LINK The Criminal Hero http://users.unimi.it/criminalhero/
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the mid-1990s, Terni’s steelworks became the property of the German multinational ThyssenKrupp (TK), under the name of ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni. In 2004 TK announced the closing of the magnetic steel department, with a loss... more
In the mid-1990s, Terni’s steelworks became the property of the German multinational ThyssenKrupp (TK), under the name of ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni. In 2004 TK announced the closing of the magnetic steel department, with a loss of 900 jobs and of the most technologically advanced sector of the factory. Terni had been searching for alternatives to its industrial identity (among them, tourism, based on the fame of its patron saint, St. Valentine; some university departments; media and culture). Terni seemed to be a good place to get away from. Yet, when the factory was threatened, it was felt as a wound to the whole town. Workers picketed the factory, blocked roads and railways, attacked management representatives. A general strike shut down the whole town. It looked like 1953 all over again, but the historical vision had changed: rather than seeing their struggle as a step to a new society to come, workers were merely trying to hold on to their livelihood. In the end, a comp...
Research Interests: Engineering and Tourism
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Annalucia Accardo, Bruno Cartosio, Riccardo Duranti, Gurney Norman, Maria Antonietta Saracino,Anna Scacchi, Anna Scan-navini, and Michael Staub are only a few of the friends and col-leagues with whom I shared dialogues and... more
... Annalucia Accardo, Bruno Cartosio, Riccardo Duranti, Gurney Norman, Maria Antonietta Saracino,Anna Scacchi, Anna Scan-navini, and Michael Staub are only a few of the friends and col-leagues with whom I shared dialogues and conversations that influenced the writing of ...
Research Interests:
In the postwar years Terni was caught in a contradiction between the country’s economic boom and the dissolution of the company-town model based on the multi-sector Terni conglomerate, due to the nationalization of the electric sector and... more
In the postwar years Terni was caught in a contradiction between the country’s economic boom and the dissolution of the company-town model based on the multi-sector Terni conglomerate, due to the nationalization of the electric sector and the loss of centrality of Terni’s steelworks and its working class. This generated tension between new modern life styles (TV, advertising, education, new modern neighborhoods) and the decline in the town’s economy. A job at the steelworks was no longer a young man’s ideal. Student movements, New Left groups, countercultural ideas and life styles influenced the younger generations, causing generational and political tensions with the more traditional working-class culture. Drug-related deaths of young people were a sign of a more generalized sense of malaise.
Industrialization was accompanied by the birth of working-class political organizations and the spread of radical ideas. Anticlericalism, radical Republicanism, and the Risorgimento tradition left their mark on Terni’s working class.... more
Industrialization was accompanied by the birth of working-class political organizations and the spread of radical ideas. Anticlericalism, radical Republicanism, and the Risorgimento tradition left their mark on Terni’s working class. Anarchism and Socialism maintained a constant tension and dialogue, in which the rebel spirit and personal independence of Terni’s subversive tradition also influenced more structured and disciplined organizations, such as the Socialist and Communist parties. Conflict ran high, over the cost of living, employment, and issues of war and peace; in July 1920 a workers’ rally ended in the killing of five men by the Army; in September 1920 Terni also took part in the nationwide movement of factory occupations that brought Italy to the verge of social revolution
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Fascism was an era of violence, repression and modernization. Fascism came to Terni mainly from outside but found local support among war veterans, big landowners, and parts of the professional middle class. Fascist squads stormed... more
Fascism was an era of violence, repression and modernization. Fascism came to Terni mainly from outside but found local support among war veterans, big landowners, and parts of the professional middle class. Fascist squads stormed working-class neighborhoods and communities, and were often met with armed resistance. With management complicity Fascism gained a foothold among the workers at the Arsenal and the steelworks. After Fascism took power nationally (1922) Terni became a provincial seat, with an influx of white-collar workers, the rise of new middle-class neighborhoods, and new forms of consumption and cultural expression. Rural traditions were revised and appropriated by the regime in the Cantamaggio spring parade. Fascism promoted sports as propaganda, while workers claimed it as part of their own culture. Fascism and the Church occasionally conflicted over the control of youth.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Situated in Umbria, Italy’s most rural region, Terni was surrounded by vast estates in which ancient feudal relationships persisted—paternalistic, oppressive, or both—even after fiefdoms were formally abolished. Each successful strike by... more
Situated in Umbria, Italy’s most rural region, Terni was surrounded by vast estates in which ancient feudal relationships persisted—paternalistic, oppressive, or both—even after fiefdoms were formally abolished. Each successful strike by tenant farmers, sharecroppers, farmhands was succeeded by a gradual restoration of existing relationships. Authoritarian relationships also prevailed in large patriarchal rural families. Children worked hard and early, marriages were arranged, childbirth was painful and dangerous. Poverty and hunger were rampant. Rural people resisted modernization from above but cherished education as a way of resisting the masters’ abuse. Industrialization emancipated rural workers, but much of their culture—the attitudes toward work, time, discipline—fed into working-class culture, in spite of tensions between commuting rural workers (often last hired and first fired) and those who lived in town.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Art and memorie urbane
Research Interests:
Look, half, three-quarters, of the carabinieri barracks and offices all over Italy are named after him; the same is true for schools, and for squares, schools, streets all over Italy. Each month there are inaugurations of plaques, of... more
Look, half, three-quarters, of the carabinieri barracks and offices all over Italy are named after him; the same is true for schools, and for squares, schools, streets all over Italy. Each month there are inaugurations of plaques, of streets, called after Salvo D’Acquisto. I think he’s just been beatified, and they’re in the final stages of the canonization process. A retired carabiniere, Frascati, 19971 [M]ost commonly historians are apt to see myth, if they notice it at all, as an impediment to their true work. [...] Yet if we turn to almost any
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The working-class organizations that had led the Resistance won the referendum over monarchy and republic, won the local elections, and led the work of reconstruction. They felt that the town belonged to them; however, on the national... more
The working-class organizations that had led the Resistance won the referendum over monarchy and republic, won the local elections, and led the work of reconstruction. They felt that the town belonged to them; however, on the national level power was shifting back to conservative forces. Mass dismissals at the steelworks were followed by barricades and street fights in a memorable 1953 rebellion. The symbolic killing by the police of the steel worker Luigi Trastulli proved that the working class and its organizations were powerless in the face of the restoration of pre-war class relationships.
Research Interests:
Alessandro PORTELLI «Un lavoro di relazioni: osservazioni sulla storia orale», in “www.aisoitalia.it”, n.1, gennaio 2010, URL: http://www.aisoitalia.it/2009/01/un-lavoro-di-relazione/ traducido por Mariela Canali. TRADUCCION DE: Mariela... more
Alessandro PORTELLI «Un lavoro di relazioni: osservazioni sulla storia orale», in “www.aisoitalia.it”, n.1, gennaio 2010, URL: http://www.aisoitalia.it/2009/01/un-lavoro-di-relazione/ traducido por Mariela Canali. TRADUCCION DE: Mariela Canali
Research Interests:
No artigo Alessandro Portelli desenvolve uma reflexao simples sobre historia oral, porem resgata aspectos interessantes sobre o tema, os quais nos ajuda a compreender a importância das fontes orais para a escrita da historia. Nesse... more
No artigo Alessandro Portelli desenvolve uma reflexao simples sobre historia oral, porem resgata aspectos interessantes sobre o tema, os quais nos ajuda a compreender a importância das fontes orais para a escrita da historia. Nesse esforco, destaca ser a entre/vista a excelencia para o recolhimento das narrativas orais.
In order to survive, the speech of common people and of the non-hegemonic classes had to fortify itself into forms and structures more sophisticated than those as yet achieved in the appropriation of writing. This is why this book relies... more
In order to survive, the speech of common people and of the non-hegemonic classes had to fortify itself into forms and structures more sophisticated than those as yet achieved in the appropriation of writing. This is why this book relies on oral sources: not because they are more “authentic,” but because they remain a privileged form of expression, political identity and historical memory of the working class and the common people. The chapter describes the relationship of sound and writing (transcription); dialect and standard language; performance and text; interviewer and interviewee; memory, subjectivity, imagination, and history.
Research Interests:
Around 1830 Terni was a tangle of narrow alleys, orchards, a few palaces, many churches, unclean and unlit. It was part of the Pope’s secular domain. Poverty generated resentment and rebellion toward the Church’s domain (“We couldn’t help... more
Around 1830 Terni was a tangle of narrow alleys, orchards, a few palaces, many churches, unclean and unlit. It was part of the Pope’s secular domain. Poverty generated resentment and rebellion toward the Church’s domain (“We couldn’t help but grow up as rebels, with grandmas like these”) and a lasting tradition of anticlericalism, with its own lay rituals and symbols (and a tradition of outlaws that lasted well into the 1900s). Located on the border between the Kingdom of Naples and the Pope’s states, connected to Rome through the Tiber river valley and the old Roman roads—Via Flaminia, Via Salaria—Terni became a natural hotbed of liberation ferments during the Risorgimento, Italy’s struggle for independence and reunification.
Research Interests:
Younger generations brought a different attitude to industrial work. It was a less homogeneous generation (“a universe of many colors, many odors, many flavors”), more educated, more interested in personal relationships and football than... more
Younger generations brought a different attitude to industrial work. It was a less homogeneous generation (“a universe of many colors, many odors, many flavors”), more educated, more interested in personal relationships and football than in politics (or in football fandom as a substitute passion for disappointing politics), with a different work ethic. Terni is no longer isolated in its mountain basin, but part of a German multinational (protest is also expressed in anti-German stereotypes: Nazism, football rivalries, and so on). But workers are also aware of Terni’s position in the worldwide steel market, of the fact that they are now in competition with China or Mexico. Multinational ThyssenKrupp (TK) is ubiquitous: the chapter includes interviews with workers in TK factories in India and Brazil and the story of TK projects in the United States.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
AVVERTENZA In questo libro ho fatto ricorso a parecchi dialetti: il dialetto negro del Mississippi; la forma piu stretta del dialetto parlato nei boschi del Sudovest; il normale dialetto della «Pike County»; e quattro varianti di... more
AVVERTENZA In questo libro ho fatto ricorso a parecchi dialetti: il dialetto negro del Mississippi; la forma piu stretta del dialetto parlato nei boschi del Sudovest; il normale dialetto della «Pike County»; e quattro varianti di quest'ultimo. Delle diverse sfumature non mi sono servito in modo casuale o sommario, ma con grande scrupolo e attenzione, sorretto dalla mia grande familiarita con tutte queste forme di espressione linguistica. Do questa spiegazione perche senza di essa molti lettori penserebbero che tutti i personaggi cercano di parlare allo stesso modo senza riuscirvi. L'AUTORE
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Wie wurde der Faschismus in der Arbeiterschaft in Europas grostem Industrierevier erfahren, wie die Nachkriegszeit? Dieser dritte Band bringt neben Beitragen aus Deutschland, auch Beitrage aus Osterreich und Italien.
Ce dialogue inedit entre deux specialistes etrangers de l’histoire orale et des mondes ouvriers est centre sur les deux grands terrains d’enquete industriels d’Alessandro Portelli : la ville siderurgique de Terni, dans l’Ombrie italienne,... more
Ce dialogue inedit entre deux specialistes etrangers de l’histoire orale et des mondes ouvriers est centre sur les deux grands terrains d’enquete industriels d’Alessandro Portelli : la ville siderurgique de Terni, dans l’Ombrie italienne, et le comte minier de Harlan, dans les Appalaches. Revenant sur ces deux fresques magistrales – They Say in Harlan County. An Oral History (2011) et Biography of an Industrial Town. Terni, Italy, 1831-2014 (2017) – les deux historiens abordent la part d’influence de la litterature, de la musique populaire mais egalement de l’ethnologie dans le rapport d’Alessandro Portelli a l’histoire orale ; l’entretien comme jeu sur la difference et la distance culturelle, sociale et politique entre interviewer et interviewe ; les « blessures de classe » et la montee d’une droite radicale a Terni comme dans le comte de Harlan ; ou encore l’impact de la Covid-19 sur les recherches actuelles de l’historien.
Este articulo aborda la compleja cuestión de las memorias múltiples. Caracteriza los acontecimientos políticos en la Italia de posguerra, poniendo el foco en el caso de la masacre nazi de las Fosas Ardeatinas (Fosse Ardeatine). Se analiza... more
Este articulo aborda la compleja cuestión de las memorias múltiples. Caracteriza los acontecimientos políticos en la Italia de posguerra, poniendo el foco en el caso de la masacre nazi de las Fosas Ardeatinas (Fosse Ardeatine). Se analiza así el modo de registro de los hechos en el imaginario colectivo y su relación con la memoria, el duelo y los procesos de identidad. Palabras clave: Fosas Ardeatinas | mito | memoria. Abstract:
Research Interests:
This article concerns the “Roma Forestiera” project that has been carried out for the last ten years by the independent Circolo Gianni Bosio organization, which is devoted to the study of popular memory, folk song, and oral history. The... more
This article concerns the “Roma Forestiera” project that has been carried out for the last ten years by the independent Circolo Gianni Bosio organization, which is devoted to the study of popular memory, folk song, and oral history. The author describes the experiences gathered while recording witnesses to history on the streets and in the migrant centres.
Este texto explora distintos aspectos derivados de la práctica de la historia oral y los géneros narrativos. La “historia oral” tiende a ser una historia nunca dicha, aun cuando se compone de historias ya narradas. La novedad de la... more
Este texto explora distintos aspectos derivados de la práctica de la historia oral y los géneros narrativos. La “historia oral” tiende a ser una historia nunca dicha, aun cuando se compone de historias ya narradas. La novedad de la situación y el esfuerzo por explicar acentúan un aspecto típico del discurso oral: el de una composición que se desarrolla en el acto mismo de comunicar y que comprende por lo tanto sus materiales preparatorios. Palabras clave: Historia oral, entrevistas, géneros narrativos
Alessandro Portelli tiene una larga historia de amistad con la Universidad Nacional de La Plata y con la Maestría en Historia y Memoria en particular. Ha dictado dos seminarios de posgrado en el marco de la maestría en 2013 y 2018, así... more
Alessandro Portelli tiene una larga historia de amistad con la Universidad Nacional de La Plata y con la Maestría en Historia y Memoria en particular. Ha dictado dos seminarios de posgrado en el marco de la maestría en 2013 y 2018, así como también la revista Aletheia ha publicado una traducción de un texto de su autoría (Aletheia n°7) y una entrevista en el marco de sus visitas al país (Aletheia n°9). En 2013 fue distinguido con el título Miembro Honorífico y en 2017 le fue otorgado el Doctorado Honoris Causa por la UNLP. Hoy volvemos a publicar un texto suyo, que transcribe la conferencia que nos ofreció en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, el 16 y 17 de septiembre de 2019, durante una nueva visita, invitado por el Doctorado en Historia y la Maestría en Historia y Memoria de la FaHCE, para participar del Coloquio sobre Memorias Populares y realizando un encuentro con investigadores e investigadoras de nuestra casa de estudios. En la conferencia “Archivos Sonoros y cultura popul...
Research Interests:
Drawing from stories, literary texts, myths, and songs, the article explores the “intangible” imagery—dreams, souls, ghosts, memory—that uses the nostalgia of the past to announce the possibility of a future. The image of the buried and... more
Drawing from stories, literary texts, myths, and songs, the article explores the “intangible” imagery—dreams, souls, ghosts, memory—that uses the nostalgia of the past to announce the possibility of a future. The image of the buried and sleeping king represents myth of a past Golden Age but also the vision of a future rebirth. Such examples include the figures of Rip Van Winkle, Hendrick Hudson, and Boabdil in the works of US author Washington Irving (1783–1859). Other examples include the figure of Metacomet, also rescued by Irving, or of Atahualpa, of Inca mythology. From Washington Irving to the songs of Bruce Springsteen, the image of a past that accompanies and haunts the present to project a utopian future never ceases to reappear.