ITAL 280 - Surviving Fascism: Jewish Life in Pre-war and Post-war Italy

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as JWST 280) In this course we study the socio-cultural history and historiography of Italian Fascism and the Nazi camps, asking how memory and resistance in play a paradoxical role in Italian-Jewish lterature and Italian cinema in relation to the the Holocaust. The methodology is interdisciplinary, including such philosophy, psychoanalysis, and Shoah studies. By employing various theories of the Other and applying them to texts, we examine the Jewish “catastrophe” through close readings of Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg, and Giorgio Bassani, and through in-depth analysis of cinematic works such as Federico Fellini’s Amarcord, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Lina Wertmüller’s Sevean Beauties, Francesco Rosi’s The Truce, and Oren Jacoby’s My Italian Secret, among others. Taught in English. Rodica Blumenfeld.

Open to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors. May be counted towards the Italian major.

Two 75-minute periods accompanied by film screenings.