Cultures of Power and the Power of Culture in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

Code

HIST3046

School

History

Level

2

Credits

20

Semesters

Spring UK

Summary

In the two decades after the First World War, two modern western European countries, Italy and Germany, were transformed from liberal, parliamentary democracies into fascist dictatorships. Historians have offered detailed accounts of the political machinations that made this transition possible. Yet recent historical research has been led by different questions: what reconciled so many ordinary people to the anti-democratic, illiberal and increasingly murderous policies upon which these regimes embarked? This course explores how fascism transformed ordinary life, and how culture was employed to translate fascist ideas into lived experience. Lectures will help students understand the political structures and chronologicval developments in which these cultrual policies were unfolding, and introduce some historiographical controversies and the theoretical concepts we employ. Seminars will involve work with primary sources, including translated texts, visual materials and film clips. They also involve student presentations, in teams, on key themes of the cultural history of fascism, such as consumerism, leisure, religion and belief, architecture and ritual. We shall draw upon the theory of governmentality (M Foucault) to analyse how in all these spheres, a fascist outlook was inscribed into the infrastructures of daily life, and thus normalised their political beliefs into common sense.

Target Students

Students must have taken HIST1001 or HIST1002.

Classes

• One 2-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks
• One 1-hour lecture each week for 10 weeks

Assessment

• 50% Coursework 1: Individually assessed coursework item (3,000 words)
• 50% Coursework 2: Individually assessed coursework item (3,000 words)

Assessed by end of spring semester

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

a. Knowledge and understanding. By the end of the module, in their assessed work, students should be able to:

employ some cutting-edge theoretical approaches to interpret the role of culture in inscribing fascist beliefs into daily life
 

think critically about parallels and differences in the politicisation of everyday life in totalitarian and liberal regimes

b. Intellectual skills. By the end of the module students should be able to:
draw on the latest scholarship to re-assess conventional assumptions and historical narratives

think creatively about bringing different primary sources to bear on big historical questions
 

develop a sophisticated understanding of the underlying assumptions that create disagreement and controversies between different historians
 

construct coherent and independent historical arguments of their own 
 

c. Professional/practical skills. The module will develop students´ ability to:
select, sift and synthesise information from a range of primary and secondary sources

identify and compare key arguments in those materials
 

use IT to access historical sources and information, and complete historical assignments 
 

d. Transferable skills. The module will also develop students´ ability to:
manage a large and disparate body of information
 

express themselves clearly, coherently and fluently in writing essays and documentary exercises
 

work and learn actively with others, presenting work in debating teams, as well as in small-group work within the classroom
 

manage and take responsibility for their own learning
 

use IT for research and presentation purposes

use IT for research and presentation purposes

Conveners

• Dr Alex Henry