Narratives of the Fascist Past: Memory, Forgetting, and the Myth of the Good Italian (In English)
In this course we will examine a troublingly persistent trope in post-fascist Italian culture: the myth of the “Good Italian” or the belief that Italians, benevolent by nature, overwhelmingly opposed the ideals of the fascist regime, protected Jews from deportation, and regularly subverted fascist law. Students will read several key literary texts—Gadda’s That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana, Loy’s First Words, Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and Lucarelli’s Carte Blanche—alongside academic historiography, popular histories, journalism, and testimonies in order to fully grasp what is at stake in the heated public and scholarly debate over the “Good Italian”. We will consider issues such as the possibility of knowing history through literature, the ethical implications that arise from that possibility, and the narrative mechanisms through which the literary text engages or fails to engage questions of individual and collective accountability. (ENAM 0103 or CMLT 0101 or permission of the instructor) 3 hrs. sem.