Italina Identity and Mediterraneean Alterities

This course is divided in two parts, one on theory and the other on readings and textual analysis. The first part will be centered on the work of Edward Said and Franco Cassano, on a variety of work on immigration and on the formation of a multicultural social fabric in Southern Italy. Particular emphasis will be given to the presence of the Arab immigration that is now beginning to have its own literary voice in Italian. The second part will focus on the analysis of selected texts pertaining to these issues. Class discussions will examine the dichotomy of a mythological corrupted South versus an efficient, productive and industrial North which is at the base of Franco Cassano’s theory of the meridian thought. (This course can also count for the Master in Mediterranean Studies)

Required texts: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedura, Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli, 2007. Leonardo Sciascia, Consiglio d’Egitto
Maria Attanasio, Di Concetta e le sue donne, Sellerio, 1999. Roberto Saviano, Gomorra. Viaggio nell'impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra, Mondadori, 2006. Daniela Carmosino, Uccidiamo la luna a marechiaro. il Sud nella nuova narrativa italiana, Donzelli, 2009.
Franco Cassano, Il pensiero meridiano, Laterza, 2005 (1996).