Ateneo - UPO

The course provides a general introduction to early modern, modern, and contemporary history.

All students will prepare the topics covered in the course through the complete reading of • Alberto Mario Banti, "L’età contemporanea. Dalla Grande Guerra a oggi", Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009 e successive. • Guido Dall'Olio, “Storia moderna. I temi e le fonti”, Carocci, Roma 2017 (the entire volume and all sources, with the exception of chapter 1, which is mandatory only for non-attending students). • Renata Ago, Vittorio Vidotto, “Storia moderna”, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2021. • Vittorio Tigrino, "Colonizzazione delle spiagge, spazio urbano e rischio ambientale in una comunità del genovesato nel XVIII Secolo", in «Geotema», supplemento 2021, anno XXV, pp. 53-62 (the essay is available on Dir). Students will also need to read a monograph from the following list: • George Mosse, Sessualità e nazionalismo. Mentalità borghese e rispettabilità, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1996. • Eric J. Leed, Terra di nessuno. La grande guerra. Esperienza bellica e identità personale nella prima guerra mondiale, Il Mulino, 2007. • Victoria De Grazia, L’impero irresistibile. La società dei consumi americana alla conquista del mondo, Torino, Einaudi, 2005. • Alessandro Portelli, L’ordine è già stato eseguito. Roma, le Fosse Ardeatine, la memoria, Donzelli, Roma 1999. • Mario Del Pero, Libertà e impero. Gli Stati Uniti e il mondo, 1776-2011, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2011. • Silvio Pons, La rivoluzione globale. Storia del comunismo internazionale 1917-1991, Torino, Einaudi, 2012. • Sara Lorenzini, Una strana guerra fredda. Lo sviluppo e le relazioni Nord-Sud, Il Mulino, Bologna 2017. • Serhii Plokhy, Chernobyl. Storia di una catastrofe nucleare, Rizzoli, Milano 2019. • Arturo Marzano, Marcella Simoni (a cura di), Il labirinto di Gaza. Storie, politiche, rappresentazioni (1987-2023), Brescia, Scholé, 2024.

The course aims to discuss the main themes of early modern, modern, and contemporary history, also from an interdisciplinary perspective. The course has the following purposes at a basic level: -Knowledge and understanding: ability to understand early modern, modern, and contemporary history in its transformations through the time; -Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: to be able to independently read scientific literature related to early modern, modern, and contemporary history; -Expression of judgments: to be able at least in an elementary way to evaluate and argue the dynamics related to early modern, modern, and contemporary history, its themes and objects; -Communication skills: to be able to convey sufficiently appropriately the specificity of early modern, modern, and contemporary history; -Study skills: to be able to understand texts and sources suitable for the analysis of early early modern, modern, and contemporary history. The course has the following purposes at an advanced level: -Knowledge and understanding: to be able to comprehensively understand early modern, modern, and contemporary history in its transformations through the time; -Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: to be able to critically read the scientific literature related to early modern, modern, and contemporary history; -Expression of judgments: to be able to consciously evaluate and argue the dynamics related to early modern, modern, and contemporary history, its themes and objects; -Communication skills: to be able to convey the specificity of early modern, modern, and contemporary history, with appropriate scientific terminology. -Study skills: to be able to critically evaluate and use texts and sources for the study of early modern, modern, and contemporary history.

None.

The course will consist primarily of frontal lectures, although some classes will involve students directly in reading and analyzing selected sources. The historiographical themes and sources used in the reference texts will be discussed under the guidance of the instructor, and considerations will be made regarding teaching methods and the teaching processes of the discipline. Lectures are an integral part of the exam program: the instructor will provide lecture slides and other useful materials for exam preparation in the online area dedicated to the course.

Students are advised to register on DIR (Didattica In Rete), where notices and communications will be posted, and where will be disposable some materials of the lessons. Students with physical disabilities, Learning Disabilities or Special Education Needs can request specific services and tools via reference office consulting the University webpage: https://www.uniupo.it/en/services/services-students-physical-or-learning-disabilities. Students with disabilities, learning disabilities or special education needs, once they have contacted the University Staff, can refer to the tutor in charge of the course to define the examination modalities, concerning academic aspects.

The students' preparation will be verified through two oral exams, each lasting approximately 20 minutes. The questions are designed to assess students' ability to contextualize the topics learned in time and space, their acquisition of a comprehensive understanding of the topics covered, and their ability to translate them into a coherent and accurate presentation, including mastery of scientific language. They will also assess their ability to critically analyze the topics covered and their orientation within historical research methodologies. The exam consists of 3-4 questions and focuses on the assigned bibliography as well as topics explored in depth during lectures. The questions focus on the main themes of modern and contemporary history (as indicated in the detailed syllabus). The exam, expressed in thirtieths, is graded based on the following parameters: 1) knowledge of the fundamental concepts of the texts listed in the bibliography and the topics covered in class (20 points out of 30); 2) ability to reason critically on the topics covered (5 points out of 30); 3) ability to express oneself and use correct disciplinary vocabulary (5 points out of 30). The exam will be passed if the student achieves or exceeds 18/30.

In its first part the course will focus on the main issues of early modern history, and on the more recent debates in social, economic, political and cultural history, also with interdisciplinary comparison. The topics of the course will be constantly analyzed in connection with the current applications in history research and teaching methodology, also through the development of exercises. Lesson plan: • Historiography and the issues of social, economic, political and cultural history. • Early modern and modern history: objects and sources. • Society, economy and culture in early modern history. • The European colonisation of the world. • Political history. • Religious history. • Crisis and trasformation in early modern Europe. • Reforms and revolutions. • The Industrial Revolution. In the part on modern and contemporary history lectures will be conducted according to the following outline: - Lecture 1: Introduction to the course: practical issues. What is history: methodological introduction. - Lecture 2: The general characters of the contemporary age. - Lecture 3: The First World War. - Lecture 4: The Russian revolutions. The USSR of Lenin and Stalin. - Lecture 5: Italian fascism and the category of totalitarianism. - Lesson 6: The 1929 crisis and the rise of Nazism in Germany. - Lesson 7: The Second World War: the Shoah. - Lesson 8: Cold War. - Lesson 9: Decolonization. - Lesson 10: The cultural revolution of the 1960s. Asia after World War II. - Lesson 11: The Middle Eastern conflicts and the crisis of the 1970s. - Lesson 12: Italian Republican history. - Lesson 13: The collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. - Lesson 14: The end of history? The Neoliberalist Globalization - Lesson 15: Environmental crisis and new wars in a multipolar world.

To achieve sufficient knowledge and skills, students have to demonstrate: Knowledge: -to know chronology, themes and categories of early modern, modern and contemporary history, and its interdisciplinary applications. -to know the main problems concerning early modern, modern and contemporary history. -to know the general features of the historiographical discussions on early modern, modern and contemporary history. Competence: - ability to analyze issues of early modern, modern and contemporary history in a critical way. Transversal skills: -ability to clearly communicate issues discussed during the lessons, with a proper language and with a scientific terminology. To achieve an advanced level, students must also demonstrate that they have: - An organic vision of the topics; synthesis and analysis skills; -Capacity for personal and critical processing of the topics; -Ability to deepen theoretical and methodological issues of history in general, and in particular concerning early modern, modern and contemporary history.