Abstract
This paper explores the collaboration between faculty member Valentina Denzel and librarian Deborah Margolis to revise the module “Jewish population in Italy” in an upper-level undergraduate Italian course at a large university in the US. This pedagogical partnership aimed to enhance awareness of the diverse Italian population and to increase students’ understanding of the importance of the Humanities to better comprehend not only historical facts but also to foster personal growth and to value human differences, minorities, citizenship and other forms of belonging, human rights, and the dynamics of identity in culture. To this end, students engaged with literary and artistic expressions describing the inauguration of the racial laws by Mussolini in 1938 that denied citizenship rights to the Jewish Italian population. Furthermore, students watched the testimonials by Italian survivors of the Holocaust collected through the initiative of the USC Shoah Foundation in which survivors discussed their lives before and during the inauguration of the racial laws that were followed by Nazi occupation (1943-45) and resulted in the deportation to concentration and death camps. Through this exposure of various literary, artistic, and testimonial contributions, students—largely of Italian heritage—were able to gain a new awareness of the diversity of the Italian population, to revise a stereotypical image of Italy, its history and culture, and to learn more about the oldest Jewish population in Europe. This paper describes the various pedagogical approaches, lessons learned and revisions for future modules of this course.
Presenters
Deborah MargolisMiddle East and Religious Studies Librarian, Libraries, Michigan State University, Michigan, United States Valentina Denzel
Associate Professor of French, Romance and Classical Studies, Michigan State University, Michigan, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Past and Present in the Humanistic Education
KEYWORDS
Italy, Italian Language, Jews, Holocaust, Diversity, Libraries, Archives, Pedagogy, Collaboration
