Subject Areas
European History, Labor History, Media Studies, Italian History, Women and Gender Studies
Course Title
MC 345 Italian Food for Thought: Gastronomy in Italian Literature and Culture
Professor Isabella Bertoletti
Course Description
Do the foods we eat reveal something about who we are? Our tastes, recipes, table etiquette and food prohibitions are directly shaped by complex and diverse factors such as our habitat, biology, social, cultural and political contexts and religious beliefs, as well as the history and innovations of food production and preparation technology and the ever changing availability of key ingredients. By studying food one can understand the social and cultural aspects of those who consume it. The culinary history of Italy is no exception.
This course will trace the historical evolution of Italian cuisine and map a unique overview of Italian literature and culture through an analysis of seminal literary texts. As we look at representations of food in literature we will also explore the experience of hunger and famine and address the extraordinary significance of food in the definition of “Italianness” from an Italian, as well as from an international (including American) perspective.
While our main focus will be the study of seminal literary texts, we will also look at representations of food in its broader social and cultural context through a multi-disciplinary approach and examine magazine articles, cookbooks, food-related visual representations by classical and modern masters, print ads, commercials and film clips which will give students additional opportunities to appreciate an artistic, cultural, social, and political profile of Italy.
The activity has been designed for WEEK 9 of the course:
Students have watched the 1949 movie Riso Amaro/Bitter Rice by Giuseppe De Santis via the FIT library database Kanopy. The movie chronicles the plight of Northern Italy’s female rice workers, or mondine, through the sensationalized story of four individuals. This is one of the first Italian films “in which the woman is presented as a collective subject of social conflicts and events.”[1] Students are asked to find evidence within the filmic text of the evolution of class consciousness among rice weeders.
CLASS OBJECTIVES
- Students will become more familiar about the political struggles of early female unions in post-War World Two Italy
- Students will acquire the vocabulary to talk about bargaining and negotiation techniques for working leagues and unions
The professor will first give a short lecture (15 minutes) on the political divisions in the aftermath of World War Two, with specific emphasis given to the Italian elections on April 18, 1948, which saw the Christian Democrat party achieve a striking majority over the Fronte Democratico Popolare (an alliance of the communist party [PCI] and the socialist party [PSI]). The spirit of collaboration that had characterized 1943-1948 ended as the elections exacerbated latent tensions, culminating in the attempted murder of the PCI head Palmiro Togliatti on July 14, 1948. A wave of riots followed, and Italy found itself on the brink of an armed revolution.[2] This introduction will serve as an entryway to talk about labor shortages in the country and the political tensions that characterized the years in which the movie takes place.
FOLK MUSIC AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
Students will rewatch the movie clip on legal and illegal rice workers singing
[10 minutes of rewatching the clip & contextualizing it]
In this choral scene, one legal rice weeder and one illegal one sing about their working conditions through call and response. Legally hired rice workers who had been recruited prior to the beginning of the season complain that their working conditions will deteriorate if illegal rice workers are hired. Those who have not been hired legally sing about the harsh living conditions during unemployment and request to be accepted by their peers.
In groups of four, students will be asked to analyze the text of the song and look at how these two groups interact. The discussion [20 min discussion] will be guided by the following questions:
- Describe each of the two groups.
- Why do you think the two groups use a folk song to communicate?
- Do you think it’s effective? Why or why not?
- What are the reasons why illegal workers should be accepted by those who have been legally hired?
- What do the legally hired rice weeders demand instead?
- What is the role of the man who interrupts the song? How should the two groups interact with him?
- By the end of the song, where do your sympathies lie? Why? How do you think the song influenced your perception?
[10 minute back to the whole class]
Each group will report their answers to the class and share the main points of their discussion.
Notes
[1] Michael Baumgartner and Ewelina Boczkowska.Music, Collective Memory, Trauma, and Nostalgia in European Cinema after the Second World War, 46.
[2] (Ginsborg 126–28).