Letteratura inglese comparata / Comparative English Literature

This course intends to 1) present specialist and non-specialist students with the main cultural and literary trends of late modern and contemporary Britain and Italy; 2) focus on the main features of travel and migrant writing in Anglo-Italian contexts; 3) work on the relation between genre and gender, as well as national identity and otherness; 4) improve the students’ use of text analysis and literary appreciation tools.

Both the course and the syllabus are divided into 2 modules:

1) Writing Italy: Fiction and Travel (3 ECTS);

2) Italian Migrant Communities in Scotland: Perceptions and Self-Perceptions (3 ECTS);

The course will be held both in Italian and in English. The materials that will be used in class, complete with the extracts that have been chosen, bibliographical references and audio-video materials, will be immediately made available in electronic form.

Module A, Writing Italy: Fiction and Travel (3 ECTS), is centred on four XIX-XXI century English writers: Charles Dickens, E.M. Forster, Muriel Spark, and Jan Morris. The extracts that will be presented in class will draw the students’ attention to the way the Italian “other” has been represented until today.

Module B, Italian Migrant Communities in Scotland: Perceptions and Self-Perceptions (3 ECTS), will focus on Joe Pieri (1918-2012), Ann Marie Di Mambro (1949―), Anne Pia (1951―) e Mary Contini (1961―), Scots-Italian writers, who have written about the Italian communities in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Their works will throw light on the history of Italian migration to Britain as well as on the concepts of identity, “perception” and “self-perception”.

A. Writing Italy: Fiction and Travel (3 ECTS)

Texts

Erasmus and international students will study the given extracts and will read one of the listed works:

• Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy (1846) [Penguin Classics, latest ed.]
• E.M. Forster, A Room with a View (1908) [Penguin Classics, latest ed.]
• Muriel Spark, Territorial Rights (1979) [Virago, latest ed.]
• Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (2001) [Faber & Faber, latest ed.]

Those who have no or little knowledge of XIX-XX century English Literature will study

• Harry Blamires, A Short History of English Literature, London, Rouledge, 2013, pp. 231-423.

The relevant information about the above-mentioned authors and works will be found in the PPT presentation that will also be made available in electronic form.

Methodology

Erasmus and international students will study

• Tim Youngs, The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 50-177.

B. Italian Migrant Communities in Scotland: Perceptions and Self-Perceptions (3 ECTS)

Primary Texts

For this module, Erasmus and international students will study the given extracts and will read one of these works in full:

• Joe Pieri, The Isle of the Displaced; An Italian-Scot’s Memoirs of Internment in the Second World War (1997) [also in Kindle ed. 2014]
• Ann Marie Di Mambro, Tally’s Blood (2002) [also in Kindle ed. 2014]
• Mary Contini, Dear Olivia: An Italian Journey of Love and Courage (2007) [either in paperback or Kindle ed.]
• Anne Pia, Language of My Choosing. The Candid Life-Memoir of an Italian-Scot (2017) [either in paperback or Kindle ed.]

The relevant information about the above-mentioned authors and works will be found in the PPT presentation that will also be made available in electronic form.

Historical and Methodological Essays

Students will read

• Burrell Kathy and Panikos Panayi, Histories and Memories: Migrants and their History in Britain, London, I.B. Tauris 2006, pp. 57-74.
• Colpi Terri, Italians’ Count in Scotland: The 1933 Census. Recording History, London, The St. James Press, 2015, pp. 101-120.
• D’Amore Manuela, Neutralising “difference by silence”, “choosing to remain peripheral”: Xenophobia, Marginalisation and Death in Italian Scottish Migrant Narratives of World War II, in I. Sirkeci and M. Zulfiu Alili (a cura di), The Migration Conference 2020 Proceedings: Migration and Integration, London, Transnational Press, 2020, pp. 131-134.
• D’Amore Manuela, Transcultural Identities, Plurilingualism and Gender in Scottish Italian Literary Writing: Ann Marie Di Mambro, Anne Pia and Mary Contini, «Polyphonie», vol. 7, n. 1, 2020, pp. 1-21.

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.