Seminal Events in Italian History and Culture from Unification to the Present

This course will examine seminal events from the Unification of Italy (1861) to the present--events that marked and shaped ‘Italian identity” as it is known today in its uniqueness and ambiguity. The annexation of the South, the conquest of Rome with the still unresolved “Catholic Question” regarding the role of the Vatican in Italian public and political life, will be illustrated and studied along with the debacle of WWI, Fascism, the Armistice, the Resistance, the effect of the Cold War on the new postwar Democracy and the rapid economic growth that in ten years transformed a “patriarchal familistic” society, uprooting rural culture and freeing women from their traditional role.