HISTORY OF LABOUR AND LABOUR MOVEMENT

The course is among the Core Educational Activities of the Master's degree Programme in History from the Middle Age to Present.
The aim of the course is the knowledge of the major transformations of labour in the contemporary age, with particular regard to the processes of change from the 1970s to present time.

Knowledge and understanding:
- knowledge of the major transformations concerning the world of labour in the Italian society, and their political and cultural representations
- knowledge of the historical debate about labour changes
- comprehension of the interdisciplinary nature of labour issues (history, economics, sociology, anthropology, Cultural Studies)
- comprehension of the manifold subjects involved in labour regulation (workers, trade unions, trade associations, policy makers)

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
- ability to understand the current debate about labour
- ability to comment a source concerning the cultures of labour
- ability to plan an interdisciplinary research about labour issues

Communication skills:
- participating in a collective discussion adopting a suitable terminology
- expressing in the written form the outcomes of an original research

Aptitude for interdisciplinarity and basic understanding of English.

Work and environment in contemporary Italy

The course will be devoted to the relations between work and environment in Italy, with particular regard to the processes of industrialization and deindustrialization from the "economic miracle" to the present day. The “employment versus environment dilemma” will be reconstructed historically starting from the policies of industrial development, the struggles for workers' health in the factories, the experiences of "labour environmentalism" and the emergence of new environmentalist movements, reconstructing moments of conflict, but also of collaboration, between environmentalist movements and the workers' movement. The course therefore aims to open up spaces for dialogue between labour and environmental history, by combining theoretical and methodological international discussion with an in-depth study of some specific cases.

FOR ALL (ATTENDING AND NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS)

Giorgio Nebbia, Scritti di storia dell’ambiente e dell’ambientalismo 1970-2013, a cura di Luigi Piccioni, «Quaderni di Altronovecento» n. 4, Fondazione Luigi Micheletti, Brescia 2014, pp. 188-289 (the essay will be made available on moodle)
Gabriella Corona, Breve storia dell'ambiente in Italia, il Mulino, Bologna 2015

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

In addition to the compulsory readings for all, also:
Saverio Luzzi, Il virus del benessere. Ambiente, salute, sviluppo nell'Italia repubblicana, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2009
Richard White, “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?”: Work and Nature, in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. by William Cronon, W.W. Norton, New York 1996, pp. 171-185 (the essay will be made available on moodle)

ATTENDING STUDENTS

In addition to the two compulsory readings, the exam for students attending the course will consist of the discussion of a paper (minimum 20,000 characters) in which the course topics are developed in a personal and interdisciplinary way. Participation in at least 7 out of 10 lectures is required in order to be considered as attending. The paper must be delivered to the teacher at least one week before the exams.

The exam will consist in an oral assessment.
Non-attending students are kindly requested to meet/get in touch with the professor well in advance of the exam, to avoid misunderstandings about the programme.

The course has the structure of a seminar, with 50% of lectures and 50% of discussion among participants. Attendance is warmly recommended.

Italian

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development