ITALN-225 Fascism and Popular Culture
The word “fascism” makes us think of a top-down ideology celebrating homogeneity and the cult of the leader. This course invites you to rethink fascism as a bottom-up process of identity formation by focusing on how pop culture worked in Mussolini's Italy. What were free time and imagination in the eyes of the State? How was art used to respond to modernity and create Fascist modernism? How were violent ideologies circulated and resisted through leisure activities? What can we learn about the persistence of fascist ideas today by focusing on their cultural politics?
Standard Course (40)
Credits
1.00
Offered
Fall
Notes
Taught in English. No knowledge of Italian required.