Elly platform for more critical materials
NB3: the films by Antonioni can be hired or viewed in a series of libraries (https://biblioteche.parma.it)
Teaching methods
Frontal lessons. Screening and analysis of films in the classroom. More didactic material online, on the platform Elly.
Assessment methods and criteria
Oral exams
Evaluation: A fail is determined by the lack of an understanding of the minimum content of the course, the inability to express oneself adequately, by a lack of autonomous preparation, the inability to solve problems related to information retrieval and the decoding of complex texts, as well as an inability to make independent judgments. A pass (18-23/30) is determined by the student’s possession of the minimum, fundamental contents of the course, an adequate level of autonomous preparation and ability to solve problems related to information retrieval and the decoding of complex texts, as well as an acceptable level of ability in making independent judgments. Middle-range scores (24-27/30) are assigned to the student who produces evidence of a more than sufficient level (24-25/30) or good level (26-27/30) in the evaluation indicators listed above. Higher scores (from 28/30 to 30/30 cum laude) are awarded on the basis of the student’s demonstration of a very good or excellent level in the evaluation indicators listed above.
Other information
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