Social History of the Italian Mafia Trends in Social & Global Studies Program Fall 2018 Semester - Florence

'Mafia' is one of a long list of words - like 'pizza', 'spaghetti' and 'opera - that Italian has given to many other languages across the world. It is commonly applied to criminals far beyond Sicily and the United States, which are the places where the mafia in the strict sense is based. 'Mafia' has become an umbrella label for whole world panoply of gangs - Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Chechen, Albanian, Turkish, and so on - that have little or nothing to do with the Sicilian original.

This course is a social history of the mafia in Sicily. Some of the most famous American Mafiosi, men like Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, will also be taken into consideration because the history of the Sicilian mafia cannot be understood without telling the story of the American mafia to which it gave birth. It is only when viewed from the coast of a small, triangular island in the Mediterranean that the history of the mafia in the USA, at least in its early stages, can begin to make sense.

However, the history of the mafia cannot just be about the mafia, about the deeds of men of honor. Before Falcone and Borsellino, many other people died fighting the mafia. Some of them are characters in the drama. The mafia's story also embraces the people who, for a variety of motives ranging from rational fear, through political cynicism, to downright complicity, have favored the organization's cause.

During the semester, it is hoped that students will meet members of the Antimafia Government body or other important personalities involved in the fight against the mafia. These could be mafia prosecutors, judges, journalists, investigators, etc. The precise identity of the speaker this semester has yet to be agreed upon, but in the past speakers have included the wife of the famous anti-mafia prosecutor Antonino Caponnetto; a journalist with special expertise in mafia trials; a public prosecutor; the former president of the State Antimafia Council the magistrate Pierluigi Vigna; and young Italians from Libera, the association of young people that work the Sicilian lands confiscated from the mafia and used for the production of high quality agricultural products.