THE CLASSES OF "GLOBAL HUMANITIES: CRITICAL THEORIES AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURES" WILL START ON THE 4th of OCTOBER 2022 and BE HELD TWICE A WEEK.

Until the end of October 2022, the international students who have not received their visas as yet and cannot attend in presence, will be allowed to join the classes via a ZOOM LINK. Hence, at least for the first month, the classes of the I Semester of the first year will be in blended modality.

To attend my classes online (for the students who cannot be in Rome as yet) the link is the following:

https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/82026527282?pwd=SGdETmtoMm5MZG5DUTY4OEgxRk02QT09

Meeting ID: 820 2652 7282

Passcode: 851228

Time: This is a recurring meeting (the link will remain the same)

ATTENTION - the code to register on Classroom is: p5poox5

I will upload materials and communicate with you mostly through Classroom. Hence, kindly register online. The students who cannot register online will be able to access the materials through a shared drive.

I will discuss the materials and the way my course is structured when we'll meet next week. Please, come prepared to enjoy the courses and participate in the discussions. That's all I require from you now. Thanks!

TIMETABLE

1. GLOBAL HUMANITIES: CRITICAL THEORIES AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURES

Marco Polo Building (Building Code: RM021) - Room 109 - TUESDAY 13:00 to 15:00 (1pm to 3pm)

2. GLOBAL HUMANITIES: CRITICAL THEORIES AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURES

Marco Polo Building (Building Code: RM021) - Room 202 - THURSDAY 13:00 to 15:00 (1pm to 3pm)

* The classrooms are located inside the 'Marco Polo Building' in Circonvallazione Tiburtina 4 - Rome

If you need to contact the teacher or book an appointment for an orientation session, kindly write to: mara.matta@uniroma1.it

Do Humanities matter? From which perspective and in whatever manner do we study histories, cultures, arts, literatures, social sciences? This course aims to familiarise students with key texts, concepts and methodologies in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. It addresses the reasons why it is important to study theories on literary and visual cultures in a transnational and global perspective, opening up debates on Colonialism, Postcolonialism and Decoloniality; Orientalism, Occidentalism, and Border Thinking; Ethics, Aesthetics and the Imaginary; Subalternity, Indigeneity and ‘Minor’ Narratives; Feminisms, Gender and Sexuality; Migrations, Diasporas and Nomadic Subjectivities, and more. Far from being disconnected from issues of social justice, democracy and global citizenship, critical theory engages with ideas and questions that regard all of us as human beings and ‘organic intellectuals’ concerned with issues of culture and society, identity and alterity, literatures and media, arts and multiple ways of producing and communicating meanings, from a range of different perspectives and through a plethora of creative strategies of intervention and interruption. Critical Theory, addressed from a global perspective to include the intellectual and creative voices of scholars, writers, filmmakers and artists from different parts of the planet, first and foremost questions the ways in which we think of the world and make sense of it, through a critical appraisal of artistic and cultural artefacts, material and symbolic things, histories, memories and traces of the Human. This course is open to everyone who wishes to study cultures, histories, and arts by developing a self-reflexive approach to our experiences of the world and the ways in which we make sense of it.

Adopted texts

A Syllabus will be made available at the beginning of the Course. The Syllabus will contain articles, essays, and book excerpts. The following is a reference book:

Simon Malpas and Paul Wake (2013) THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO CRITICAL AND CULTURAL THEORY, New York: Routledge

Bibliography

A Syllabus will be made available at the beginning of the Course. The following is a preliminary bibliography:

Frederick Luis Aldama, Why the Humanities Matter: A Commonsense Approach, University of Texas Press, 2008.

Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh (eds.) On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, Duke University Press, 2018.

Martha C. Nussbaum, Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, New York: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Prerequisites

No previous knowledge or special prerequisite is required to attend this class. This is a foundational course and you need to equip yourself with curiosity, imagination, self-reflexivity, and the eagerness to engage in respectful but thought-provoking debates on critical essays, films, music, art, theatre, literature, and more.

A participatory approach will be adopted and attendance and engagement among peer students will be highly encouraged.

Exam modality

The exam will be divided in two parts: 1. A short essay to be submitted via Classroom at least one week before the oral exam; 2. An oral or written exam (to be confirmed) based on the course program and the relevant readings.

- HINDI LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION III (12 CFU/ECTS)

When and Where: Wednesday 15.00-17.00 (Lab 2 - Third Floor)

The course “Hindi Language and Literature III” is comprised of two specialised educational routes, respectively coordinated by the Italian teacher, Mara Matta, and by two highly competent native speakers, the Indian teachers Anju Kumari and a new lecturer who will be joining us very soon. The module carried out by Prof. Matta focuses on the translation and critical analysis of works by modern and contemporary writers, playwrights and poets. These selected texts are characterised by a medium linguistic and stylistic complexity. In the current academic year 2022-23, students will critically read sections of Premchand; a short story by Rajat Rani ‘Minu’; one or two short stories (in Hindi translation) by Manṭo; selected poems from Jacinta Kerketta’s book Angor (see Bibliography). Other materials will be selected and addressed during the course of the lessons, with the contributions of Dr Fabio Mangraviti and Dr Edorardo Avio.

Acquiring competencies in literary translation will allow students (a) to reply to the growing request for such professional specialisation; and (b) to develop advanced skills in the field of linguistic, conceptual and stylistic analysis of a written text, in both the origin and the destination language, which will be usefully employed also in contexts different from the specific discipline.

These readings will also allow students to better understand some of the processes and dynamics which have shaped the cultural identity of modern and contemporary India.

Building on selected teaching tools, the module carried out by the native speakers professors will be specifically dedicated to 1) the in-depth study and revision of grammar and lexicon, mostly based on the units 21-24 of the ‘Corso di Lingua Hindi’ (Milanetti-Gupta, ed. Hoepli, Rome 2008, see Bibliography); 2) to developing high-level operating skills in the field of spoken Hindi. Students will take part in training sessions (individual and collective) where specific issues regarding the culture and society of contemporary India will be debated in Hindi. At the same time, they will study and analyse elements and peculiarities of selected linguistic registers, such as regional idioms, jargon expressions, theatre and cinema dialogues, etc. A specific focus will be given to understanding and orally translating audio-video materials, such as songs, movie clips, theatrical sketches, documentaries, etc., with a focus on developing professional skills that today are specifically requested. Most of the learning activities will take place in linguistic laboratories, but an active engagement with the local diasporic communities will also be facilitated in safe and supervised learning environments.

Thanks to the specialised seminars and conferences that are regularly organised by the teaching staff, students will also reach a high level of knowledge on major issues regarding contemporary Indian cultures, societies, and economies. Hence, students are expected to develop good operating skills in currently strategic sectors such as written translation, intercultural communication, cultural industries, etc.

MATERIALS WILL BE PROVIDED THROUGH CLASSROOM.

Adopted texts

Giorgio Milanetti e Smiti Tanya Gupta, Corso di lingua hindi, Hoepli Ed., Roma 2008.

Bibliography

Rajat Rānī ‘Mīnu’, Ham kaun hain?, Vāṇī Prakāśan, Naī Dillī 2012. Jacinta Kerketta, Brace (Angor), Miraggi Ed. Torino 2017 (poems in hindi language with Italian translation by Alessandra Consolaro). Premchand, Manṭo, Devi’s short stories and other excerpts of literary works and film scripts will be provided during the classes.

Prerequisites

Level B1 of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).

Organisation of the Course

The course will be organised around different teaching modules and various approaches aimed at facilitating a progressive and interactive teaching/learning modality of language acquisition. Frontal teaching will be supported by grammar exercises, language practical training classes and interactive work to be carried out in the linguistic labs. The students will be required to read and translate literary texts, to study and gain functional knowledge of the grammar and new lexicon, to carry out practical exercises and fieldwork which may include students-students interaction or supervised engagement with the Indian diasporic community based in Rome. The active participation of the students will be encouraged and stimulated by the teachers. The use of media and other technical devices is aimed at further stimulating the students’ interactive learning.

Exams' modality

The final exam will be divided in two parts (written and oral), to be held separately and in different days.

The written exam, which will last maximum 3 hours, will assess the capacity of the student to read and translate a short literary texts, of adequate difficulty. Besides the translation of this excerpt, the student will be requested to translate some sentences from Italian into Hindi and viceversa, in order to assess the acquisition of the grammar and the syntactical structures of the language. Moreover, he/she will be requested to complete exercises that will be focused on the grammatical rules the student will have studied and mastered during the third year of the Hindi course.

During the oral test, the student will have to prove his/her capacity of reading, translating and analyzing the literary works assigned during the year. Moreover, the student will conduct a conversation in Hindi and will have to answer to some questions related to the grammar, syntax and lexicon.

Anno accademico 2022-23

LETTERATURE MODERNE DEL SUBCONTINENTE INDIANO (Anche per gli studenti di Mediazione Linguistica)

Orario Lezioni

Mercoledì (Sala Riunioni 331) - 17.00-19.00

Giovedì (Sala Riunioni 331) - 15.00-17.00

Il corso si propone di introdurre gli sviluppi delle correnti letterarie del subcontinente indiano dalla metà del XIX secolo a oggi. Il corso monografico avrà come tema il rapporto tra la letteratura e i soggetti ‘ai margini’, attraverso la lettura di testi e saggi di autori appartenenti a gruppi indigeni, a rappresentanti della letteratura Dalit e alla narrativa omosessuale nel contesto storico e sociale moderno e contemporaneo.

Obiettivi

Acquisire la conoscenza delle categorie concettuali salienti della disciplina e sviluppare la capacità di analisi critica di diversi generi letterari.

Modalità esame

Orale (si richiede anche la stesura di un breve saggio scritto su un argomento da concordare con la docente)

Testi principali

Chadhuri, Amit, The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature, Vintage Publishing, New York 2004.

Misra, Tilottoma, Writings from the North-East India. (2 vol. I) Fiction; II) Poetry and Essays), OUP, New Delhi 2011.

Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak (eds) Dalit Literatures in India, Routledge, New Delhi, London and New York 2016.

Note

Aggiornamenti, modifiche e integrazioni della bibliografia saranno pubblicati su questo sito. Si consiglia la frequenza del corso, in quanto durante l’anno si leggeranno testi letterari e si proietteranno film e documentari che integrano la didattica. Ci sarà inoltre la possibilità di dialogare con scrittori, docenti e registi proveniente dall’Asia meridionale.