HIST 3202 Italians Abroad: History of Italian Migration, 1861 to the Present Studio Art & Fashion Design Program Spring 2020 Semester SRISA Only - Florence

In the collective imagination, the Italians are a people of migrants. The phenomenon, huge in some periods of our national history, started with the Unification of Italy in 1861. In the following years, Italy has gone through very different dynamics and had to face a growing hemorrhage of manpower. This course will analyze the migration of Italians starting with the complex unification (Risorgimento) to the present, emphasizing the reversal that Italy is living today, from the big exporter of men to their arrival point, of the new migrations from Africa and Eastern Europe.

This course will analyze the migration of Italians starting with the complex unification (Risorgimento) to the present, emphasizing the reversal that Italy is living today, from the big exporter of men to their arrival point, of the new migrations from Africa and Eastern Europe.

Students will learn how and why Italy has become a country of migrants, focusing on the troubled Unification, especially for the South. We will investigate the Fascist and postwar periods when a new kind of migration appeared, the internal one, where people moved from the South to the industrialized North of the peninsula and also from the country to the city. Numerous original documents will be taken into account and students will be encouraged to participate in class discussions.