Teaching code

4S000880

Teacher

Rossella Bonfatti

Credits

6

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-FIL-LET/11 - CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE

Period

CuCi IIB dal Apr 14, 2021 al May 29, 2021.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

To show the organization of the course that includes this module, follow this link:  Course organization

Learning outcomes

The course aims to introduce to the study of Modern and Contemporary Italian literature, with particular attention to the experience of writers who, in the course of the Twentieth-Century, engaged in journalism or publishing. Through the study of an exemplary reality, the student, at the end of the course, will have to demonstrate knowledge of the relationships that link literature, publishing and journalism, as well as being able to read and analyze heterogenous texts, critically situating them in the history of Italian literature.

Teaching Methods:
frontal lessons; e-learning page; presentation of case studies; reading, analysis and comment of the texts; elements of the history of publishing and the culture of the printed text; multidisciplinary insights; discussion of critical hypotheses; meetings with authors, scholars, journalists.

Program

Chronicles of Dioxin: Seveso and the Anthropocene tale

The course will focus on the journalistic and literary sphere of the Seveso disaster (July 10, 1976), which was a turning point in the representation of the relationship between the human community and ecological disaster in the light of public communication of the emergency. In the broken and isolated community of Seveso, the emerging problems concerned not only the human ecosphere, but the public health and the legal front, invested by the formulation of new concepts such as those of "irreversible environmental damage", epidemiological investigation,industrial risks, anticipating what will happen with the accident at the Enichem plant in Manfredonia a few months later and, above all, with the Bophal massacre in India in 1984 and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

The dioxin cloud, released from the Icmesa di Meda, a small town in Brianza, also produced the idea of ​​a precipice in history because the same information from the mass media functioned as a second 'poison', fueling doubts, fears and uncertainties. This is why, rather than from the official press, the true 'toxic' images of reality come from the reportages and articles of Enzo Biagi, Camilla Cederna, Marcella Ferrara, Vincenzo Consolo, from the memories of witness-writers such as Laura Conti, from the collective photo-book "Seveso, an Italian tragedy", which documented the gravity of the chemical tragedy and acted together as counter-information and critical insights, in a long-term perspective, for the formation of an ecological conscience.

Examination Methods

1) Paper on a topic (see "Instructions for papers" on Moodle), to be delivered at least 10 days before the exam, which will average with the grade reported in the oral exam (score assigned up to to a max of 10/30)

2) Oral exam organized as follows: three open questions on the aspects covered during the course; at least one of the questions involves the analysis and comment of texts (score attributed up to a maximum of 20/30).

There are no different exam methods for attending and non-attending students.