Fascism and Culture

In this seminar we will examine several aspects of cultural life under Italian fascism, both in terms of primary materials (literary, cinematic, and architectural), and with respect to the rich historiography and analysis of these materials. Our questions will range from "what defined Italian fascism?" to "how did artistic and cultural production function under Mussolini, and what do we need to know in order to decipher it in context?", and beyond that, to "how has fascist-era cultural production been appropriated, disavowed, and otherwise (mis)understood in the decades since the end of fascism?". Materials will include works (in Italian) by Silone, Gramsci, Moravia, Carlo Levi, Rosetta Loy, and Antonio Pennacchi, as well as secondary sources (in Italian and English) by Emilio Gentile, R.J.B. Bosworth, Schnapp, Stone, Ben-Ghiat, Fogu, and Falasca-Zamponi.