0000551 - THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD

insegnamento

ID:

0000551

Durata (ore):

48

CFU:

SSD:

STORIA E ISTITUZIONI DELLE AMERICHE

Url:

Dettaglio Insegnamento:

LETTERATURE E CULTURE COMPARATE/Comparative Literature: English, Italian, Chinese Anno: 1

Dettaglio Insegnamento:

LETTERATURE E CULTURE COMPARATE/Europeo Anno: 1

Dettaglio Insegnamento:

LETTERATURE E CULTURE COMPARATE/Occidente-oriente Anno: 1

Anno:

2024

Periodo di attività

Secondo Semestre (24/02/2025 - 30/05/2025)

Obiettivi Formativi

Educational targets

Expected learning outcomes:
The objective of the course is to provide students with the tools necessary to interpret, within a long-term historical framework, issues relating to the U.S. society in World War II and the multiple interactions of the country and the American people with the rest of the world in wartime. The goal is to acquire knowledge and information instrumental in better assessing current events.

Ability to apply knowledge and understandings:
Students are expected to demonstrate an understanding and critical reworking of historiographical concepts and themes inherent in U.S. society and the role of the United States in a global context during World War II.

Additional expected learning outcomes

Autonomy of judgment:
The objective of the course is also to foster and stimulate in students an independent judgment in understanding, interpreting, and reframing the role of the contemporary United States in the world, albeit in a long-term temporal context.

Communication skills:
The aim is to help strengthen the ability to study, interpret and reframe historical facts, as well as to refine the ability to communicate them in a complex, coherent, and effective manner.

Learning skills:
Students will develop their ability to conduct original research, also to be presented orally and in written form.

Prerequisiti

Basic knowledge of U.S. history is functional to a better participation to the course. Students who have never attended a class of history of the United States are invited to read a textbook before the class beginning. Books suggested are Philip Jenkins, A History of the United States, Macmillan 1997, or (in Italian) Stefano Luconi, La nazione ‘indispendabile’, Le Monnier 2020.

Metodi didattici

The course is conducted in English in seminar format. Supported by Power Point slides and clips taken from films and documentaries, lectures will be always combined with in-class discussions. Prior to each lecture, students will be required to do specific weekly readings indicated in the syllabus, or other types of activities preparatory to the in-class discussions. Such readings and activities are essential for grading active participation.

Students will be considered attendees if:
1) will have attended at least 17 out of 24 lectures;
2) will have presented orally in class their research papers (the topic must be agreed with the instructor);
3) will have submitted a written paper on the research agreed with the instructor and presented in class.

Verifica Apprendimento

Students attending in class-lectures and discussions will be graded according to the following:

1) Active participation in-class discussions.
2) In-class oral presentation of a research project on a topic agreed upon with the instructor.
3) Presentation of a written paper related to the research project agreed with the instructor. During the first lesson, students will receive all the information they need to prepare their oral presentation and written paper. The paper must be sent to the instructor one week before the date of the exam taken.
4) Oral exam that will cover all topics covered in class. Students should bring their notes from all lectures and all weekly assigned readings to the exam.

To take the oral exam, non-attending students will read all the readings assigned to attending students with the addition of two more volumes. In particular, one to be chosen from:

• Benjamin L. Alpers, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950 (2003).
• John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (1997).
• John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power In the Pacific War (1986).
• Michaela Hoenicke Moore, Know your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism, 1933–1945 (2010).
• Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greteast Genertation: A Social History of Americans in World War II (2012).
• John Bodnar, The ‘Good War’ in American Memory (2012).

One to be chosen from:
• Emily Rosenberg, A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory (2003).
• Giorgio Bertellini, The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America (2020).
• Katy Hull, The Machine Has a Soul: American Sympathy with Italian Fascism (2021).

Testi

Weekly readings. Students are required to ask the instructor (at least a month before the beginning of lessons) access to Google drive to get all files.

Contenuti

Contents:
The United States in the World
1. War in American History.
2. WWII enemies: Germans, Japanese, Italians.
3. Civilians and American bombs.
4. Soldiers, women, kids at war.
5. Minorities at war.
6. The Americans and the Holocaust.
7. Americans and occupations.
8. WWII memories.