PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY ISSUES: THEORIES OF FASCISM

The seminar aims at offering a critical overview and discussing theories of fascism, old and new. The seminar will examine the historical conditions of the genesis of fascism, its ideological premises as well as its contemporary revival and “transmutations.”

By the successful completion of the course the student will be able to understand and analyze:

• The historical conditions of the genesis of fascism.
• The main ideological theses of fascism.

Week 1 # The historical conditions of the genesis of the Italian fascism.

Week 2 # The genesis of the German Nazism (economy, politics and society in Weimar Republic. The causes of the collapse of Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party.

Week 3-4 # The Nazi ideology and propaganda.

Week 5 # Antisemitism

Week 6 # Concentration camps

Week 7 # The holocaust

Week 8 # Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil

Week 9 # Film projection

Week 10 # The concept of totalitarianism: public uses and misuses of historiography

Week 11 # The rise of far-right today: the new faces of fascism

Week 12-13 # Students presentations

Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, A Harvest Book, 1976.

Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil, New York, Penguin Classics, 2006

Fritzsche, Peter, Life and Death in the third Reich, New York, A Caravan Book, 2009

Levi, Primo, The drowned and the saved, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1986.

Poulantzas, Nicos, Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism, trans. by Judith White, London, Verso, 2018.

Traverso, Enzo, The Origins of Nazi Violence, trans. by Janet Lloyd, London, New Press, 2003.

Traverso, Enzo, The new faces of fascism: populism and the far right, trans. by David Broder, London, Verso, 2019. 

Lectures. Presentations. Essays

Evaluation of presentations and essays.