ITAL 217 Social Issues in Postwar Italian Film, Photography, and Literature
This course analyzes the aesthetic explorations of the ethical issues triggered by the intensification of Italian political, social, economic, and cultural modernity in the wake of the Second World War. Participants will execute the close and active analysis of select literary, cinematic, and visual texts produced between 1940 and 1980 with a three-fold goal. First, they will assess Italian artists' engagement of the complex social contexts giving rise to their work. Secondly, they will evaluate the extent to which artists reflect in their work the monsters of their age so as to - like a modern-day Perseus - neutralize their adverse, crystallizing effects on both the individual and collective conscious. Learners will also be encouraged to explore a number of issues related to an artists' representation of - and response to - the social issues they see as plaguing the Italian society of the period. These issues include the extent to which: 1) questions at the heart of the human condition animate artists engagement of the social contexts in which they create their works; 2) artists create in accordance with their own individual beliefs about beauty, goodness, and truth as well as with the goal of understanding their existence while helping their audiences do the same; and 3) cultural texts aid us in the construction of a framework for engaging the community in which we live in ways that privilege the highest good and minimize evil.
Cross Listed Courses
ITAL 217 & MDIA 217