SOC 390 – Italy outside Italy: Italian culture and identity in Italy, America and the world

Description
This course examines the history of Italian emigration and Italian communities around the world as well as the transnational culture and identity they developed. The focus will be on Italians in America (not just the US), and on the Italian emigrants’ point of view. We will discuss how they viewed themselves as belonging to an important, ancient culture and how they faced prejudice and discrimination to finally integrate into the new country as Italian Americans. We will discover their culture through stories, memories, and movies produced by Italian migrants (rather than about them), and we will examine their ongoing links with Italian culture in Italy. The international success of Italian Americans in the movies and popular culture, together with the new emigration of young professionals from Italy, has kept Italian culture outside Italy alive and relevant, transforming it into an internationally well-known “global culture”.

Objectives and Outcomes
On completion of the course, students should be able to:

– Actively discuss issues of national and trans-national identity
– Understand the practical and theoretical content of the notion of “trans-national culture”
– Analyse their own experience living abroad and interacting with Italian society

Course descriptions may be subject to occasional minor modifications at the discretion of the instructor.

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