History

This course provides an introduction to the study of culture, society, and tradition in Scotland, with the emphasis on deconstructing competing conceptions and images of the nation. Theoretical approaches to the investigation of cultural construction, representation, and expression are introduced through heritage, literature, folklore, music, song, visual art, and the popular media. Students are also invited to consider the political context of cultural representation and investigate the interface between culture and industry.

This course has as its subject Paul Kennedy’s stimulating thesis on the rise and fall of the great powers and the extensive criticism which arose. The focus is on the history of the great powers, their strengths and weaknesses, since 1500: the Habsburg Empire, the France of Louis XIV and of Napoleon, the British Empire, the German bid for mastery in the 20th century, the fate of Japan, the rise and demise of the Soviet Union, and the fall and subsequent rise of China in the 19th and 20th centuries. Special attention is paid to the United States, which played a crucial role in the history of the 20th century and was after 1991 the only remaining superpower. Since the publication of Kennedy’s study the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the rise of China and the seeming decline of the United States have given the debate a sense of immediacy. In addition, the conflicts among the great powers, such as the Napoleonic wars, the world wars, and the Cold War, have fundamentally changed the course of history. The rivalry among great powers often also functioned as a powerful dynamo that spurred development and modernization.

This course explores the place of food in art in France, with a focus on the modern and contemporary periods. Throughout the course, representations of food are studied as a means to survey the evolution of French art within a global context, and as significant markers of social, ethnic, and cultural identity. The analysis of these depictions provides the opportunity to learn about dietary and dining customs, habits, and beliefs prevalent in France from the early modern period to the present. The course begins by decoding the archetypal representations of succulent food in the still life and genre painting of 16th-17th-century Holland, which established the conventions of the genre for centuries to come. It then examines how the rise of these previously minor artistic genres in 18th-century France coincided with the birth of French gastronomy. Frivolous depictions of aristocrats wining, dining, and indulging in exotic beverages like coffee and hot chocolate then give way in post-Revolutionary France to visions of austerity and “real life,” featuring potato-eating peasants. The focus then shifts to representations of food and dining in the age of modernity, when Paris was the undisputed capital of art, luxury, haute cuisine, and innovation. The course analyzes how Impressionist picnics and café scenes transgress social and artistic codes. Building on their momentum, Paul Cézanne launches an aesthetic revolution with an apple. Paul Gauguin’s depictions of mangos and guavas speak to his quest for new, “exotic” sources of inspiration, and allow discussion of questions of race, gender, and French colonialist discourse. Drawing from these pictorial and social innovations, the course subsequently observes the place of food and dining themes in the avant-garde movements of early 20th-century Paris, whose defiance of conventional society and art leads them to transform previously comforting themes into troubling ones.  It questions the place of food—or its absence—in art to capture the suffering and violence of upheavals like the Second World War and consider the place of food and dining in contemporary art: from the Pop Art movement’s calling into question postwar consumer society through its representations of mass-produced food; to contemporary creators in a plural and globalized art scene who use these traditional themes to challenge the status and roles of the artist, the spectator, and the work of art itself; to how depictions of food in visual art grapple with multiculturalism in France today. 

This course is an introduction to the history of Africa South of the Sahara from the 19th century to the 1990s. To balance historical breadth with depth, the course analyzes some selected case-studies to highlight major historical trends and see their effects on the local level. The first lectures are an introduction to the history of the continent. The course discusses the idea of “Africa without history,” the evolution of the historical studies on Africa and the sources that Africanists have at their disposal. The course then analyzes the slave trades - local, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean- and highlights their economic, social, and political effects on the African societies involved. The course continues with the origins of imperialism, to see how Western scientific and technological discoveries, the European political and economic situation, the 19th-century racism as well as the work of missionaries and explorers, put the basis for the scramble for Africa. The course then sees the reactions of African societies to the colonial occupation and analyzes the different forms of colonialism. Particular attention is given to the early developments of African nationalism. The course investigates the participation of Africa in WWI and WWII and the development of international movements, especially panafricanism and négritude. The course then considers the most important phases of the decolonization process, from the independence of Ghana in 1957 to the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. The last part of the course focuses on specific case-studies to provide examples of the political and economic choices of the leaders of post-independence Africa. The course discusses some of the most prominent political leaders, such as Julius Nyerere, Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, and Nelson Mandela, and their writings. The course investigates the impact of colonialism on independent African countries and analyzes the relationship between history, nationalism, and the formation of the post-colonial state.

This course is part of the LM degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. This course discusses specificities that characterize contemporary Italian history and in particular of the social, political, economic transformations, in addition to those related to the mentality and customs, of Italy in the twentieth century. The course examines the methodological competences necessary for reaching an adequate level of critical and interpretative awareness in the field of contemporary Italian history.