ENGLISH CULTURE AND LITERATURE

The course is part of the basic disciplines of the degree course in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation.
The main goal of the course is to offer a diachronic overview of British imaginary societies. The course will offer the students the tools to link English literature to its historical context and the social instances of that time.

At the end of the course, the students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate deep knowledge of the primary texts
2. Demonstrate deep knowledge of the secondary texts and the interpretative methodology
3. Demonstrate deep knowledge of the historical and geographical context in which the primary works were produced
4. Situate a literary work within the culture that produced it and with the genre system
5. Autonomously analyse the primary texts using the methodology explained in class
6. Comment on the historical and cultural context through the primary sources
7. Comment on the translation choices and complete short translation tasks from English into Italian
8. Identify and make explicit the links among the literary works, especially from a transmedia perspective
9. Illustrate the evolution of the English society through the evolution of its utopian and dystopian thought

There are no prerequisites to attend this course, but I suggest at least a B1 in English, and a confident understanding and use of the formal register in Italian, both written and spoken.

The course is structured as a diachronic exploration of imaginary societies produced in the Anglo-Saxon context, with particular attention to works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Using a methodology based on sociology, students will be able to analyse utopian and dystopian texts in connection to the society that produced them, in order to identify its needs, fears, and hopes.

The first part of the course focuses on the definition of the utopian literary genre and on its position within the genre system, especially with respect to science fiction. We will also reflect on popular fiction and the ways in which it can be symptomatic of the collective needs of a given society. Finally, we will deal with some sociological concepts that will let us interpret the works covered in the second part of the course.

The second part of the course uses the abovementioned methodology to analyse utopian and dystopian fiction through a close reading of the texts. We will also reflect on the translation choices featuring in the Italian editions of the primary works (see bibliography).

Letteratura:
Morris, William. Notizie da nessun luogo (1891). Prefazione di Carlo Pagetti. Ledizioni, 2020.
Foster, E.M. “La macchina si ferma” (1909) in La macchina si ferma e altri racconti. Oscar Mondadori, 2020.
Orwell, George. 1984 (1949). Introduzione di Filippo La Porta. Giunti, 2021.
Doctorow, Cory. “Pane non autorizzato” in Radicalized. Quattro storie del futuro. Mondadori, 2021.

Film:
Arancia Meccanica. Stanley Kubrick, 1972.
I figli degli uomini. Alfonso Cuarón, 2006.

Opere secondarie
Suvin, Darko. Le metamorfosi della fantascienza. Poetica e storia di un genere letterario. Il Mulino, 1985. (Solamente la prima parte, “Poetica”)
Pagetti, Carlo. “‘I experience past and future all at once’: storicità ed etica degli universi alternativi” in ContactZone 1, 2020. 7-19.
Di Minico, Elisabetta. Il futuro in bilico. l mondo contemporaneo tra controllo, utopia e distopia. Meltemi, 2018.
Lamberti, Elena. “Oltre il déjà vu: fantascienza, inquinamento cognitivo e società mediatizzate” in ContactZone 1, 2020. 117-123.
Bauman, Zygmunt e Riccardo Mazzeo. Elogio della letteratura. Einaudi, 2017. (Prefazione e capitoli 1, 3, 8, 12)

The exam will be an oral interview, the mark assigned on a scale of 18 to 30 (18 being pass, 30 cum laude being A+). I will evaluate the knowledge of the theoretical and primary texts, together with the ability to comment on a text critically.
Students that attend the course in full will be allowed to talk about a primary text of their choice, commenting critically on it and demonstrating that they can apply the methodology.

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS:
Students that cannot attend the course in full must contact the lecturer to agree on a list of materials to prepare for the exam, which will be as illustrated above.

In-person classes. Some of the lessons will feature an open discussion of the primary texts with the direct participation of the students, in order to stimulate their critical skills.

Italian

oral