ITAL 6840

Vogliamo Tutto!: The Italian 1970s

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

Long hair, colorful clothes, psychedelic music, free love and stormy demonstrations: this is the image that the 1970s engraved in our collective imagination.  Framed by two waves of strikes - victorious in 1969 and defeated in 1980 - the Italian seventies were a rebellious time.  At the end of the economic boom, this decade experienced the outbreak of multiple contradictions that had accumulated in the postwar period, when a poor and rural country had rapidly turned into a modern industrial society.  In these years, Italy appeared dramatically torn between tradition and modernity.  This seminar will explore these transformations, focusing on the relationship between culture and politics.  Feminism, student and worker movements, violence and terrorism: the lexicon of the 1970s helps us to depict a diverse landscape beyond the dominant cliché of the "years of lead."  We will scrutinize multiple sources - novels, films, songs and political essays - as well as memorial and historical productions.

When Offered Fall.

Comments Conducted in Italian.

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