OSPFLOR 64F: Migrant Culture and Literature in Italy and the Mediterranean

Instructor: Miccoli, Dario

This course is an in-depth exploration of modern Italy and the Mediterranean from the perspective of migrant culture, literature and heritage. We will study how the Mediterranean sea has been imagined and narrated in contemporary Italian culture, and how Italian postcolonial and migration history shaped these representations. While we will briefly touch on the history of diasporas and migrants in the Mediterranean region, our primary focus will be the culture and literature of migration in late twentieth and early twenty-first century Italy. Particular attention will be devoted to issues of memory and transcultural dialogue, as well as to heritage and the arts.

Weeks 1-5 of the course will be an exploration of how the Mediterranean has been theorized by contemporary historians, anthropologists and philosophers. We will then move to the discussion of diasporas, refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean world and how modern Italian culture approached these issues. The last two classes of this segment will explore contemporary Italian authors of migrant origin both through a theoretical exploration of migrant literature and world literature, and by reading some of their most significant texts.

The latter segment (weeks 6-9) will offer a comprehensive examination of cultural representations of migration and the Mediterranean in today’s Italy, looking at cinema and visual arts, museums and exhibitions and artivism. We will then focus on the city of Florence and how the Mediterranean and Italian postcolonial and migrant culture are visible (or not) in its urban fabric. Lastly, the relation between religious identity and migration will be considered through a discussion of transcultural and ecumenical practices in Italy and beyond.

Units: 3 | Grading Basis: Letter grade | Component: Seminar 
Category: Elective

*All courses are subject to change.