Modern Philology

This course analyzes different cultural productions (literature, film, videos, podcasts), focusing specifically on systems of discriminations and inequalities produced during colonial times and reproduced in postcolonial societies. We will concentrate on the Italian racial history and on the processes of racialization enacted in the colonies and reproduced in contemporary Italy, with a specific focus on the intersection of race and gender and on intersectional feminism. We will read texts of postcolonial theory, gender studies, race studies, we will learn the methodologies of intersectionality and cultural studies, and we will intersect categories of oppression, mainly race, gender, and color, in different geopolitical contexts. The last part of the course will be devoted to climate fiction in a gendered perspective and to feminist afrofuturism.

This course does not require any previous knowledge in the field. However, a knowledge - however basic - of gender theory can be very useful.

READING LIST Texts you will need to buy or borrow from the library: ** Reni Eddo-Lodge, Perché non parlo più di razzismo con le persone bianche, Roma, e/o, 2021. ** Nadeesha Uyangoda, L’unica persona nera nella stanza, Roma, 66thand2nd, 2021. Texts uploaded to Google Classroom or available online: * Raewyn Connell, La questione del genere, in Questioni di genere, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2011, pp. 33-48. * Adriana Cavarero, Il pensiero femminista. Un approccio teoretico, in Le filosofie femministe (a cura di Adriana Cavarero e Franco Restaino), Milano, Mondadori, 2002, pp. 78-115. * Lorenzo Bernini, Le teorie queer. Un’introduzione, Milano, Mimesis, 2017 (estratti). * Valentina Amenta e Claudia Fauzia, Femminismo terrone. Per un’alleanza di margini, Capitolo I, Roma, Edizioni Tlon, 2024, pp. 4-27. * Gaia Giuliani, Bianchezza, in Femministe a parole (a cura di Sabrina Marchetti, Jamila H. M. Mascat e Vincenza Perilli), Roma, Ediesse, 2012, pp. 32-36. * Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz, Colore e Razza, in Femministe a parole (a cura di Sabrina Marchetti, Jamila H. M. Mascat e Vincenza Perilli), Roma, Ediesse, 2012, pp. 59-63 e 237-241. * Tatiana Petrovich Njegosh, Che cos’è la razza? Il caso dell’Italia, in «From the European South» 1 (2016) 83-93, http://europeansouth.postcolonialitalia.it * Stefania De Petris, Tra «agency» e differenze. Percorsi del femminismo postcoloniale, in «Studi Culturali» II,2 (Dicembre 2005), pp. 259-90. * Camilla Hawthorne, Prefazione, in Future, a cura di Igiaba Scego, Firenze, Effequ, 2019, pp. 19-32. * Djarah Kan, “Non chiamatemi afroitaliana,” Latte riot, 1 Settembre 2020, https://latteriot.wordpress.com/2020/09/01/non-chiamatemi-afroitaliana/ * Caterina Romeo, Intersezionalità e critica letteraria: questioni di metodo, in Percorsi di teoria e comparatistica letteraria, a cura di Stefania Sini e Franca Sinopoli, Milano, Pearson, 2021, pp. 433-456. * Elena Dell'Agnese, La Climate Fiction secondo l'Ecocritical Geopolitics: un'agenda per la ricerca, in «Rivista geografica italiana», CXXIX, Fasc. 2, giugno 2022, pp. 110-126. * Giulia Fabbri, Controvisualità e pratiche estetiche oltre i confini dello spazio-tempo: l'afrofuturismo, in Sguardi (post)coloniali. Razza, genere e politiche della visualità, Verona, ombre corte, 2021, pp 159-85. ** Tlotlo Tsamaase, Eco-umani, in Meteotopia. Futuri di (in)giustizia climatica, a cura di Francesco Verso, Future Fiction, Roma 2022, pp. 14-28. ** Lucia Ghebreghiorges, Zeta, in Future, pp. 89-96. ** Espérance Hakuzwimana Ripanti, Lamiere, in Future, pp. 187-207. Lectures online * Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story, TED Talk, July 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en * Kimberle Crenshaw, The Urgency of Intersectionality, TED Talk, October 2016, https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality Podcast * Nadeesha Uyangoda, Natasha Fernando, Maria Catena Mancuso, Sulla razza (episodi “Razza”, “Colorismo”, “Razzismo sistemico”).

Class attendance is non mandatory and there is no difference in the readings and exams for attending and non-attending students. However, considering the complexity of the issues examined and of the methodology adopted, ATTENDANCE IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Students are encouraged to join class discussion, share their reflections, ask questions, answer other students’ questions. Students can take the exam written OR oral. The only opportunity for students to take a written exam will be in early January. In any of the other dates the exam will be oral. WRITTEN EXAM: Students will be assigned two hours’ time to complete the written exam. Students will be expected to answer 6 open questions: 2 of them will require shorter answers (approx. 10 lines – 3 points each) and 4 of them will require longer and more complex answers (approx. 20 lines-one page – 6 points each). ORAL EXAM: The oral exam lasts approximately 40 minutes. Students will be asked 5-6 questions on some of the texts in the syllabus, which they will have to discuss at length. Since an oral exam is a conversation, the number of question asked and the trajectory of the exam will be very much defined by how students answer questions.

The course will take place in person. The course is organized mainly in lectures, during which students are expected to ask questions and make observations. There will be a number of seminars on specific texts and topics (lezione-laboratorio), which will be articulated through the students’ questions and observations. Class discussion is strongly encouraged.