Italian: “Italian Cultural Studies”

Italian III: “Italian Cultural Studies”

Grazia Menechella, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Session One

PAPER #1 “Gentile’s Dantismo”
Susan Noakes, University of Minnesota

Italian political culture in the Mussolini era made conspicuous use of selected episodes and landmarks in Italian history to communicate to various groups the messages which would successfully draw them into the project of the fascist party. Above all, Italian fascism exploited ancient Roman history, choosing the Roman Empire rather than the Roman Republic, for example, as a primary model for certain elements of the fascist state. Still today, the cityscape of Rome is marked by fascist reconstructions of ancient monuments, carried out for propagandistic rather than merely archeological or historical ends. The same fascist architectural program marks as “Roman” many other Italian cities, where temples proliferate in the guise of post offices, and so forth.

Fascist culture left also many traces of propagandistic use of certain aspects of the Middle Ages, especially its definition of a fascist Dante celebrated and memorialized with statues and commemorative plaques, for example. The Middle Ages of Italian fascism has, however, been little studied, and, to be sure, its analysis presents major problems. The largest and most troublesome of these is, I believe, the relation of the fascists’ Middle Ages to the Risorgimento’s Middle Ages. Dante had also been seized up as an emblematic period during the period of the Unification of Italy. From that historical phase in Dante interpretation there emerged a nationalistic but also a liberal Dante. Through the many modulations of left-of-center politics in Italy from the Unification through the troubled years of the early twentieth century, the interpretation of Dante’s life, works, and message served as one ground for changing visions of Italy’s nature and future.

To understand the relation between the Risorgimento Dante and the Fascist Dante, one must study the Dante scholarship and criticism of thinkers who were educated during the Risorgimento and then came to play prominent roles (whether pro or contra) in Fascist Italy. Arguably, the most influential of such figures was Giovanni Gentile, who served as Minister of Public Instruction under Mussolini. This paper will initiate a study of Gentile’s essays on Dante, identifying its major themes, especially as they may be related to the transformation of the Risorgimento Dante into what one scholar has called “Dante in camicia nera.”

PAPER #2 “La visione ‘indistinta’ ne La finestra di fronte di F. Ozpetek”
Claudia Romanelli, University of Wisconsin-Madison

romanelli@wisc.edu

This study analyses La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows) by Ferzan Ozpetek in the light of Gilles Deleuze’s reflections in Cinema. It aims at showing the complexity of the Italian-Turkish director’s cinematography. Shooting creates the meaning or the theme(s) of this film letting vision itself become the story. Optical situations characterize the narrative’s climax making a synthesis of the real and the imaginary, the present and the past. Nobody’s shots always reveal the presence of the subject behind the camera. In short, in La finestra di fronte, comprehending the shots gets problematic. According to Ozpetek, an ontology of the cinema necessarily encompasses indiscernible visual forms.

PAPER #3 “On the Wrong Side: Historical and Existential Defeat in the Memoirs of the Salo’s Volunteers”
Giuseppe Tosi, Georgetown University
tosig@georgetown.edu

In this essay I will analyze some narrative texts arising from the tragic experience of the civil war fought in Italy between 1943 and 1945, the last two years of WWII. The point of view analyzed here is that of those who lost; the perspective is that of those who chose to fight on the Republic of Salò side, with the result, at the end of the war, and for obvious reasons, of having the value of their testimony denied. These writers were young individuals whose generation was born and raised under, and within the influence of Fascism and that, at the time of the facts recounted in these narratives, was fighting to support the rational of a by-then dying regime. The atrocious disenchantment of the last days of the Salò regime corroded even the most unshakeable certainties, transforming what was a historical defeat into an existential one that dragged on to ruin the very significance of youth and generosity of actions and ideals that these writers attributed to them.

Paper#4 “Riflessioni sul valore della compassione nel romanzo neorealista L’Agnese va a morire”

Simonetta Milli Konewko, School University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

smilli@uwm.edu

L’Agnese va a morire, a neorealist novel of 1949 by Renata Viganó is inspired by the life of an Italian woman who joined the partisan movement, and performed operations of reconnaissance, communications, and weapons transport. Several scholars highlight the significance of this work to illustrate the Resistance time in Italy. According to Laura E. Ruberto, Agnese’s adventures, offers innovative and disturbing insights on the conditions of women and peasants during the Second World War in Italy. This consideration is significant in view of the lack of recognition concerning women’s activity as members of the Resistance. Similarly, Palma Pina underlines Agnese’s emotional and maternal attitude as the protagonist’s primary attribute. She affirms, in fact, that her interventions are essential to establish her vital role in the Resistance as, for instance, promoting social renovations. Thus, even though the emotional aspect of Viganó’s work has been often underlined, these examinations failed to consider it as a central theme or to elaborate the linkage between emotion and the neorealist novel. Also Matteo Palumbo’s analysis refers to Viganó’s writing as being motivated by the excitement and strong emotions related to the past circumstances and by the intense purpose to articulate them to a restore community. In this context, if writing is considered an obvious manner to immortalize a communal past rich in emotions and fervors an attention to those elements might vice-versa guarantee a reconsideration of the historic moment.

For this reason, my examination aims to analyze the representations of compassionate responses characterizing Agnese’s interaction with the fellow partisans and other individuals in order to highlight additional ways used by women, to support the partisan’s fight, to affirm their commitment outside the family and consequently to assume responsibilities in a more public sphere. More precisely, Agnese is represented as an agent capable of generating compassionate answers through her caring behavior, as well as an object of compassionate reactions because of her past experiences. But particularly, how does Agnese use compassion and for which purposes? What attributes of compassion are illustrated in her concern toward other individuals? Who are the subjects worth of compassion and why? How does Viganó use compassion in order to create, as many neorealist writers affirm, a post war Italian national identity opposed to Fascism? In order to examine these questions my paper takes into account the theoretical discourse on compassion developed by some important scholars of the emotions. Alison M. Jaggar’s concept of “outlaw emotions”, for instance, is significant to understand the discrepancy between the emotions perceived by diverse groups of people. Richard Wollheim’s investigations on the relationship between emotions and imagination and Catherine Lutz’s analysis of emotion as not being opposed to reason, are also crucial to provide a theoretical frame for examining Agnese’s use of compassion. While exploring the questions outlined above, the analysis will investigate how Viganó represents compassion to challenge the fascist model of female education. Thus, Agnese’s compassionate response toward Rina, for instance, draws attention to a more direct involvement of women in the Resistance. At the same time, Agnese’s compassionate monetary response toward the partisans demonstrates the intricacy overcome by women when exploring new territory or attempting to overcome old conflicts.

Session Two

PAPER #1 “Narrating Genova: Politics and Memory in the Digital Age”

Melody Niwot, University of Wisconsin-Madison

mniwot@wisc.edu

“Ricordare per non dimenticare” is the mantra that has been faithfully repeated throughout Italy’s complexly woven political and social collectives since the tumultuous events of the July 2001 G8 protests in Genova. Those four days of protests left one young man dead, destined for martyrdom, several hundred injured, and an entire country divided on the “meaning of Genova.” When the smoke had cleared and the mountains of video footage had been revisited, the nation was left with the task of interpreting these images. While television and newspapers attempted to determine what had happened, and more importantly, who should be blamed for it, artists, filmmakers and musicians provided their own narrative responses. This paper will take into consideration the more than 30 independent documentaries and video testimonianze that were released following the events of Genova with attention to the ways in which narrative informs meaning and memory.

PAPER#2 “La famiglia come specchio dei tempi nel cinema italiano: da La terra trema a La meglio gioventù”

Umberto Taccheri, Saint Mary’s College

taccheri@saintmarys.edu

PAPER#3 “Land of Health, Land of Disease – The Changing Image of Africa in Italian Colonial and Postcolonial Literature”

Tatjana Babic, Purdue University

tbabic@purdue.edu

My paper examines the ways in which Italian colonial and postcolonial writers have employed the rhetoric of health and sickness in their representations of Africa. I trace the evolution of such rhetoric in colonial literature, starting with F.T. Marinetti’s African writings, Mafarka il futurista (1910) and Luci veloci (1929), which I compare to Ennio Flaiano’s 1947 novel Tempo di uccidere. I comment on renderings of the topos of “mal d’Africa” by different relevant authors. Finally, I detail the ways in which some postcolonial authors’ narratives rehabilitate the image of Africa, and I focus in particular on representations of bodily disturbances in Igiaba Scego’s short-stories.