STILL TRYING TO FINISH YOUR SPRING SCHEDULE? THE ITALIAN DEPARTMENT AND COMPARATIVE LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES ARE OFFERING TWO NEW COURSES FOR THE SPRING 2016 SEMESTER
NARRATING THE ARAB SPRING
CLCS 3888, Wed 2:00 PM – 4:45 PM (in English)
PROFESSOR: Amara Lakhous, amara.lakhous@gmail.com
The Arab Spring was a political, social, and cultural earthquake. In a short period of time, four dictators were forced out of office: in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. While each case must be studied separately, the very fact of their overthrow is proof that the Arab world is not homogeneous. In Tunisia and Egypt, the uprisings were successful because certain elements of modernity, including a strong civil society, existed. Tunisia, for example, promulgated its first constitution in 1861; Egypt formed its first parliament in 1866, just five years after the unification of Italy. The situation differed in Yemen, Libya and Syria, societies based on tribes and clans, without the necessary elements of the modern state. Our study will encompass and confront these realities.
Our attempt to understand the Arab Spring will be based on the narratives of writers, filmmakers, artists, photographers, cartoonists, musicians, etc. We shall attempt to analyze the Arab Spring within its three essential time frames: before, during, and, especially, the aftermath. We shall examine causes and effects: What role did corruption play in the advent of the Arab Spring? Why was non-violence understood as essential to its success? Why did the violence of the military and the fundamentalists result in the failure of these revolutions? Why did certain Arab countries “miss” their Arab Spring?
MEDIEVAL ITALIAN LITERATURE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
ILCS 3295 / ILCS 5377, Mo 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM (in English)
PROFESSOR: Andrea Celli, andrea.celli@uconn.edu
The aim of the course is to situate the medieval origins of Italian literature and cultures in the context of contemporary Mediterranean civilizations. Instead of looking at the Italian origins as the foundation of a coherent and homogeneous national identity, still far to come, the course will stress those intellectual and symbolic elements that place its reality in a wider and boundary-crossing background. The course’s ambition is to make capital of the variety of competences represented at the LCL, whose Faculty will be invited to offer single lectures, in reason of their research specialty and availability. This will give the students a taste of the variety of disciplines and scholarly areas covered by the Department. The course will start from an introduction to contemporary debates on the usage of the Mediterranean as a paradigm in the study of medieval and early-modern literatures, in particular in relation to issues such as interconnectedness, cross-culturality, multilingualism, and inter-faith relations. With additional requirements, the course is also open to GRAD STUDENTS, who will enroll either through ILCS 5377-001 (Topics in transnational Italy) or choosing Independent Study.
For more information, contact: Andrea Celli at andrea.celli@uconn.edu