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Learning outcomes

The course aims at making the notions of “social reality” and “social change”, on which the understanding of the notion of socio-cultural process is based, intelligible. We will try to “apply” such acquisitions to the study of two macro socio-cultural processes: 1) modernity, especially in the light of the relationship society/politics (and this will bring us to test social-historical the grip-grasp –hold of the concept of post-modernity and 2) social violence, analysed according to Girard’s mimetic theory.

Program

Contents of the course: We will deal with the complex phenomenon of “modernity”, by employing the categories of relational sociology, and trying to investigate some of its most important features (strongly enduring in the current frameworks of our social life). Always underlining the decisive distinction between society and politics, which has been little by little cancelled in the modern world, we will try to deal with one of the most radical elements rooted in social relationships in more or less recognizable forms: violence. As a matter of fact, violence is not merely an element of the structure of one’s personality, but a “force” which settles inside social relations, in particular inside “cultural relation”, and expresses itself in forms which are not always recognizable. Sticking to Girard’s mimetic theory, but not only to that one, we will try to lay stress on the basic elements which mark its “social appearance”.

Reference books: Morandi E. La società è un “uomo in grande”, Marietti 120, Genova-Milano (in press); Illich I, La convivialità. Una proposta libertaria per la politica dei limiti dello sviluppo, Boroli Ed. Milano 2005; Girard R., Origine della cultura e fine della storia, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano 2003.

Teaching methods: frontal lessons and practice

Examination Methods

written test through open-ended questions