Books by Floriana Bernardi
When Roberto Saviano published Gomorrah in 2006 he exposed the Camorra, an organized crime networ... more When Roberto Saviano published Gomorrah in 2006 he exposed the Camorra, an organized crime network with global reach emanating from Naples. This ground-breaking work became an international best seller, inspired a film, and a new TV series. The author received so many death threats from the Camorra that he remains under police protection.
Italy beyond Gomorrah investigates the conditions and modalities by which the huge media phenomenon developed around Roberto Saviano after the publication of Gomorrah and the ways in which this has engendered a political discourse starting from his ‘denuncia’ of the mechanisms of the modern mafia and its bosses. Focusing on Saviano’s disruptive work and the representation of his ‘charismatic body’, redefining the figure and task of the modern intellectual, the book stresses the agency of literature and the relevance of the internet and major social networks in the creation of networks of subjectivities and establishing ethical-political duties which are grounded in a ‘passional communication’ between the writer and his audience, as well as on a micropolitics of affects. Through the interpretation of Saviano’s work it also provides provide a cross sectional insight into Italy in the post-Berlusconi age.
Papers by Floriana Bernardi
The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies
This chapter presents Adichie's promotion of Nigerian fashion as a political act that cal... more This chapter presents Adichie's promotion of Nigerian fashion as a political act that calls attention to racial and gender imbalances of power and influence at the global level.
cf.ac.uk/jomec/jomecjournal/1-june2012/bernardi_openfields.pdf The aim of this essay is to survey... more cf.ac.uk/jomec/jomecjournal/1-june2012/bernardi_openfields.pdf The aim of this essay is to survey two major issues emerging from the recent waves of political upheavals both in the West and in North Africa: the role of self-mass communication and organized networks in building counter-power and that of the women of the Arab spring revolutions, the ‘new real-life cyborgs ’ able to re-shape their bodies as places for semiotic writing and social mediation in order to encourage the rise of new social and political discourses. Making reference to a transnational postcolonial project, as well as to the Spinozan notion of affect, this essay will also try to investigate how global collective identities and subjectivities of the age of social media are shaped within the digital realm. Contributor Note
The aim of this essay is to survey two major issues emerging from the recent waves of political u... more The aim of this essay is to survey two major issues emerging from the recent waves of political upheavals both in the West and in North Africa: the role of self-mass communication and organized networks in building counter-power and that of the women of the Arab spring revolutions, the ‘new real-life cyborgs’ able to re-shape their bodies as places for semiotic writing and social mediation in order to encourage the rise of new social and political discourses. Making reference to a transnational postcolonial project, as well as to the Spinozan notion of affect, this essay will also try to investigate how global collective identities and subjectivities of the age of social media are shaped within the digital realm.
Zaccaria, Paola (2015), ‘(Trans)MediterrAtlantic Embodied Archives’, JOMEC Journal 8, ‘Italian Cu... more Zaccaria, Paola (2015), ‘(Trans)MediterrAtlantic Embodied Archives’, JOMEC Journal 8, ‘Italian Cultural Studies’, ed. Floriana Bernardi. http://dx.doi.org/10.18573/j.2015.10035
ABSTRACT:
This article tests a comparative and trans-disciplinary methodology I am developing for a research project titled ‘Un-Walling the Mediterranean Sea. New Southern performances: towards a no-border wall poetics and politics of togetherness’. The article investigates ways to develop and make visible MediterrAtlantic theories and performances inspired by grass-roots activism and artivism in order to disrupt Eurocentric geopolitical cartography. To this end, I will make reference to many (de)signs disseminated by trans-Mediterranean intellectuals, activists, artists, migrants and refugees along the Mediterranean routes and walls, as a way to shape both an Asian-African-European Mediterranean consciousness and a new TransMediterrAtlantic one. Finally, I will use as a case study Io sto con la Sposa, a docufiction on the experience of asylum seeking in Europe, by Antonio Augugliaro, Gabriele del Grande and Khaled Soliman (2014)
Social Semiotics, Jan 1, 2010
Translations by Floriana Bernardi
Italian translation of Paul Bowman's essay 'How to not read Zizek'
Teaching Documents by Floriana Bernardi
Uploads
Books by Floriana Bernardi
Italy beyond Gomorrah investigates the conditions and modalities by which the huge media phenomenon developed around Roberto Saviano after the publication of Gomorrah and the ways in which this has engendered a political discourse starting from his ‘denuncia’ of the mechanisms of the modern mafia and its bosses. Focusing on Saviano’s disruptive work and the representation of his ‘charismatic body’, redefining the figure and task of the modern intellectual, the book stresses the agency of literature and the relevance of the internet and major social networks in the creation of networks of subjectivities and establishing ethical-political duties which are grounded in a ‘passional communication’ between the writer and his audience, as well as on a micropolitics of affects. Through the interpretation of Saviano’s work it also provides provide a cross sectional insight into Italy in the post-Berlusconi age.
Papers by Floriana Bernardi
ABSTRACT:
This article tests a comparative and trans-disciplinary methodology I am developing for a research project titled ‘Un-Walling the Mediterranean Sea. New Southern performances: towards a no-border wall poetics and politics of togetherness’. The article investigates ways to develop and make visible MediterrAtlantic theories and performances inspired by grass-roots activism and artivism in order to disrupt Eurocentric geopolitical cartography. To this end, I will make reference to many (de)signs disseminated by trans-Mediterranean intellectuals, activists, artists, migrants and refugees along the Mediterranean routes and walls, as a way to shape both an Asian-African-European Mediterranean consciousness and a new TransMediterrAtlantic one. Finally, I will use as a case study Io sto con la Sposa, a docufiction on the experience of asylum seeking in Europe, by Antonio Augugliaro, Gabriele del Grande and Khaled Soliman (2014)
Translations by Floriana Bernardi
Teaching Documents by Floriana Bernardi
Italy beyond Gomorrah investigates the conditions and modalities by which the huge media phenomenon developed around Roberto Saviano after the publication of Gomorrah and the ways in which this has engendered a political discourse starting from his ‘denuncia’ of the mechanisms of the modern mafia and its bosses. Focusing on Saviano’s disruptive work and the representation of his ‘charismatic body’, redefining the figure and task of the modern intellectual, the book stresses the agency of literature and the relevance of the internet and major social networks in the creation of networks of subjectivities and establishing ethical-political duties which are grounded in a ‘passional communication’ between the writer and his audience, as well as on a micropolitics of affects. Through the interpretation of Saviano’s work it also provides provide a cross sectional insight into Italy in the post-Berlusconi age.
ABSTRACT:
This article tests a comparative and trans-disciplinary methodology I am developing for a research project titled ‘Un-Walling the Mediterranean Sea. New Southern performances: towards a no-border wall poetics and politics of togetherness’. The article investigates ways to develop and make visible MediterrAtlantic theories and performances inspired by grass-roots activism and artivism in order to disrupt Eurocentric geopolitical cartography. To this end, I will make reference to many (de)signs disseminated by trans-Mediterranean intellectuals, activists, artists, migrants and refugees along the Mediterranean routes and walls, as a way to shape both an Asian-African-European Mediterranean consciousness and a new TransMediterrAtlantic one. Finally, I will use as a case study Io sto con la Sposa, a docufiction on the experience of asylum seeking in Europe, by Antonio Augugliaro, Gabriele del Grande and Khaled Soliman (2014)
The magic of words.
From reading to reacting: the crucial role of Gomorra’s audience
By reaching worldwide audiences, Roberto Saviano’s non-fiction novel Gomorra has become a literary phenomenon of astonishing proportions, carrying out a devastating insight of the mechanisms of modern Camorra, the Naples mafia. After the millions copies sold of the book and after Saviano’s several interviews and articles on “the System” – as the Camorra is called by its members – something unexpected has happened among the Italian audience.
Many initiatives have arisen, especially out of the cyberspace and particularly from MySpace and Facebook. Thanks to these social networks, a critical, active citizenship has developed, which can strongly contribute to support a great cause: rescue Italy from mafias’ tangled power and stop the silence on such a dirty business.
Among the most important initiatives born on the net, there’s the opening of a useful website, www.oltregomorra.com, whose aim is “go BEYOND, make sprouts become deep roots”. The Internet space of Oltregomorra, always in fieri, aims at giving the audience “a view on mafias different from the one suggested by the traditional means of communication”. All the website sections, among which there is also an accurate “dictionary of Camorra”, aim at creating a databank on mafias and at promoting the way of thinking and acting of the “Italy that resists”, that is the whole of associations and institutions which try, daily, to deconstruct the several expressions of mafias’ ideology.
To conclude, what emerges from my research is the ability of words, particularly literary words, of transforming audiences. Thanks to the Web 2.0 and the main social networks, Saviano’s audience has built an opposition force to the Camorra’s complex mechanisms of power, it has helped to bring to public evidence its world connections and infiltrations; it has failed to silence the journalist-writer’s voice. The audience’s initiatives have contributed to spread knowledge about all the mafias, thus creating a new sense of citizenship against their resigned unavoidability.