U.S.: INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

The course is conceived for students of the Literatures (LLEAP), International Relations (RIC) and History programs. It provides students with an advanced level of historical knowledge about US culture, with a focus on the intellectual history of US foreign relations. As a course taught entirely in English, it provides students with the possibility to consolidate their English language and communication skills. The course will allow students to learn how to prepare a reasoned bibliography, on topics of US history in particular. By putting an emphasis on the historical method of inquiry, the course will provide students with the capacity to analyze, and to develop original and well-founded interpretations about historical events and processes beyond the specific topic of the course itself. All the above combined will provide students with historical consciousness about US culture and with enhanced ability to deal with intercultural issues.

Through the readings, the lectures, and the class discussions, the students will acquire:
a) a confident knowledge of the contribution by different US intellectuals to the making of US foreign policy in the 20th and early 21st century;
b) a confident knowledge of the basic concepts adopted by the different schools of thought ("realism", "exceptionalism", "cold war", "open door imperialism", etc.);
c) a good capacity to treat various kinds of primary and secondary sources;
d) the basic methodological tools for the elaboration of autonomous research work in the field of intellectual history;
e) a good degree of knowledge of the lexicon of the intellectual history of US foreign policy, finalized at the communication of historical and political contents also beyond the scope of the course itself.

As an advanced course in US history, the course requires a basic knowledge of US history, and particularly of US history in the 20th century, as from the following textbooks:

Arnaldo Testi, Il secolo degli Stati Uniti, Il Mulino, 2006 (or later editions)
Mario Del Pero, Libertà e impero, Laterza, 2008 (or later editions)
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, vol 2, Norton, 2004 (or later editions)

The course provides students with a deep and critical knowledge of US intellectual elaborations about US foreign policy from 1945 to the present, with an emphasis on how selected intellectuals have helped shape policy or have criticized it. The basic concepts adopted by the different schools of thought ("realism", "exceptionalism", "cold war", "open door imperialism", etc.) will be analyzed in detail and their emergence will be placed in context. Please note: a detailed program including indications of what readings should be prepared for each class will be provided by the professor at the beginning of the courses and will be uploaded in the Moodle page of the class (https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=2086 ).

Students who regularly attend the class can prepare the exam on:

1) the class notes;
2) the slides from the classes, which will be made available on Moodle (https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=2086 ) before the end of the course;
3) a list of documents and writings by selected authors, which will be made available on Moodle (https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=2086 ) at the start of the course;
3) the following books and articles:
M. Cox and D. Stokes (eds.), "US Foreign Policy", Oxford, 2012 (Chapp. 3, 4, 5 and 21)
Perry Anderson, "American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers", London, 2014 (pp 1-235)
5) any other appropriate source, as required by their final paper (see description of exam).

Students who do not attend the classes on a regular basis should prepare the exam on:

1) the class notes;
2) the slides from the classes, which will be made available on Moodle (https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=2086 ) before the end of the course;
3) a list of documents and writings by selected authors, which will be made available on Moodle (https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=2086 ) at the start of the course;
4) The following books and articles:
M. Cox and D. Stokes (eds.), "US Foreign Policy", Oxford, 2012 (Chapp. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 18 and 21)
Perry Anderson, "American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers", London, 2014 (pp 1-235)
5) Any other appropriate source, as required by their final paper (see description of exam)

ATTENTION - UPDATE 29.4.2020

The exam consists of two parts.

1) One week before the oral exam, students should turn in a final paper concerning the work of a chosen intellectual among those considered by the program. The paper must have the final characteristics: ca. 3000 words in length, a title indicating clearly the paper's topic and thesis, a final bibliography indicating all the sources that have been used in writing, an indication of the sources for any information that is not absolutely banal or derivated from logical reasoning. The topic of the final paper should be communicated and discussed with the professor well ahead of the oral exam. The final paper accounts for 40% of the final grade. Please note: students can prepare the final paper in small groups if they wish (up to 3 students per group). Plagiarism is not allowed.

2) Given the measures for "social distancing" adopted in response to the "coronavirus emergency", for all the remaining examination sessions of the academic year 2019-20 the oral part of the exam will take place in videoconference. Technical details will be communicated before the exam. The oral exam contributes 60% to the final grade, has an average duration of 20 minutes and consists of two main questions (each one possibly followed by more specific questions) aimed, respectively, at veryfing the students' general knowledge of the program and (ability in rendering a coherent picture concerning the evolution of US foreign-policy thinking during the 20th century; ability in linking the changing interpretations of US foreign policy with the changing intellectual and political contexts in the US; ability to make use of the historical categories adopted in the readings and in class; ability to discuss critically the different interpretations of specific events and processes as they result from the program readings; ability to develop their own reflections on the topics of the course) and at discussing any critical point emerging from the final paper. Please note: the inability to locate the specific events discussed in the course in the broader context of US 20th century history (as from the Requirements section above) constitutes a reason for not passing the exam.

Frontal lectures, with slides and use of multimedia material. The slides will be made available by the teacher in the moodle page of the course, before the end of the classes. Questions and debates in class are extremely welcome.

Inglese

The teacher is easily available for questions concerning the course at his office hours and by email at duccio.basosi@unive.it. Emails have to be written in a formal style (not "Hi prof." or "Salve prof.", but "Good morning", "Buongiorno", and the likes) and should not ask questions whose answer can be found in the information contained in this syllabus.

scritto e orale

Questo insegnamento tratta argomenti connessi alla macroarea "Cooperazione internazionale" e concorre alla realizzazione dei relativi obiettivi ONU dell'Agenda 2030 per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile