OVERVIEW

The course provides a set of historiographic and theoretical tools aimed at analyzing the category of gender and understanding how it was built and how it has changed from the late XVIII century to present time. It also provides an overview of the international production of knowledge related to feminist and queer movements.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, students will be expected to have acquired a set of analytic tools for the interpretation of gender in a cultural history perspective. Also, they will be expected to have acquired knowledge of the key historiographic issues related to the main political and social transformations of the XIX and XX centuries. Some of the most relevant issues raised by the specific knowledge produced by the feminist, LGBT+, queer and postcolonial movements will be also discussed.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures and seminars.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

1.            Introduction.

2.            Gender and the paradoxes of universalism.

3.            The “nation of the Risorgimento”. Gender in the national discourse: codes and subversions.

4.            Gender and nation building: biopolitics and representations.

5.            The “modern homosexual”: pathologization and re-appropriation.

6.            Orientalism, racism, colonialism: a gender perspective.

7.            The Great War.

8.            Fascism and Resistenza: women from nationalization to citizenship.

9.            Happy days? The tensions of the fifties.

10.          Biopolitics of gender, market and social control: the sixties.

11.          Feminisms of the Twentieth Century. The seventies and the eighties: an international perspective.

12.          The line of color. Intersectional feminisms.

13.          The eighties: new horizons and instruments of heteronormativity.

14.          Queer feminisms. From the nineties to present.

15.          Sexuality: knowledges, representations, claims.

16.          New categories and feminisms.

17.          Open issues.

18.          Conclusions: final discussion and feedbacks.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Students will be expected to discuss two among the following texts:

Banti, Alberto M., La nazione del Risorgimento. Parentela, santità e onore alle origini dell’Italia unita, Einaudi, varie edizioni.

Benadusi, Lorenzo, Ufficiale e gentiluomo: Virtù civili e valori militari in Italia, 1896-1918, Feltrinelli, 2015.

De Grazia, Victoria, Le donne nel regime fascista, Marsilio, varie edizioni.

Dijkstra, Bram, Idoli di perversità. La donna nell’immaginario artistico filosofico letterario e scientifico tra Otto e Novecento, Garzanti, varie edizioni.

Mosse, George L., Sessualità e nazionalismo. Mentalità borghese e rispettabilità, Laterza, varie edizioni.

Stefani, Giulietta, Colonia per maschi. Italiani in Africa Orientale: una storia di genere, Ombre Corte, 2007.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

MAYA DE LEO (President)

PAOLA GUGLIELMOTTI (President)

FRANCESCO CASSATA

GIULIANA FRANCHINI

ROBERTO SINIGAGLIA

LESSONS

LESSONS START

15 February 2018

Class schedule

GENDER HISTORY