STORIA DEL VIAGGIO E DEI VIAGGIATORI IN MEDIO ORIENTE
(objectives)
Learning targets: Travel literature has over time been a valuable source of documentation of otherwise unknown realities, but has also contributed to the construction of stereotypical views of the Eastern world in Western culture. The course, which focuses primarily on documentation of travel to Iran and adjacent areas from antiquity to the present day, aims to provide students with the basic tools to (1) knowledge of the social and cultural reality of the Iranian world in different phases of its long history, through the analysis of the experiences of three travellers with a completely different profile in very distant historical moments in time and the documentation that has reached us of their experiences; (2) an understanding of the interdisciplinary value of the information transmitted; (3) recognition of the socio-cultural environments of provenance and ideological background of travellers, which have strongly influenced their experiences and analyses transmitted directly or indirectly in the relative accounts. The first part of the course will be dedicated to Alexander the Great, an intrinsically ambiguous figure, who at the same time became model and anti-model and whose epic has been one of the most fruitful literary motifs that have crossed human culture. The idea of travel, from the real one (up to the mouth of the Indus, which we can reconstruct from texts such as those of Arrian) to those at the end of the world, in the depths of the sea, in the high heavens, etc., remained one of the central elements of the myth of Alexander throughout the time. Attention will also be given to the uninterrupted actuality of the ‘image’ of Alexander, which, codified in a series of clichés, has been transmitted from one century to another, from one millennium to another, it has become eternal, adaptable and infinitely reproducible in absolutely different cultural contexts. The second part of the course will be dedicated to the figure of the Roman patrician Pietro della Valle and his work Lettere dalla Persia, which constitutes a rich source of information on Safavid Iran (XVII century) under the reign of Shah Abbas I. In the third part will be analyzed the figure and work of Terence Ward, US expert in the Middle East, that with the account of his trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran in the late 1990s and his exciting existential experience he takes on the task of fighting the stereotypes and isolation to which Iran is condemned.
EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the course the students will have acquired a basic knowledge of the historical and cultural reality of some phases of the history of Iran - in particular, end of the Achaemenid period (IV sec. a.C.), Safavid age (XVII sec.) and of the Islamic republic (XX sec.) - and critical faculties to read travel accounts, being able to recognize stereotypes generated by the cultural and ideological backgrounds of the travellers; they will be able to use the acquired knowledge to better understand, analyse and describe the contemporary political processes in the investigated geo-political area; they will be able to take a critical approach in reading texts concerning Iran and other Middle Eastern countries; they will have flexibility of judgement, ability to compare and evaluate.
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Code
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17415 |
Language
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ITA |
Type of certificate
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Profit certificate
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Credits
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8
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Scientific Disciplinary Sector Code
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L-OR/14
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Contact Hours
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48
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Type of Activity
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Related or supplementary learning activities
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Teacher
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FILIPPONE Elina
(syllabus)
• Introduction to the problems characterizing the study of travel literature • Outline of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Achaemenid Empire in the second half of the 4th century BCE • The figure of Alexander and his conquests; genesis of a myth. • Reading and commentary of passages from Arrian’s 'Anabasis of Alexander’ and ‘India’; further documentation relating to Alexander’s enterprises and travels in Greek and Roman literature. • The exceptional fortune of The Romance of Alexander in the European Middle Ages, in the Islamic world and in other areas of the world; comments on the figure of Alexander in art and media (until contemporary times). • Introduction to the problems characterizing the study of the Iranian and Islamic world, in particular Shiite (introduction aimed at placing the proposed themes in a critical historical framework) • Safavid Iran and the figure of Shah Abbas I. • Pietro della Valle’s life and works. • Le Lettere dalla Persia of Pietro della Valle; reading and analyses of selected passages. • Iran during the periodo of the Pahlavi dynasty and the figure of Mohammad Reza Shah • Vincenzo Bianchini: biography and works • Acqua del diavolo by Vincenzo Bianchini: reading and commentary of selected passages
(reference books)
C. Mossé, Alessandro Magno. La realtà e il mito, Economica Laterza 2005.
Arriano, Anabasi di Alessandro. Vol. I-II, Fondazione Lorenzo Valla / Arnoldo Mondadori Editore [Introduzione e brani scelti]
Arriano, L'India, BUR 2000 [Introduzione e brani scelti]
I Viaggi di Pietro della Valle. Lettere dalla Persia I, a cura di F. Gaeta e L. Lockhart, Roma 1972 [Introduzione e brani scelti]
C. Masetti, Città varie e costumi il fin prescrisse. La Persia di Pietro Della Valle (1617-1623), Franco Angeli 2017
E. Filippone, Appunti e riflessioni sulla figura e sugli scritti di Pietro della Valle, il Pellegrino. In: (a cura di): MANCINI M. , Esilio, Pellegrinaggio e altri Viaggi, Viterbo, 2004. p. 219-247
V. Bianchini, Acqua del diavolo, Leonardo da Vinci 1962
Further teaching material will be distributed during the course and made available on the Moodle platform. Non-attending students are required to contact the teacher.
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Dates of beginning and end of teaching activities
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From 04/10/2021 to 07/01/2022 |
Delivery mode
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Traditional
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Attendance
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not mandatory
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Evaluation methods
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Oral exam
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