Università Roma Tre

The course is an introduction to the history of Italian Fascism with particular emphasis on the sacralisation of politics. Under Fascism, the political arena became permeated with myths, rites, and symbols of a secular religion, imbued with fundamental values, and intended to mould the moral consciousness and meaning of existence for all Italians. This was not a completely new concept. Since the American and French Revolutions, politics has often taken on the features of religion, claiming as its own the prerogative of defining the fundamental purpose and meaning of human life, asking faith, loyalty and reverence for secular political entities as the nation, building its temples, lamenting its martyrs. With Italian Fascism, however, the civic religion of the country (a religion open to every citizen) transformed itself into the intolerant, exclusive cult of the symbol of a single party, of its values, of its commandments, of its chief. In this way, Italian Fascism opened the way to many modern totalitarian political religions of the 20th Century, from Nazism, to Stalinism, from Europe to Asia.
By the end of the course, students are able to:
- recognize the importance of the symbolic dimension in politics;
- put in relation secularization, politics and religion in modern society and grasp in a better way the contours of the modern political experiment (up to today fundamentalism);
- understand the main features of Totalitarianism;
- identify the main aspects of the Fascist regime, its values, its institutions, its leaders;
- understand the historical significance of Fascism, and its dramatic danger as a wrong answer to the problems of mass society;
- identify the myths, rituals, symbols, monuments and other spectacles of Fascist Italy;
- discover the mechanism of deep fascination provoked by mass rituals.

This course in taught in English

Week 1
Section 1: Overview of course
Section 2: What is the “sacralisation of politics”?

Week 2
Section 1: The American Revolution, the French Revolution and a new religion for the citizen
Section 2: The religion of the nation in the 19th Century
(Readings: Gentile, Politics as Religion. Chapter II; Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses. Chapters I and II)

Week 3
Section 1: The origins of Fascism: World War I
Section 2: The crisis of Italian democracy and the birth of Fascism; "Squadrismo" and the "sacred militia"
(Reading: Gentile, Fascism in Power: The Totalitarian Experiment)


Week 4
Section 1: The Origins of the Fascist Religion
Section 2: From “Squadrismo” to the Totalitarian Experiment
(Readings: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter I; Mussolini and the Parliament after the March on Rome, according to the NY Times)

Week 5
Section 1: Fascism at Power and the Birth of the Totalitarian State
Section 2: The Center of Fascist Rituals: Piazza Venezia and Via dell’Impero in Rome
(Reading: Baxa, Piacentini's Window: The Modernism of the Fascist Master Plan of Rome)

Week 6
Section 1: General Review
Section 2: Mid-term exams


Week 7
Section 1: The “Fascist Doctrine”; Symbols, rituals and calendar of the Fascist Religion
Section 2: Fascism and Catholicism: Two Religions?
(Readings: Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism (1932); Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter II; Gentile, New Idols: Catholicism in the Face of Fascist Totalitarianism)

Week 8
Section 1: “Collective harmony”: The mass rites of the Fascist regime
Section 2: The “Foro Mussolini”: A place for the education of the Fascist youth élite
(Reading: Ponzio, A forgotten story: The training for teachers of physical education in Italy during the fascist period)

Week 9
Section 1: The cult of the Duce
Section 2: Totalitarianism and art: the Nazi, Soviet and Fascist cases
(Readings: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter VI; Nelis, Constructing Fascist Identity: Benito Mussolini and the Myth of Romanità)

Week 10
Section 1: The end of Fascism: A final appraisal
Section 2: The temples of faith for the “new Italians”: The new Fascist model city in the EUR district
(Readings: Gentile, Fascism as a Political Religion; Bosworth, Everyday Mussolinism: Friends, Family, Locality and Violence in Fascist Italy; Adamson, Fascism and Political Religion in Italy: A Reassessment)

Week 11
Section 1: Books Review Presentations
Section 2: Books Review Presentations

Week 12
Section 1: Books Review Presentations
Section 2: General review

REQUIRED READINGS:
E. Gentile, Politics as Religion, Princeton University Press, 2006 Reader