Corso di laurea magistrale in Scienze storiche

The course is part of the research group "Political Representation, Participation, Citizenship", from which it takes its name, which has been active for years in the Department of Historical Studies, in collaboration with the universities of Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Exeter (www.ricercherappresentanza.unito.it).

It therefore offers Master's level students the opportunity to come into direct contact with historical research in an interdisciplinary and international dimension in relation to the theme of the nexus between democracy and political representation. The course, which has a diachronic dimension, from ancient history to the contemporary world, and a multidisciplinary approach, between history, philosophy of politics and legal science, aims to provide a full understanding of the historical dimension of modernity. It aims to provide the tools to orient oneself in the faces of the complexities of contemporary political dynamics and to acquire the historical knowledge to understand the challenges posed by the current crisis of political representation, which test parliamentary systems and national borders. The aim is to overcome the idea that contemporary difficulties are exceptional and unsolvable.

The student will be able to use the tools for the analysis and interpretation of historical documents and interpretative essays, with a focus on historical, political and legal vocabulary from antiquity to the contemporary age. Interdisciplinary historical, political and legal skills will be developed in an intellectual history dimension. The student will be able at the end of the course to analyse the theme of political representation on a historical and theoretical level, acquiring multidisciplinary concepts and knowledge.

Political representation, participation, citizenship

In the face of the transformations affecting representative democracies, the need to refine participation and representation in order to create a public space of national cohesion and consolidate institutions lies at the heart of the course topic, which will be dealt with in a diachronic and interdisciplinary dimension, making use of the contribution of Italian and foreign scholars, legal theorists, political scientists, historians of institutions and philosophers of politics.

 The historical perspective, proposing to analyse and deconstruct the evolutions of ideas and concepts, in contact with different events, makes it possible to constitute a laboratory where experiences and solutions, successes and crises, aporias and unresolved knots of democratic citizenship can be analysed and reconsidered. The practices, styles and forms of representative politics implemented in the past will be analysed.

Beginning with the turning point represented in the 18th century by the democratic revolutions in America and France, the investigation will be projected to the previous centuries and then on to contemporary times.

The systems of drawing lots, which characterised certain realities in the ancient Greece area, will be compared with today's proposals.

The characters of the representation of vested interests in the Old Regime will be understood and what is meant by corporate representation and imperative mandate.

Ample space will be given to the rupture constituted by the French Revolution and the distinction between constituent power and constituted power, theorised in 1789 by Emmanuel Sieyès. The different meanings of citizen and citizenship that marked the transition from the modern to the contemporary age will be specified.

The widely debated question of whether constitutional courts can be considered a form of representation will be presented from a historical perspective.

The most current forms of democratic experiments will be reflected upon. In the face of the environmental urgency, the issues related to the representation of the rights of nature, which imply a new idea of man's relationship with his environment, will be illustrated. Such an idea in fact imposes a reconsideration of political representation in relation to the idea of the nation-state, with a transnational and transgenerational valence.

The course consists of a series of introductory lectures by the teacher, including the reading of documents. The concept of political representation and the historical dimension of the approach to the question will be clarified, with a particular focus on the French Revolution. A guide to the topics covered by the invited scholars will be offered.  Speeches by individual specialists will follow throughout the course, followed by the conclusive lecture by the teacher:

François Quastana (Università di Aix-Marseille): Il problema della sincerità della rappresentanza in Francia e a Ginevra (1838-1848).

Pierre Brunet (Università Paris1, Panthéon-Sorbonne) : Rappresentare la natura. Da parte di chi?Perché?

Sabino Cassese (Giudice emerito della Corte Costituzionale): Democrazia e rappresentanza.

Pasquale Pasquino ( CNRS, New York University): Democrazia degli antichi e dei moderni.

Nadia Urbinati ( Columbia University New York), La rappresentanza politica non è un meno peggio.

Francesco Di Donato (Università di Napoli Federico II: La rappresentanza politica nella Francia di Antico regime.

Michel Troper (Professore emerito, Università Paris-Nanterre): La rappresentazione della rappresentanza.

Manuela Albertone, Le ragioni della rappresentanza politica.

Materials sent in advance by each specialist is available on the teaching website under Teaching Material (Materiale didattico). Students will thus be able to actively participate in the discussion.

A poster with the dates of the specialists' speeches can also be found on the teaching website (Materiale didattico). All lectures will take place in the Seminar Room, Department of Historical Studies, Palazzo Nuovo, 3rd floor. The rest of the lectures will take place in Room 9 of the Palazzo Nuovo.

The course schedule is therefore as follows:

29/9, 5/10, 12/10, 13/10, 19/10, 20/10, 26/10, 27/10 2-5 p.m. Seminar Room, Department of Historical Studies, 3rd floor
Thursday-Friday 2-5 p.m. Aula 9 Palazzo Nuovo on all other dates (21/9, 22/9, 28/9, 6/10).

The course has a seminar structure. Active participation, encouraged by the available texts, will be an element of evaluation. Each student is also required to write a written report of 5 pages, based on three interventions, of their choice, by the scholars and the teacher, supported by the reference texts available on the website. The procedures for writing the report will be explained at the beginning of the course.

For students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) or disabilities, please review the support procedures (https://www.unito.it/servizi/lo-studio/studenti-e-studentesse-con-disabilita) and accommodations (https://www.unito.it/accoglienza-studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa) provided by the University, particularly the necessary procedures for exam support (https://www.unito.it/servizi/lo-studio/studenti-e-studentesse-con-disturbi-specifici-di-apprendimento-dsa/supporto).