The Hunting of the elusive Spirit of Turin ...
Or, An Erasmus Semester in as an English Major in Italy
Pasta,
Pizza, and Berlusconi. Those are probably the most
common cultural associations with Italy. Thus essentialised, the German imagination constructs the Mediterranean
republic sometimes as an exotic fascinating holiday paradise, other times as the
hostile other that demands an “end of German leadership in the EU” (NEOnline/GK
2015 np). In order to look beyond the almost taken-for-granted cliché of Italy
and prevent the cultural automatism of these interpretative frames, my
pre-mobility period was not only filled with the endless bureaucratic exercises
in filling out forms, registering online or finding an apartment. In order be
able to critically reflect my own Erasmus experience, much of my time
pre-mobility was dedicated to research: about the programme, the “goals” set by
my home university for my stay abroad, my country of exile, and the University
that “was supposed to enhance the quality of my educational experience”(de Wit
2014 np). As a relatively recent member of this new “species” of
young Europeans, the “homo Erasmus”, to borrow the title of Leos Van Melckebeke
satire, this report will shed a light on the Erasmus experience beyond the
official rhetoric and the seemingly uniform and repetitive narrations about Torino from former Erasmus students. With
regard to the first goal, set by my home university, “gaining an understanding
of my host country”, in the first part of this report I will take a closer look
at my experiences with Torino’s urban
identity and national pride and its ever changing self-conception under the
influence of globalization and “Europeanization”. In the second part, I will
explore the academic culture at the Università
degli Studi di Torino (Unito) in general and in more detail the Lingue e Letterature Straniere with
regard to the second goal of my stay abroad which the Modulhandbuch defines as the improvement of my English language
skills .
The Spirit of Turin - Understanding the Culture, Nation
and Language of Torino, Italy
When I arrived at Porta Nuova Station in September 2015 after a 12 hour train ride, at first glance the Centro Città and its buildings still seemed possess the flair of their former French occupiers. Despite the Risorgimento - the Unification of Italy - in 1861 and Torino’s quite prominent role as the capital of Re Vittorio Emmanuele II (until 1865), the former Duchy of Savoy and today’s capital of the Piedmont region sometimes reminds international travellers of Paris rather than of Roma or Firenze. Even the first national parliament of 1861 was forced to communicate in French. However, in spite of the city’s geographical proximity to France, today the French influence on Piedmotese or torinese culture is quite limited. Torino’s inhabitants seem to be proudly Italian - and not only during football matches or world championships, thus, the local football club Juventus has its own museum. Homi Bhabha theorises in Nation and Narration that the way a nation sees, represents or projects itself is connected to the question of how the narratives of nation are constructed and what “elements” or symbols are used in the process (Bhabha 1990 3).
Not far from the centro along via Po
national sentiment has not only been commercialized in the form of flags
weaving from the vending booths for 4, 50 Euros and become available to the
masses together with fake jewellery, fake Gucci and African Art. In the Palazzo Carignano which houses the Museo Del Risorgimento Italiano
it has taken concrete shape. To the faint strains of Verdi’s “Va pensiero” the museum constructs a
narration of glorious battles fought and won to resolve the Questione Italiana and build a unified
nation. Although this narrative was
recently embedded into a greater “European context”, mostly German, Austrian,
and French, somehow this particular narration of nation seems to neglect
Italy’s own colonial past making Eritrea, Somalia, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania
merely footnotes in Italian history. While the museum commemorates glorious
aspects of nation-building-phase, the Palazzo
itself served as the House of Deputies of the Subalpine Parliament from 1848 to
1861. Although it remains a symbol of the unified Italy even today, for many Torinesi the initial enthusiasm for
“their” Risorgimento, their unity,
seems have decreased, especially when faced with the political and economic
realities in the 21st century. Disillusioned with the promises of
unity, anti-fascism and economic prosperity, the feelings of discontent with
their southern compatriots have been festering over decades, thus, even in
heart of the Piedmont there are a lot of Leghisti[5],
who claim the incompatibility of two very different cultures in the North and
the South. 
Still, in the age of globalization Torino celebrates many values Italy
likes to project about itself as a nation: national unity, local traditions and
language. Even though Torino today is
no longer the biggest industrial city in Northern Italy, with the turn of the
millennium and especially the transformation of the urban spaces for the
Olympic Games of 2006 (cf. Olivia 2014 3f), the old baroque palazzi have gained a young, modern, somewhat
multicultural flair through new artistic and intercultural co-operations such
as the weekly Wednesday special “film in
inglese” at the UCI cinema – a co-operation with the British Council or the
annual international chocolate festival. With the internationalization of the
city, Torino also came to valorise
older or existing venues such as the Libreria
Luxembourg which specializes in international literature. Although the città and in fact all of Italy seems to
have successfully resisted a Starbucks invasion by upholding their own coffee
culture, this does not prevent the Torinesi
from celebrating their version of Halloween or lowering the cultural barriers
for international franchises such as H & M, Zara or MacDonald’s - even
though these may be inflected through the Italian context. Despite the
reinvention of the city, for the international traveller or Erasmus student these
temples of global consumerism may represent familiar sights, but are not
necessarily enough to make them comfortable in manoeuvring the pitfalls of intercultural
situations. Although navigation has always been considered a difficult art, especially
in the early days of my stay abroad I was forced to overcome many troubles when
“getting about town”, mostly in from of language barriers. And even the rapture
of hunting the elusive spirit of Turin, could not atone for the at times dismal
surprises theses encounters had in store for me. At first, language in Torino seemed to be an outward linguistic maker of belonging to what
Benedict Anderson calls “imagined community” (Anderson 2006 Pos. 141f), or as
the railway employee taught me you are not one of us, you do not belong, if you
do not speak Italian. Although my professors at home seemed confident that at
least at university “everybody speaks English”, learning Italian became essential
to cope with everyday life, since in Torino
the neither butcher, banker nor billiard-maker, no one really, “speaks”
English. Thus, “Mi dispiace, parlo solo
un po’italiano, parla inglese?”[6]
became one of first sentences I internalized and a staple in almost every
conversation. Tragically, the answer was mostly “no”. While university provides
every Erasmus student with a relatively concise “survival guide” in English,
opening a bank account or buying a train ticket quickly turns from the
ridiculous to the grotesque, when the railway employee asks you which German country you are from, the Repubblica Federale Tedesca (BRD) or the
Repubblica Democratica Tedesca (DDR)
or when you are refused service because “we are in Italy, we speak Italian”.
Thus, opening a bank account meant having a chat with the bank director who was
kind enough to find an account manager who explained in pigeon French what was
required of me. Ironically, out of the roughly 60 pages in Italian that were
necessary to open a bank account, 20 of which now bear my signature, one
document was actually in German: A signed affidavit swearing to the fact that I
am not a US-citizen, trying to hide money from the IRS. Later on, especially in my classes and in
contact with others I discovered that, while most of the people “know some English”,
they are hesitant and unaccountably shy about speaking non-Romance languages.
Till the very last day of my almost six-months-stay in Torino, my flat mate insisted on speaking Italian “at” me, while he
revealed himself capable of understanding my answers in English. Even in my
Italian class for beginners, the professor confessed that she did not speak
English fluentemente. Thus, as the
professor taught in Italian and translated only some of most difficult grammar
rules into French or at times Spanish, she needed her very own interpreter to
communicate with the majority of her often multilingual students who despite
their different linguistic backgrounds had one language in common: English. Learning
the language of Boccaccio, Petrarca and
Dante, thus, was reduced to 40 hours of rather repetitive “fill in the
gap”-exercises on grammar rules and vocabulary drills on paper rather than on
human interaction which could have inspired a more enthusiastic search for
traces of a different Italy to discover the “spirit of Turin”, Maike Albath
evokes in her award winning meditation on Torino.
Academic Culture in Italy, Studying English at Unito
and the Improvement of English Language Skills
Echoing
the general praise of the the
European exchange programme, the Italian novelist and Unito alumnus, Umberto Eco, recently said: “Erasmus has created the
first generation of young Europeans” (cf. Oltermann 2012 n.pag). Especially in times when the pax-Europa seems
at peril and economic or political crisis are abounding, the exchange programme
often receives an honourable mention as the celebrated tool of European
integration that “creates a need to migrate” (Oborune 2015 n.pag.) and continues to
forge one European identity. Over the years, however, some dissenters have come
forward, arguing that in “a number of areas [Erasmus programme] still
require[s] improvement” (Morel 2014 n.pag.), especially concerning “collaborative
working patterns between university staff [and] students” (Morel 2014 n. pag.).
According to Hans de Wit, internationalization should not be a goal in itself.
Rather than focusing on “numbers”, he points out, Erasmus needs to “find
something back of its focus on curriculum and learning outcomes of the past […]
[to] enhance the quality of the experience […] [for] the faculty and the students”
(de Wit 2012 n.pag.). Despite the most ardent efforts to streamline European higher
education there seems to be an unspoken consensus about making an effort to
become similar, while ultimately insisting to remain fundamentally different.Thus, in Germany higher education is situated
somewhere between the humanist ideal and the Bologna reality, while still
clinging to the remnants of Humboldt’s concept of “Bildung”: lifelong process personal and spiritual maturation rather
than the mere transmission of external skills. In Italy the constitution
defines purpose of higher education as twofold. University is not only meant to
“provide all citizen with education and training that will lead to employment”
(Ministero 2009 n.pag.), but also to “promote the scientific progress of the
nation” (Ministero 2009 n.pag.). In accordance with these national regulations the Unito, being one of the biggest and oldest Italian
universities, prides itself of not only of nearly 70,000 students, but also of many
international partnerships (India, China, developing countries in Asia, Latin
America, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Area) and more importantly a long
standing research tradition in wide range of academic fields. Next to the more
“traditional” degree courses (history, philosophy, law) that are available, Unito in the 21st century
continues to grow and branch out into more “specialized” fields of knowledge
such as Military Strategy
or Restoration and Conservation, IT or Performing Arts. The rhetoric of the
image film and
the Erasmus ideals aside, from
the perspective of an exchange student the chasm between the high-minded educational ideals and academic reality has very real consequences,
especially in terms of curricula, teaching methods, requirements and learning
outcome. Since there is very little information made available before the
mobility period, confusion reigns supreme about how to pursue the goals set by
the home university and what is realistically possible to achieve at the
receiving institution. Thus, in
the beginning neither Italy or the Unito
were my first choice, not even my second, especially since the Modulhandbuch for MA students defines
the academic goals for my stay abroad as twofold: While gaining an insight into
and an understanding of the culture of the country, I am also supposed to improve my English language
skills “to achieve a level of perfection” which, according to the Prüfungsamt, is C2 level. However, even before the start of the
mobility phase it became clear that at least the second goal would be difficult
to realise. With the new regulations mandated by the EU funding institutions in
Brussels every prospective Erasmus student is obliged to take a language test
in the “main language of instruction”, which in my case curiously turned out to
be Italian rather than English. Despite the nonchalant assurances that the test
results would have no bearing on my going, the online exam was a first
indicator, that rather than focusing on improving my English I would have to
branch out and learn another Romance language. Only upon my arrival this
initial language conundrum was solved, when my Erasmus co-ordinator, professor for German philology and Notker III specialist, explained
that in Torino I was registered as a
humanist and would consequently be part of in the Department Studi
Umanistici. While at my home university the umbrella term Geisteswissenschaftler or even humanist
studies covers great range of subjects from theology to languages, at Unito the purview of a humanist is
clearly defined as Cinema è Media,
Culture Moderne; Filologia Letterature, Letterature Filologia, Lingue è
Civilata Dell'Asia, Scienze Linguistiche. To participate in any of the
classes on my learning agreement, I was advised to directly contact the Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature
Straniere e Cultura Moderne. Although Untio’s
academic strategy permits students, especially Erasmus students who do not
speak Italian, to take classes “via correspondence” without attending any of
the lectures, in an attempt to actually achieve the second major goal set for Master
students abroad, I decided to actively participate in university life rather
than “take a few classes to get EU funding” or read a list of books that cover
most of the class material and take a final exam 15 weeks later.
A second indicator that honing English language skills
at Untio could potentially become a
rather protracted process was the university’s rather limited selection of
classes that are taught in English for the Laurea
Magistrale (Master) students.
For the winter term, I only had two options, none of which fell into the
purview of my own research focus: while Lingue
e Letterature dei Paesi Inglese offered a seminar on “Postcolonial Literature and Environmental Humanities”, in Lingue
et letterature Anglo-Americane I could take a seminar about
“The US-Novel in the 21st century” and at least make use of the
knowledge gained from previous seminars about “the rise of the novel” and
lectures on “cultural diversity in North American Literatures”. As I have
gradually come to realize, studying in English or American Studies in Torino as an Erasmus student meant not
only adapting to different teaching methods and requirements, but also
following a completely different curriculum. It seems that due to the general
focus on post-colonialism, the division between what is considered British and
American literature is less strict. In my seminar on the US-novel we covered
not only a British author who writes about mass surveillance in the US, but
also an African author who offers a different view on racism, blackness and
racial problems in the States. At Unito
a degree in Lingue e Letterature
Straniere, thus, seems to be situated somewhere in the “borderlands”
between different Anglophone literatures. Despite the focus on either Lingue e Letterature dei Paesi Inglese (British) or Lingue e Letterature Anglo-Americane (Anglo-American) the examination regulations, however, still mandate Italian literature classes and multiple
translation seminars for regular students, while it making it possible to take
classes in world literature that are taught in Italian, for example an
Introduction to Swedish literature. Traditionally these 9-CP-literature classes
have a lecture format. Since it is possible to study “via correspondence” the
professor sometimes meets his students for the first times during the exam
period (winter term: January – February), where the students are asked to
reproduce what they have learned either in final written exams, but more often
in 20-miniute oral exam sessions that are graded from 0 to 30 Lorde (30 with praise). The passing grade
is at least 18 out of 30. In Italy, however, students also have the right to
refuse grades and repeat the exam up to four times. The director of the M.A. programme in American Studies, however, made it clear
that he intended to break with the traditional Italian lecture format. With an
Austen-like general statement at the beginning of the semester, he offered his
students a miniature sketch of the following two and a half months: “I don’t have
any truth to offer. I don’t want you to tell me what we talked about in class
in your essays. I would rather find out what you think”. Structuring his seminar
and syllabus more in accordance with principles that are usually found at US
universities, the professor relied on participation and multiple written
assignments, even peer evaluation and his very own course blog to communicate with his students, provide secondary
material, and summarize the weekly lesson. Due to the constraints of the
Italian system, however, the seminar “The US Novel in the 21st
century” could not or did not build on previous knowledge in narratology or the
“Basics of English Studies”. The three-hour long weekly sessions, therefore,
were divided into three parts. The first 60 minutes were usually dedicated to
narratology, analytical tools and more specifically Christoph Bode’s
introduction to The Novel. In the
second part of each session the professor dealt briefly with the principles of
“written expression” addressing questions about how to write an essay and how
to apply critical concepts, before moving the primary and secondary texts into
the focus of the discussion during the final 60 minutes. My Erasmus semester, thus, started with the question
of “what is fiction”, a discussion about the self-referentiality of fictional
texts and universal truth that the author is not the narrator. Multiple guest lectures
then quickly moved the discussion to questions of how to write an essay or the new
"Developments in Narrative Theory". Not only thematically in class discussions, but also in
multiple written assignments we covered six primary texts
and a wide range of topics. From the War on Terror and its rhetoric we moved to
“writing the war” in Iraq, mass surveillance, Citizenfour and Edward Snowdon.
We covered questions of race and racism, the precarious situation of Arab
Americans in the United States post-9/11, grail and disaster narratives as well
as the Black Atlantic and new diasporic identities in the 21stcentury. Apart from the written assignments that were considered exam practice for both the mid-term and the “written” part of the
final exam, in the Italian system every student has to pass the final oral exam
which is often not as strongly weighted as the written ones. If a student is
between two grades, the oral exam counts more as a positive or negative
participation grade. After their 20-minute exam session, the students
immediately receive their grade and have the option to either reject or accept
the final grade with their signature.
Conclusion
Although many Italians would argue Torino is nothing like the rest of
Italy, my time in the city of Einaudi, Fiat and the world famous shroud allowed
me to glimpse a different Italy somewhat apart from the glittery holiday
Riviera, Berlusconi’s flashy media circus, European austerity measures, political
scandals and the hotchpotch of mafia like structures. The Erasmus programme
made it possible to come into contact with Italian culture in museums or
theatres and meet people who
are very proud of their
nation, the tradizione torinese, and their language as an expression of that
culture. While I gained a small insight into a complex culture
through the programme, the bureaucratic madness that is Erasmus and the lack of
information about the academic reality at the receiving institution make it difficult
to achieve the goals officially set for the stay abroad. In order to avoid
relying on the flexibility of the host institution and the excessive confusion
about classes, professors, and Credit Points I would have certainly wished for
a greater exchange of at times basic information about curricula and teaching
methods or even the research focus in the departments of the host university. Looking back and considering the lessons of the past
semester, I have also gained
broader understanding of different approaches towards Anglophone literature.
Although much of what was covered in my seminar was a revision of basic
narratology and what I have learned in my first Bachelor semester, I still
profited from the writing practice which put the discussed theory into academic
practice. As for the question whether I have achieved the second major goal of
honing my English language skills to achieve level of perfection, I still cannot
realistically say that I would have a perfect 9.0 score on an IELTS test, now that
I have been in Italy. My Erasmus-exile, thus, became more of a spiritual
journey. In pursuit of Torino’s
elusive spirit, I tried to following the footsteps of Einaudi’s group of liberal-minded intellectuals who, long before the inception of the Erasmus-programme,
stood against the essentialism of the “single narrative”, against the fascist ideology of Mussolini as well as Berlusconi’s
“bunga bunga” vision of Italy
and for the “Eroberung neuer Denkräume”
(Albath 2009 7). In spite of the rather controversial circumstances of my
Erasmus application and my initial reluctance to try and improve my English
language skills in Italy, Torino, as
a crucible of new ideas and cosmopolitan counter-discourse, offered me exactly
that: a space for contemplation, a starting point for a fresh development, a vita nuova and a new appreciation of my
craft as a literary scholar.
…Before vanishing away, softly and quietly.
Works
cited
Abath, Maike. Der Geist von Turin. Pavese, Ginzburg, Einaudi und die Wiedergeburt Italiens nach 1943. Berlin: Berenberg Verlag, 2010. Print.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 1983. Revised Ed. Benedict Anderson. London and New York: Verso, 2006. Kindle.
Bhabah, Homi K. Introduction. Nation and Narration. 1990. London and New York: Routledge, reprinted 2010.1-8. Kindle Edition.
Lüsebrink, Hans-Jürgen. Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Interaktion, Fremdwahrnehmung, Kulturtransfer. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2012. Print.
Morel, Claire. “Using lessons from Erasmus Mundus to improve Erasmus + joint degrees”. University World News. Jan. 24, 2014. Web. 12.02.2015 http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140124090332358
“Higher Education in Italy. An International Guide”. Ministerio dell’Instruzione dell’Università e della Ricerca.2009. Web. 12.02.2016. http://www.miur.it/guida/guide.htm.
NEOnline/GK. “The Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, stressed the German companies continue to conduct business with Russia despite the EU imposed sanctions”. New Europe. 18.12.2015. Web. 03.01.2015. http://neurope.eu/article/renzi-says-that-eu-cant-remain-under-solely-german-leadership/
Olivia, Gianni. Storia di Torino. Dalle Origini ai Giorni Nostri. Pordenone: Edizioni Biblioteca dell’Immagine, 2014. Print.
Oltermann, Philip. “Let’s dedicate the EU’s Nobel peace prize to Europe’s sexual revolution”. The Guardian. Oct. 13, 2012. Web. 12.02.2015. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/13/nobel-peace-prize-eu-erasmus
Oborune, Karina. “I will never be the same after Erasmus”.eutopia. ideas for Europe magazine. Jan. 7, 2015. Web. 12.02.2015 http://eutopiamagazine.eu/en/karina-oborune/columns/i-will-never-be-same-after-erasmus
Van Melckebeke, Leos.
Homo Erasmus. Critique de la léthargie
nomade. Odogno: Dasein
Editions, 2013. Print.
de Wit, Hans. “Erasmus at 25: what is the future for international student mobility?”, The Guardian. May 2012. Web. (03/02/2015). http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/may/21/erasmus-programme-and-student-mobility
[1] Cf. Juventus official web site (2016): http://www.juventus.com/en/tickets/museum-tour-tickets/
[2] Cf.
Museo Nazionale del Cinema (2009) http://www.museocinema.it/
[3] Cf.
Google Maps. Lingotto, Torino. Web. (05.01.2015) https://www.google.de/maps?oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&q=Lingotto&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB55ne0JLKAhUI1iwKHYMpBwUQ_AUIBygB
[4] Cf.
Museo Del Risorgimento Italiano (2010) http://www.museorisorgimentotorino.it/
[6]I am sorry, but I speak only a little bit of Italian. Do you speak English?
[7]
Cf. Radiocentrodieci Unito.“The University of Turin”. Youtube. 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1ga9N2CZ3c
[10] Cf.
Scenario- (http://scenario-unito.cineca.it/2015/lm/studium/)
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