Mafia: Reality and Fiction

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Mafia, cosa nostra, camorra, ‘ndrangheta, omertà, cosche, padrini, picciotti... These terms, which continue to dominate Italian news, are systematically attached to a certain Italian reality but have also contributed to the creation of a veritable Italian imaginary and of controversial cultural clichés qualifying (rightly or not) Italy's broader legal, moral, social and political practices. 2017 marked the 25th anniversary of the murders of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino by the Sicilian mafia. This double massacre deeply modified the State’s reaction to mafia crimes, as well as the discourse on them. With the aid of literary texts, movies, and a variety of additional interdisciplinary material about Italy’s daily social, political and cultural events, this course aims to examine the complexity of the "mafia" phenomenon, its history and evolution before and after Falcone and Borsellino, the political, economic and financial repositioning of mafia and other criminal organizations both in the South and in the North of Italy, their multiple aesthetic representations and their many myths. Meetings will be a combination of lectures and discussions, all in Italian. Written assignments will include two papers (6 and 8 pages) and weekly contributions to discussion threads on Blackboard.