IL DIPARTIMENTO
Low-Brow:
Sahar Zivan
What would you associate with a university degree in Italian, Dante’s Divine
Comedy or Dacia Maraini’s 1994 crime novel, Voices? The dark and dramatic
neo-realism of Rossellini’s Rome, Open City or Cinepanettone, the Italian
equivalent of the Carry On films? Icon of Italian unification Giuseppe Garibaldi
or icon of Italian football Andrea Pirlo?
The fact is, we all have preconceptions about what “should” be
taught at university, and it’s always subjective. You might say
that one man’s trash is another man’s Treasure Island [although
you probably wouldn’t]. A brief flick through what an English
BA student might hope to study at our own university reveals a
mandatory first year course on Shakespeare but remarkably little
in the way of JK Rowling or EL James. And that is remarkable.
Think about it. In recent years, who has generated more discussion and caused more controversy? We can debate whether Fifty
Shades of Grey reflects well or badly on society, but either way
it does reflect, otherwise people wouldn’t have bought it in the
numbers they did. On an academic level, we make an automatic
inverse connection between popularity and cultural importance
which, if you think about it rationally, is insane.
Surely analysing the books which we’re all reading, and the films
that we’re all watching, tells us more about us as a society than a
700 year old poet who can’t gaze upon his beloved without going
weak in the knees and locking himself in his room to write a
poem about it?
You may be thinking “well, why do we n