OLLI Spring 2018
Francesco Spagnolo
Contact: [email protected]
This course examines contemporary works of prose, fiction, poetry, cinema, and music by or about Italian Jews during the 20th century, focusing on the particular status of Jewish intellectuals under the Fascist Regime between the two World Wars. With the exception of Giorgio Bassani, it mainly concentrates on authors from the city of Turin, in the northwestern region of Piedmont: Natalia Ginzburg, Carlo Levi, Primo Levi, and Vittorio Dan Segre.
Week 1: April 4
Jews in Italy: History and Culture
Week 2: April 11
The Silver Age of Italian Jewry and the Rise of Italian Fascism
Week 3: April 18
Family Ties: Giorgio Bassani and Natalia Ginzburg
Week 4: April 25
Intellectual Networks: Carlo Levi and Vittorio Dan Segre
Week 5: May 2
Primo Levi: A Lone Giant?
Week 6: May 9
Legacies: History, Politics, and (Jewish) Literary Classics in Post-WW2 Italy
Materials referenced and presented in class include the following:
1. Books
Giorgio Bassani. The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, Atheneum, New York 1965
Natalia Ginzburg. The Things We Used to Say, Arcade Press, New York 1999
Carlo Levi. Christ Stopped at Eboli, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, New York 2001
Primo Levi. Survival in Auschwitz, Collier, New York 1993
Primo Levi. The Periodic Table, Schocken, New York 1984
Dan Vittorio Segre. Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew: An Italian Story, Adler & Adler, Bethesda 1987
2. Films
Vittorio De Sica. Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (Italy 1970, 94 min., English subtitles)
Francesco Rosi. Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Italy 1983, 118 min., English subtitles)
3. Encyclopedia Articles
“Italy,” “Piedmont,” “Turin” and “Ferrara” in Encyclopaedia Judaica