COML3080 - Soccer Beyond the Field: Sport and Politics in Italian Culture

In recognition of the 2026 FIFA World Cup—hosted also in Philadelphia among other cities—we will explore soccer’s centrality in Italian Culture. Italy is a country where cultural traditions run deep, and among its most compelling cultural phenomena is the nation’s fervent attachment to soccer, or “calcio” as it is known in Italian. As historian John Foot claims, “You can’t understand Italy without understanding football, and you can’t understand football without understanding Italy.” Indeed, beyond its role as a popular sport, calcio is a cultural phenomenon reflecting and influencing political discourses, national identities, social values, and local communities. This course seeks to explore the significance of soccer in and outside Italy, considering it not just as a pastime, but as a powerful cultural lens through which we can gain a deeper understanding of Italian society. We will analyze how calcio functions as a social institution that transcends regional differences, class divisions, and generational gaps, uniting diverse groups in shared experiences. At the same time, the course will investigate how soccer can also amplify differences, exclusion, and racist behaviors. Moreover, we will explore how soccer relates to design, architecture, music, and soccer icons (Maradona, Totti, Messi, Zidane, etc.). By examining the cultural, historical, and social dimensions of Italian soccer, this course will provide a rich framework for exploring how soccer intersects with broader cultural narratives and social dynamics in Italy and discussing crucial issues in Italian culture, such as multiculturalism, immigration, and anti-racist movements. Students will be exposed to a diverse array of films and visual, literary, theoretical, and historical materials, including Gramsci, Barthes, Nussbaum, Bourdieu, Pasolini, Saba, Soriano, Vázquez, Salvatores, and Sorrentino, among others. At the end of the course, students will gain a unique perspective on Italian culture and society, analyze the role of soccer in Italian culture and from a global perspective, understand how sports can be a lens for examining broader cultural issues, develop critical thinking skills to analyze complex social phenomena. Course taught in English.