Unit CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Course
Philosophy and ethics of relationships
Study-unit Code
GP005071
Curriculum
Filosofia
Teacher
Paolo Raspadori
Teachers
  • Paolo Raspadori
Hours
  • 36 ore - Paolo Raspadori
CFU
6
Course Regulation
Coorte 2021
Offered
2021/22
Learning activities
Caratterizzante
Area
Discipline classiche, storiche, antropologiche e politico-sociali
Academic discipline
M-STO/04
Type of study-unit
Opzionale (Optional)
Type of learning activities
Attività formativa monodisciplinare
Language of instruction
Italian
Contents
General section: the neoliberal policies of the last decades will be reviewed, explaining how they have deepened inequalities and reduced social mobility. Monographic section: the founding topics of the economic, philosophical and political debate around inequality will be identified, offering a brief description of the thinking of the more important social scientists who have dealt with it.
Reference texts
General section: Alberto Mario Banti, La democrazia dei followers. Neoliberismo e cultura di massa, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2020. Monographic section: Michele Alacevich, Anna Soci, Breve storia della disuguaglianza, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2019.
Educational objectives
It is expected that students, on one hand, learn the reasons why there has not been, and is not happening today, in the West a mass reaction to widespread social and economic injustices. On the other hand, it is expected that students are able to identify the complex relationship between globalisation, inequality and democracy.
Prerequisites
To be able to sufficiently understand the contents of the course, students must know the principal features of contemporary age. Furthermore, students must have learnt, during the years of high school, the basic knowledge of the major historical events and processes occurred in the West in the nineteenth and the twentieth century.
Teaching methods
The course consists of two parts. The former consists of lectures regarding issues of the general and monographic section described above. They will be enriched by audiovisual and film screenings and by the illustration of graphs and photos, presented in Power Point format. The later will be held in form of seminar, inviting students to choose a reading about a topic concerned with the monographic section and expose it through a classroom discussion (with or without the aid of a Power Point presentation).
Other information
To prepare the general and the monographic sections the attendance of lessons is strongly recommended.
Learning verification modality
The course consists of a general section and a monographic section. To pass the first one, attending students must undergo an oral examination, of variable duration depending on the course of the examination itself. The interview aims to verify the levels of knowledge and understanding reached by students with regard to the themes of the general section and, at the same time, their capability to communicate with an appropriate language what they have learnt by the lessons and the reading of the recommended text. To pass the monographic section, instead, students must attend a seminar work, that will be held in the last phase of the course, where their capabilities of critical analysis and reworking of a written text (with regard to one or more topics about the monographic part) will be tested. Furthermore, students must be able to present the subject of that text to their colleagues and the teacher. Students not able to attend lessons must prove to have got the knowledge provided by the course in an oral exam, for what concerns both the general part and the monographic one.
Extended program
General section: the neoliberal policies of the last decades will be reviewed, explaining how they have deepened inequalities and reduced social mobility. In particular, it will be examined how the entire political spectrum, in Italy and in the rest of the West, finds itself perfectly united in accepting the "neoliberal cult" of performance and life as a competition for individual success.
Monographic section: the founding topics of the economic, philosophical and political debate around inequality will be identified, offering a brief description of the thinking of the more important social scientists who have dealt with it. From here it will emerge how the economic theory has long overlooked the fundamental problem of income distribution and how the use of sophisticated statistical tools has deprived the issue of inequality of its deep ethical content.
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