Learning outcomes

The course aims to launch the knowledge and understanding of the relationship between antiquity and modernity

Program

Title of the Course: first part: Auto da fé (the “purifying” fire)
second part: the Nazis’ book burnings and the degenerated art

The first part of the course will focus on the often troublesome relationships between literature, art, and power: from Protagoras, the Greek author of a book “On gods” burnt in Athens’s public square in the 5th century, to Anaxagoras, who was charged with impiety by a certain Cleon; from Cremutius Cordus, forced to commit suicide in the early imperial Roman age, to the book burnings carried out by the Inquisition and the Nazis.
The second part of the course will be devoted to the more specific relationship between the Nazism and the classical culture, to the burnings of banned books (from Freud to Thomas Mann), and to the degenerated art (entartete Kunst), whose masterpieces will be thoroughly described.

The final programme will be provided before the course starts.

The following books are strongly suggested to the students who will attend the lectures:
Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451 (any edition),
J. Chapotout, Il nazismo e l'antichità (pages to be fixed)
A. Fattori, Il cavaliere dell'apocalisse. George Grotz, il dada a Berlino e la mostra nazista dell'arte degenerata (Biblioteca d'Orfeo)
Elias Canetti, Auto da fé (Adelphi)

Examination Methods

oral exam