Special Topics: Immigration, Race and Identity in Contemporary Italy

As immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees move “within” and across Italian urban borders, they impact the familiar, inciting an array of responses in different contexts and forms. This course is based on the assumption that in order to talk about contemporary Italian society, it is necessary to understand Italy’s colonial past and the past emigrations of Italians elsewhere. This is crucial when discussing contemporary politics of migration control, in particular with regards to Northern Africa and the international relations between Italy and Libya at the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. The course further explores how changes in laws regulating citizenship have influences immigration as well as definitions of Italian nationality and European belonging. Employing cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject of how identity is formed, challenged and defended in an ever more globalized world, we will investigate the pressing issues of immigration, race and ethnicity that have sparked such controversy and passion both in contemporary Italy, Europe and the U.S.

This course includes an academic excursion outside of Rome. The exact location will be announced in the course schedule.