First-Year Seminar: Fabricated Histories: Ancient Greece and Rome in European Fascism

3 units

Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany created and expressed unique forms of power and justification through fabricating connections to Ancient Greece and Rome. For almost 1,500 years before Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler began their rises to power after World War I, these ancient civilizations had been two of the most significant symbols of power, culture, achievement, and imitation. In this class, we will dive deeply into the nature of the relationship between the ancient world and these two fascist states. We will investigate how the leaders and their states attempted to cultivate relationships with the ancient past through history, film, architecture, and propaganda. We will strive to answer two fundamental questions of great value for understanding how knowledge is manipulated to serve political power: 1. Why did Italian and German fascists turn to Ancient Greece and Rome? Addressing this question will help us understand the decisive role classical antiquity has had in one of the most destructive political ideologies of the modern era. 2. What specific mechanisms were used to interpret Graeco-Roman culture and knowledge? Answering this will allow us to evaluate how ideologies reframe knowledge to create specific identities and cultivate power.