Italian 221AC - Advanced Studies in Italian Culture and Literature: 'Banned! Art and Censorship in Modern Italy'

What makes a book too dangerous to read? A film too obscene to watch? Who decides what stories should be silenced-and why? This course explores the history of censorship and the politics of art in modern Italy, surveying dangerous fictions across genre and media, including revolutionary operas, film censorship under Fascism, major works of literature on trial, and contemporary debates over the canzone neomelodica. We will also read essays by Italian writers and critics that reflect on the political role of art. Authors and filmmakers include Dante, Boccaccio, Italo Calvino, Federico Fellini, Goliarda Sapienza, Antonio Gramsci, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Taught in English.