Transnational perspectives: Pedagogical practices

Abstract

What follows is a collective reflection by a tutor and students on the most recent version of a pedagogical project which has morphed and developed according to the rapid development of the disciplinary fields in which it is situated and the increasing availability and diversity of relevant primary texts and critical resources. ‘Black Italians’ is a onesemester long module offered to advanced students as an optional element in degree programmes in Italian at the University of St Andrews. It is one element of a four-year programme covering aspects of Italian culture from the Middle Ages to the present day, and its particular methodology and thematic focus builds on the mandatory study of authors such as Igiaba Scego and Primo Levi in the first two years of the programme. Devised and taught by Derek Duncan, the module is delivered in English in a series of seminars that investigate how ever malleable definitions of ‘Blackness’ have operated as powerful and flexible strategies of often violent erasure and exclusion at three defining historical moments for Italy from the late-19th century to the present day. Other modules at this level focus on cultures of diaspora, migration, and colonialism and interrogate similar, but not identical, histories and expressions of diversity. ‘Black Italians’ foregrounds race – its defining parameters and contested lived experience. The co-presence of these other modules explains some choices of emphasis and partial omission in the content of ‘Black Italians’ itself. For instance, detailed discussion of the Black Mediterranean, covered extensively in a parallel course, is less prominent than might be anticipated. The module has existed in different iterations for almost ten years. Earlier versions, for example, have included texts and films such as Wu Ming’s Timira, Kym Ragusa’s The Skin between Us, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and Andrea Segre’s Sangue verde. The presence of Ragusa and Lee in the module points to the transnational optic of its methodological foundations and its many possible linkages and intersections. It purposefully resists the methodological nationalism in which study and research in Modern