Boston College Summer School
June 6 – July 2, 2022
History of the Italian Mediterranean: “Una Faccia, Una Razza”
Prof. Elizabeth H. Shlala
For most of history, Mediterranean identities were fluid and hybrid. For centuries, Venetians, Genoans, Pisans, Florentines, and Livornese, travelled and traded around the Mediterranean. Christian “Levantines,” Jews, and Muslims lived relatively harmoniously in the sea’s port cities and beyond. Merchants sought to get rich, cities grew, and culture was shared. “Una faccia, una razza” or “one face, one race” is a oft-repeated saying around the Levant that underscores the belief that despite the slight outward or nominal differences, there is a fundamental shared heritage and way of life in the region.
The violent end of empires, coupled with the emergence of the nation-state, led to a geographic shift in the region as borders became less permeable and identities became codified, documented, and monitored in new ways. With the “quarta sponda” or “fourth shore” Mussolini violently attempted to add most of North Africa to his rule and reclaim the past glory of Rome (as Napoleon had attempted in Egypt more than a century earlier). The end of the Ottoman Empire, and the rise in European legal, military, political, and financial influence irrevocably altered the dynamics of the Italian Mediterranean.
Today, the Mediterranean Sea, which once appeared to be the cradle of cosmopolitan civilizations, has become the twenty-first century’s “largest mass grave.” The Mediterranean Sea, which served as the heart of a world system for centuries, is now a heavily policed crossroads that divides more than it unites. “Levantine” has become a derogatory word. Venice is under water, losing her cultural heritage inch by watery inch due to climate change. In this course, we will use primary historical sources to analyze the continuities and changes of the Italian Mediterranean with Venice as our geographical, historical, and architectural center. It is an opportunity for first-hand intellectual exploration that we will not have for much longer.
History II Core Learning Goals of the Course:
1. Understand how perceptions of the “Italian” “Mediterranean” “Levant” “Middle East” & “Europe” have changed over time. (Each of these terms is highly contested.)
2. Use of primary sources (historical material of Venetian architecture, food, art, cartography) to deepen their understanding of history. Students who have Italian language abilities will use them (instructor is fluent) but it is not a requirement.
3. Explore, connect, and reflect upon Venice to understand its connection to the Sea and its History.
4. Learn information about the chronology, geography, political, economic, and social structures of the region in order to track change over time.
5. Use the vocabulary, tools and methodologies of the historian. This course will have a particular emphasis on working with primary source documents.
6. Dispel common historical myths and misunderstandings. In particular, students will recognize how nationalist and religious debates around Muslim refugees and migrants in Italy have been shaped by Europe’s protracted retreat from the southern shores of the Mediterranean during the end of the Ottoman Empire, fascist imperialism, and contemporary nationalism(s).
7. Reflect on yourself and how your identity fits into the historical narrative.
*This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity Core requirement through the pathway of Engaging Difference and Justice.*
Engaging Difference and Justice (Cultural Diversity) Learning Goals of the course:
1. Students will reflect on the importance of community, shared values, inclusion, and solidarity at all levels of social connection- from the familial to the global.
2. Students will engage critically with past and present instances of injustice. Complex issues concerning race, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, religion and other socio- cultural categories may be explored.
3. Students will integrate the theoretical and empirical study of difference and power in their many forms; reflect on their own experiences and identities; and connect academic knowledge to lived experience.
4. Students will imagine how to flourish in communities in ways that evaluate and embrace difference and overcome injustice by becoming engaged global citizens in service of, and in care for, our common home.
5. Students will explore the conditions that need to exist, and how to create those conditions, for all of society’s members to live fully human lives of freedom and integrity.
“The Imaginary City: Why Writers Love Venice”
Professor Kevin Newmark, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
This course will meet for four weeks, Monday to Thursday, usually from 9:00 to 12:00 at VIU. Alternative scheduling will occur in conjunction with on-site visits in or near Venice proper. The course is organized into four successive sections, each corresponding to a unit composed of interconnecting strands, canals, or mosaic tesserae, which join literature, cinema, philosophy, art history, and on-site exploring. The four main topics will feature literary texts by Joseph Brodsky, Thomas Mann, Henry James, and Marcel Proust. They are: Liquid Beauty, Paradoxes of Beauty, Inversions of Beauty, and Resurrections of Beauty.
Class attendance is mandatory. Students will be evaluated on the basis of regular participation, one formal oral presentation, and both short and medium length writing assignments.