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 the 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. (3 credits)
Learning outcomes:
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.
Method of presentation:
Lectures and class discussions, multimedia presentations.
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION: English
Required work and form of assessment:
Class attendance and participation (20%); midterm exam (30%); book review paper (20%); final exam (30%).
content:
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
(Reading: Gentile, Politics as Religion. Chapter II; Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses. Chapters I and II)
Week 3
Section 1: A civil religion for Liberal Italy (1870-1914)
Section 2: A civil religion for Liberal Italy (1870-1914). Part II
Week 4
Section 1: World War I and the sacralisation of politics: War cemeteries, war memorials, the cult of the unknown soldier
Section 2: The origins of Fascist religion: Squadrismo and the “sacred militia”
(Reading: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter I)
Week 5
Section 1: Fascism at the power: The conquest of the cult of the nation
Section 2: Fascism at the power: The imposition of the symbols, rites and calendar of the Fascist revolution
(Reading: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter II)
Week 6
Mid-term exams
Week 7
Section 1: Fascist religion and Catholic religion
Section 2: A different approach: Religion and politics in the case of German Nazism
Week 8
Section 1: “Collective harmony”: The mass rites of the Fascist regime
Section 2: Totalitarianism and art: the Nazi, Soviet and Fascist cases
Week 9
Section 1: The temples of faith for the “new Italians”
Section 2: The cult of the Duce
(Reading: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter VI)
Week 10
Section 1: Christians denounce Totalitarian religions (1930-1938)
Section 2: The sacralisation of politics after World War II: Communist countries, new states in Africa and Asia, old democracies
Week 11
Section 1: An interpretation: pseudo-religions? propaganda? true faith? an answer to modern anxieties?
Section 2: An interpretation: The difference between civil religions and political religions
(Reading: Gentile, Politics as Religion. Chapters I and VI)
Week 12
Section 1: Conclusion
Section 2: General review
Required readings:
E. Gentile, Politics as Religion, Princeton University Press, 2006
Reader
Recommended readings:
Agulhon, Maurice. Marianne au combat, tr. ingl. Marianne into battle. Republican imagery and symbolism in France, 1789-1880, Cambridge [Eng.]-New York : Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London : Verso, 1983.
Bellah, Robert N. The Broken Covenant. American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, New York : Seabury Press, 1975.
Ben Ghiat, Ruth. Fascist Modernities: Italy 1922-1945. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2001.
Burleigh, Michael. Sacred causes. Religion and politics from the European dictators to Al Qaeda. London : Harper Press, 2006.
Cristi, Marcela. From Civil to Political Religion. The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo (Ontario) : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001.
De Felice, Renzo. Interpretations of Fascism. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1977.
Edelman, Murray J. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1964.
Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta. Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
Gentile, Emilio. Politics as Religion. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2006.
---. The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Griffin, Roger (ed.). Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion. London : Routledge, 2005.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. & Ranger T.O. (eds.). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, MA : Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Kertzer, David I. Ritual, politics, and power. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1988.
Lane, Christel. The Rites of the Rulers. Rituals in Industrial Society. The Soviet Case, New York/Cambridge [Eng.] : Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Liebman, Charles S. & Don-Yehiya, Eliezer. Civil Religion in Israel. Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1983.
Moro, Renato. “Religion and Politics in the Time of Secularization: The Sacralization of Politics and Politicisation of Religion”, in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6, 1, 2005, pp, 71-86.
Mosse, George L. The Nationalization of the Masses. Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich. New York : Fertig, 1975. (assigned selections).
Ozouf, Mona. Festival and the French Revolution, Cambridge, MA : Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Pois, Robert A. National Socialism and the Religion of Nature. London : Croom Helm, 1986.
Thrower, James. Marxism-Leninism as the civil religion of Soviet society. God's commissar. Lewiston, NY:E. Mellen Press, 1992.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Renato Moro is Professor of Contemporary History and Director of the Ph.D. School in Political Sciences at Roma Tre University. He previously was Professor of History of Political Parties and Movements at the University of Camerino. At Roma Tre University Prof. Moro has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2004 to 2008. Professor Moro is member of the group of historians appointed by the Italian Senate to edit Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani’s Diaries. He is also co-editor of the journal «Mondo contemporaneo. Rivista di storia». His studies concern the political culture of Catholic movements in Italy and the relationship between politics and religion in 20th Century history (Fascism, Nationalism, Racism, Antisemitism, Pacifism). Professor Moro is the author, editor and co-editor of several books including La formazione della classe dirigente cattolica (1979), G. Bottai – G. De Luca, Carteggio 1940-1957 (1989); Dalla Fuci degli anni '30 verso la nuova democrazia (1991), Renzo De Felice. Studi e testimonianze (2002); La Chiesa e lo sterminio degli ebrei (2002; sp. transl. 2004); Cattolicesimo e totalitarismo. Chiese e culture religiose tra le due guerre mondiali (Italia, Spagna, Francia) (2004), Fascismo e franchismo. Relazioni, immagini, rappresentazioni (2005), Guerra e pace nell’Italia del Novecento. Politica estera, cultura politica e correnti dell’opinione pubblica (2006), La formazione culturale e spirituale di Aldo Moro negli anni della FUCI (2008), L’immagine del nemico (2009). He is currently working on a book on the history of peace movements.
Italian Fascism: The First Totalitarian Political Religion
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 the 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. (3 credits)
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.
Lectures and class discussions, multimedia presentations.
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION: English
Class attendance and participation (20%); midterm exam (30%); book review paper (20%); final exam (30%).
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
(Reading: Gentile, Politics as Religion. Chapter II; Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses. Chapters I and II)
Week 3
Section 1: A civil religion for Liberal Italy (1870-1914)
Section 2: A civil religion for Liberal Italy (1870-1914). Part II
Week 4
Section 1: World War I and the sacralisation of politics: War cemeteries, war memorials, the cult of the unknown soldier
Section 2: The origins of Fascist religion: Squadrismo and the “sacred militia”
(Reading: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter I)
Week 5
Section 1: Fascism at the power: The conquest of the cult of the nation
Section 2: Fascism at the power: The imposition of the symbols, rites and calendar of the Fascist revolution
(Reading: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter II)
Week 6
Mid-term exams
Week 7
Section 1: Fascist religion and Catholic religion
Section 2: A different approach: Religion and politics in the case of German Nazism
Week 8
Section 1: “Collective harmony”: The mass rites of the Fascist regime
Section 2: Totalitarianism and art: the Nazi, Soviet and Fascist cases
Week 9
Section 1: The temples of faith for the “new Italians”
Section 2: The cult of the Duce
(Reading: Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Chapter VI)
Week 10
Section 1: Christians denounce Totalitarian religions (1930-1938)
Section 2: The sacralisation of politics after World War II: Communist countries, new states in Africa and Asia, old democracies
Week 11
Section 1: An interpretation: pseudo-religions? propaganda? true faith? an answer to modern anxieties?
Section 2: An interpretation: The difference between civil religions and political religions
(Reading: Gentile, Politics as Religion. Chapters I and VI)
Week 12
Section 1: Conclusion
Section 2: General review
E. Gentile, Politics as Religion, Princeton University Press, 2006
Reader
Agulhon, Maurice. Marianne au combat, tr. ingl. Marianne into battle. Republican imagery and symbolism in France, 1789-1880, Cambridge [Eng.]-New York : Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London : Verso, 1983.
Bellah, Robert N. The Broken Covenant. American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, New York : Seabury Press, 1975.
Ben Ghiat, Ruth. Fascist Modernities: Italy 1922-1945. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2001.
Burleigh, Michael. Sacred causes. Religion and politics from the European dictators to Al Qaeda. London : Harper Press, 2006.
Cristi, Marcela. From Civil to Political Religion. The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo (Ontario) : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001.
De Felice, Renzo. Interpretations of Fascism. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1977.
Edelman, Murray J. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1964.
Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta. Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
Gentile, Emilio. Politics as Religion. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2006.
---. The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Griffin, Roger (ed.). Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion. London : Routledge, 2005.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. & Ranger T.O. (eds.). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, MA : Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Kertzer, David I. Ritual, politics, and power. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1988.
Lane, Christel. The Rites of the Rulers. Rituals in Industrial Society. The Soviet Case, New York/Cambridge [Eng.] : Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Liebman, Charles S. & Don-Yehiya, Eliezer. Civil Religion in Israel. Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1983.
Moro, Renato. “Religion and Politics in the Time of Secularization: The Sacralization of Politics and Politicisation of Religion”, in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6, 1, 2005, pp, 71-86.
Mosse, George L. The Nationalization of the Masses. Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich. New York : Fertig, 1975. (assigned selections).
Ozouf, Mona. Festival and the French Revolution, Cambridge, MA : Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Pois, Robert A. National Socialism and the Religion of Nature. London : Croom Helm, 1986.
Thrower, James. Marxism-Leninism as the civil religion of Soviet society. God's commissar. Lewiston, NY:E. Mellen Press, 1992.
Renato Moro is Professor of Contemporary History and Director of the Ph.D. School in Political Sciences at Roma Tre University. He previously was Professor of History of Political Parties and Movements at the University of Camerino. At Roma Tre University Prof. Moro has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2004 to 2008. Professor Moro is member of the group of historians appointed by the Italian Senate to edit Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani’s Diaries. He is also co-editor of the journal «Mondo contemporaneo. Rivista di storia». His studies concern the political culture of Catholic movements in Italy and the relationship between politics and religion in 20th Century history (Fascism, Nationalism, Racism, Antisemitism, Pacifism). Professor Moro is the author, editor and co-editor of several books including La formazione della classe dirigente cattolica (1979), G. Bottai – G. De Luca, Carteggio 1940-1957 (1989); Dalla Fuci degli anni '30 verso la nuova democrazia (1991), Renzo De Felice. Studi e testimonianze (2002); La Chiesa e lo sterminio degli ebrei (2002; sp. transl. 2004); Cattolicesimo e totalitarismo. Chiese e culture religiose tra le due guerre mondiali (Italia, Spagna, Francia) (2004), Fascismo e franchismo. Relazioni, immagini, rappresentazioni (2005), Guerra e pace nell’Italia del Novecento. Politica estera, cultura politica e correnti dell’opinione pubblica (2006), La formazione culturale e spirituale di Aldo Moro negli anni della FUCI (2008), L’immagine del nemico (2009). He is currently working on a book on the history of peace movements.
2011