Course 2019-2020 a.y.

The course addresses specific monuments, images and artefacts in relation with the history of Europe and North America, their societies and politics. The course, structured as a series of in depth case studies, and composed of two modules, focuses on how political ideology, social and political changes influenced artistic productions; and on how the arts contributed to create and inform political and social imaginaries. A detailed course program is presented at the beginning of the course. Topics may include (but are not confined to):

• Performing politics: Art, social revolt, and political action.
• Making heritage: Nationalisms and Colonialisms.
• The power of images: The art of propaganda, the art of resistance.
• Body politics: Sacralizing death, imaging illness.
• Representing the ‘unrepresentable’: Capturing conflict.

• Appreciate and articulate the ability of images and artifacts to interrogate the political sphere.
• Grasp the potential of images, artifacts and monuments to convey political messages and ideologies.
• Understand the complex historicity of artworks – and their changing meanings over time.

• Approach artifacts beyond their aesthetic appeal, and examine them in relation to their cultural, social and political milieu.
• Formulate critical arguments about the interconnections between images, artifacts and monuments, and the political realities that they manifest.
• Problematize the notion of cultural heritage and cultural identities.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Company visits
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Individual assignments
• Group assignments
• Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

This course combines traditional frontal teaching (lectures) with seminar-based activities and off-campus visits to relevant collections, institutions and/or exhibitions. Visual analysis plays a central role, and image-based exercises (both individual and in group) are assigned throughout the course. Students are expected to participate in class discussions.

Students are required to take a final exam (100% of the grade). The exam is written, and students are asked to answer a mix of open-ended questions and image or source-based questions. The exam paper is based on course readings, as well as on seminar materials and discussions held in class. Consistently with the expected learning outcomes of this course, the exam aims to assess students' engagement with and understanding of textual and visual evidence, and their ability to interpret such evidence critically, showing understanding of the visual regimes, narratives, and conceptual issues at stake in the course.

Students are required to take a final exam (100% of the grade). The exam is written, and students are asked to answer a mix of open-ended questions and image or source-based questions. The exam paper is based on a reading list that students receive when they enter the course. The exam aims to assess the familiarity of non attending students with the key conceptual, historical and historiographic issues addressed by the assigned readings; their ability to summarize and critically interpret the narratives and arguments advanced by those readings; and their capacity to link textual and visual evidence, producing well-grounded and original interpretative essays.

Attending students are required to read a comprehensive reading list, which includes articles, book chapters and critical essays relevant to each class topic. The complete reading list are made available to students on the first day of class, and - where possible - readings are made available on Course Reserve at the library (online and/or off line).

Non attending students are required to read the following books:

• C. GINZBURG. Fear, reverence, terror:  five essays in political iconography, London, Seagull Books, 2017 
• G. DIDI HUBERMANN, Images in Spite of All, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2008.
• L. NOCHLIN, Women, Art, Power and other essays. New York, Harper and Row, 1988.
• S. SONTAG, Regarding the Pain of Others, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.