Communism and Fascism occupy opposite ideological poles, but parallels between literature, art, and cinema in Fascist Italy and in the Soviet Union teaches us about the relationship between art and politics, modernity, and dissent. The course explores how artists, writers, and film directors positioned themselves towards the regimes and the promises of a modern world. From the avant-garde’s enthusiasm for the “new” (in art and politics) to skepticism and outright defiance. We will read political works by Vladimir Lenin and Benito Mussolini and explore the works of Sergei Eisenstein, Luchino Visconti, Evgeny Zamyatin, and others.
