- Bari, Italy
- Pornography, Pornography Studies, Porn Studies, Popular Italian Cinema, Cineromanzi, Judith Halberstam, and 31 moreQueer, Dildos, Bodies, Post pornography, Beatriz Preciado, Multitude, Lesbian Bodies, Sexuality, Gender Studies, New Media, Contemporary Art, Popular Culture, Gender and Sexuality, Sexuality and Media, Erotic Cinema, Alternative Pornographies, Cultural Studies, Media and Culture, Queer Studies, Masculinity, BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadomasochism), Kink, Fetish, Film Studies, Stardom and Celebrity, Sex Work, Italian Cinema, Masculinity Studies, Media Convergence, Spectatorship, Film Theory, Film History, and Neue Slowenische Kunstedit
Research Interests: Art and movie theater
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The 1960s and early 1970s definitely saw the generalized eroticization of Italian media; however, approximately from the second half of the 1970s, the sexualization of the mediascape was taken to its furthest extent, as the boundaries of... more
The 1960s and early 1970s definitely saw the generalized eroticization of Italian media; however, approximately from the second half of the 1970s, the sexualization of the mediascape was taken to its furthest extent, as the boundaries of explicit representation were broken and pushed from softcore towards hardcore. Through an exploration of the Italian adult press of the time and through an examination of the phenomenon of the ‘hardcore versions’ (Italian erotic films ‘pornified’ for export), this article provides a few starting points in order to draft a first (and necessarily partial) reconstruction of the stages through which pornography gained ground within the Italian cultural context during the second half of the 1970s.
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After the “digital turn,” expansion of sexual representations has taken shape quantitatively (thanks to the multiplication of production and distribution channels) and qualitatively (giving rise to a plurality of new representational... more
After the “digital turn,” expansion of sexual representations has taken shape quantitatively (thanks to the multiplication of production and distribution channels) and qualitatively (giving rise to a plurality of new representational forms). In this context, several social groups – including women and non-normative sexual subcultures – have obtained full citizenship rights within the “pornosphere,” moving beyond their traditional marginalization or, indeed, exclusion. These “nonconventional” pornographies exist in a dialectical relationship with mainstream production in so far as they are at the same time a development and a repudiation of the latter (on an aesthetic, economic and political level). This volume investigates the emergences of alternative pornographies, highlighting their discursive heterogeneity, their cultural status and connections to identities and non-normative practices, and their role in redefining the very idea of pornography. The publication maps the main area...
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One could consider the Seventies an important testing ground for the development of audiovisual pornography in Italy. On the one hand, the increasing popularity of man-only magazines during this decade has contributed to the growth of a... more
One could consider the Seventies an important testing ground for the development of audiovisual pornography in Italy. On the one hand, the increasing popularity of man-only magazines during this decade has contributed to the growth of a specific cinematic audience with distinctive features. On the other hand, authors and technicianswithin the Italian filmindustry itself have experimentedwith newmodes of representation of sexual acts (hard-core inserts in soft-core movies and/or double versions) that would only be fully realized in the Eighties. This article aims at describing the process throughwhich some peculiar characteristics of Italian adult magazines and erotic films of the Seventies have to some extent “prepared” the way for the hard-core cinematic production of the following decade.
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ABSTRACTThis article reads gonzo pornography as a stylistic model, in order to go beyond current interpretations that see it as either a genre merely based on degrading sexual practices or a filmmaking form primarily based on the active... more
ABSTRACTThis article reads gonzo pornography as a stylistic model, in order to go beyond current interpretations that see it as either a genre merely based on degrading sexual practices or a filmmaking form primarily based on the active role of the camera. Drawing on theoretical notions derived from cinema and media studies, we analyze the stylistic model of gonzo according to four different (albeit interrelated) dimensions: representative/performative; technical/expressive; enunciative/communicative; and semio-pragmatic. This integrated approach allows us to account for the semiotic and aesthetic complexity of gonzo pornography, as well as for its specificity.
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Research Interests: Art and Porn Studies
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Research Interests: New Media and Pornography
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Through a short survey of the sexualisation of Italian media and culture during the Sixties and Seventies and through the analysis of the cineromanzo drawn fromthe sexy comedy Quante volte… quella notte (Mario Bava, 1971), this essay aims... more
Through a short survey of the sexualisation of Italian media and culture during the Sixties and Seventies and through the analysis of the cineromanzo drawn fromthe sexy comedy Quante volte… quella notte (Mario Bava, 1971), this essay aims to trace a brief history of the Italian sexy cineromanzi of the Seventies, highlighting their particular relationship with contemporary exploitation movies and adult magazines.
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Research Interests: Pornography and Queer
The 2013 release of The Feminist Porn Book and its enthusiastic reception marks the cultural acknowledgement of a media phenomenon dating back at least as far as the 1980s. The book traces the deve...
Research Interests: Art and Porn Studies
In this collaborative piece, originated from a series of conversations between the authors, we reflect on our friendship as a form of peer-to-peer mentorship and as an experience of informal collaboration. Drawing from our academic... more
In this collaborative piece, originated from a series of conversations between the authors, we reflect on our friendship as a form of peer-to-peer mentorship and as an experience of informal collaboration. Drawing from our academic relationship, the article also makes some broader considerations on the meanings and potentials of academic friendships and how they offer an invaluable source of mutual and self-care in the context of neoliberal academia.
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This article offers a reconstruction of the birth of Asia Argento’s star image, with specific reference to the Italian context. Through an analysis of the media discourses that circulated around the actress in the early phase of her... more
This article offers a reconstruction of the birth of Asia Argento’s star image, with specific reference to the Italian context. Through an analysis of the media discourses that circulated around the actress in the early phase of her career (from the end of the 1980s to the 2000s), we can trace the evolution of her star image from enfant prodige of Italian cinema, and youth icon, to that of the ‘anti-star’ who strongly divides public opinion, owing to her unruliness on and off-screen. The article concludes that her pre-existing association with sexual transgression inflected how her behaviour with Harvey Weinstein and Jimmy Bennett was interpreted in the Italian public sphere.
Il paradigma filosofico dell'animalita puo offrire dei punti di accesso inediti all'interpretazione della pornografia contemporanea, in particolare nel settore dei porn studies. Richiamando il pensiera di Derrida e Agamben, questo... more
Il paradigma filosofico dell'animalita puo offrire dei punti di accesso inediti all'interpretazione della pornografia contemporanea, in particolare nel settore dei porn studies. Richiamando il pensiera di Derrida e Agamben, questo saggio esplora il dominio della pornografia cinematografica e le forme di soggettivita e identita sociale al suo interno.
The 1960s and early 1970s definitely saw the generalized eroticization of Italian media; however, approximately from the second half of the 1970s, the sexualization of the mediascape was taken to its furthest extent, as the boundaries of... more
The 1960s and early 1970s definitely saw the generalized eroticization of Italian media; however, approximately from the second half of the 1970s, the sexualization of the mediascape was taken to its furthest extent, as the boundaries of explicit representation were broken and pushed from softcore towards hardcore. Through an exploration of the Italian adult press of the time and through an examination of the phenomenon of the ‘hardcore versions’ (Italian erotic films ‘pornified’ for export), this article provides a few starting points in order to draft a first (and necessarily partial) reconstruction of the stages through which pornography gained ground within the Italian cultural context during the second half of the 1970s.
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La sociologia del corpo ha da tempo dimostrato che le società tardo-moderne possono es-sere concepite come società somatiche, ovvero come sistemi sociali in cui i processi so-cio-culturali sono spesso manifestati attraverso il corpo. In... more
La sociologia del corpo ha da tempo dimostrato che le società tardo-moderne possono es-sere concepite come società somatiche, ovvero come sistemi sociali in cui i processi so-cio-culturali sono spesso manifestati attraverso il corpo. In questo senso, allora, le rappre-sentazioni del corpo circolanti in una determinata epoca storica forniscono un importan-te campo di osservazione per decifrare le istanze, gli immaginari e le tensioni che la carat-terizzano. Negli anni Ottanta italiani, a seguito dello sviluppo di una cultura del consumo matura ed edonistica, all'emersione di una forte tendenza all'individualismo e alla diffu-sione di una sensibilità post-femminista, il corpo occupa prepotentemente il centro della scena culturale e mediale. Obiettivo di questo saggio è tracciare una mappatura provviso-ria di alcune delle nuove rappresentazioni del corpo che sono emerse nel cinema popola-re italiano del decennio, con particolare attenzione alla commedia, in quanto genere che più facilmente si presta all'osservazione della negoziazione di valori condivisi e della for-mulazione di nuovi bisogni e desideri.
Sociology of the body has long demonstrated that late-modern societies can be understood as somatic societies, that is, social systems within which the body functions as the main site of negotiation of socio-cultural processes. In this sense, representations of the body circulating in a given historical age constitute an important field of observation of the instances, imaginaries and tensions that characterize that period. In Italy, during the 1980s, the body is central to culture and the media, following the development of a mature and hedonist consumer culture, the emergence of a strong tendency towards individualism , and the spread of a post-feminist sensibility. This essay sets out to trace a provisional map of the new representations of the body that surfaced in Italian popular cinema during the decade. We will specifically focus on comedy, as it is a genre that most evidently reflects the ways in which a particular culture negotiates its shared values and expresses new needs and desires.
Sociology of the body has long demonstrated that late-modern societies can be understood as somatic societies, that is, social systems within which the body functions as the main site of negotiation of socio-cultural processes. In this sense, representations of the body circulating in a given historical age constitute an important field of observation of the instances, imaginaries and tensions that characterize that period. In Italy, during the 1980s, the body is central to culture and the media, following the development of a mature and hedonist consumer culture, the emergence of a strong tendency towards individualism , and the spread of a post-feminist sensibility. This essay sets out to trace a provisional map of the new representations of the body that surfaced in Italian popular cinema during the decade. We will specifically focus on comedy, as it is a genre that most evidently reflects the ways in which a particular culture negotiates its shared values and expresses new needs and desires.
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Giunto alla quarta edizione, il Forum Annuale delle Studiose di Cinema e Audiovisivi conferma la vocazione alla pluralità di approcci e sconfinamenti possibili, che lo ha caratterizzato fin dal principio. L’appuntamento del 2015 mette a... more
Giunto alla quarta edizione, il Forum Annuale delle Studiose di Cinema e Audiovisivi conferma la vocazione alla pluralità di approcci e sconfinamenti possibili, che lo ha caratterizzato fin dal principio. L’appuntamento del 2015 mette a tema l’imperfezione nel cinema delle donne, mirando in particolare, ma non esclusivamente, al panorama italiano.
I lavori del Forum saranno pubblicati in un volume di studi presso le Edizioni ETS nella collana del Forum delle Studiose di Cinema e Audiovisivi diretta da Lucia Cardone e Mariagrazia Fanchi.
Le interessate possono inviare una proposta di intervento (titolo e abstract) a fascina.forum@gmail.com entro il 30 settembre 2015.
I lavori del Forum saranno pubblicati in un volume di studi presso le Edizioni ETS nella collana del Forum delle Studiose di Cinema e Audiovisivi diretta da Lucia Cardone e Mariagrazia Fanchi.
Le interessate possono inviare una proposta di intervento (titolo e abstract) a fascina.forum@gmail.com entro il 30 settembre 2015.
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Programma definitivo di FASCinA-Foruma Annuale delle Studiose di Cinema e Audiovisivi_ 2015: L’imperfezione nel cinema delle donne. Spazi imprevisti di libertà femminile, Università di Sassari 5-7 novembre 2015
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I saggi raccolti in questo volume muovono tra studi culturali, star studies e gender studies per riflettere sulla messa a tema delle identità femminili nel cinema italiano, con qualche incursione feconda nei territori francese e... more
I saggi raccolti in questo volume muovono tra studi culturali, star studies e gender studies per riflettere sulla messa a tema delle identità femminili nel cinema italiano, con qualche incursione feconda nei territori francese e hollywoodiano, appuntando lo sguardo sulle narrazioni del divismo e sul ricorrere, al loro interno, delle figure di Cenerentola, di Galatea e di Pigmalione. Sono costrutti figurativi e simbolici che, a ben guardare, rimandano a una fioritura di racconti polimorfi che non chiudono le figure femminili nelle linee di un disegno prevedibile ma le rilanciano e moltiplicano. Le Cenerentole-Galatee si fanno sante o perdute; si ribellano ai Pigmalioni-principi azzurri o li rimodellano a loro volta; rivendicano una autogenesi nelle scelte e nei ruoli che interpretano; reclamano un’identità molteplice nell’ironia affilata della scrittura o nei passi leggeri delle protagoniste dei melodrammi; così che è sempre il passo di Galatea-Cenerentola a condurre la danza.
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In the 2018 edition of the Gorizia Spring School, the main objective of the Porn Studies section is to explore the margins and extremes of pornography in contemporary mediasphere, as well as in its historical developments. The notions of... more
In the 2018 edition of the Gorizia Spring School, the main objective of the Porn Studies section is to explore the margins and extremes of pornography in contemporary mediasphere, as well as in its historical developments. The notions of margin and marginality may refer to " the place of repressed or subordinated textual meanings " (Brooker 2003: 152), but also to the specific position of non-mainstream intellectuals, subjects and social groups. In this sense, margin(ality) can either be a place of alienation, social exclusion, and normative oppression or a " space of radical openness " and a " position and place of resistance " (hooks 2015 [1989]: 228, 231; see also: Walker 1999), from which it is possible to re-articulate dominant discourses and produce new meanings and interpretative perspectives. At the same time, extremities and extremes can be understood in Foucauldian terms as places in which power becomes " capillary " (Foucault 1980: 39) and productive – that is where power is materialized in actual practices and produces real effects (Colucci 2004: 128) on bodies and subjectivities. In our view, pornography can be understood as both a margin and an extreme of mainstream culture. In this perspective, it represents one of the places in which normative discourses and power dynamics are at their most visible and effective; on the other hand, however, pornography can sometimes be seen as the space of production of counter-discourses that might disrupt dominant perceptions and beliefs about gender, sexuality and the body. With this in mind, we aim to analyse the repressed or subordinated textual and social meanings that characterize (or, conversely, that are produced by) pornography in its different historical and geographical forms, as well as to investigate the micro-politics of power at play in pornographic media and representations and their possible subversive re-articulations.
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Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Film Studies, Film History, and 11 moreFilm and History, Gay Pornography, Pornographic Film, Pornography, Pornography Studies, Film and Media Studies, Pornification Culture, Sexualisation Culture, of Children and Young People, Porn Chic, Pornography, Porn Studies, History of Pornography, Pornografia, and Erotic Cinema
Following the so-called "digital revolution", dramatic transformations have affected the ways in which cinema is produced, consumed and perceived, to the extent that it seems to have gone "beyond" itself: beyond its very language and... more
Following the so-called "digital revolution", dramatic transformations have affected the ways in which cinema is produced, consumed and perceived, to the extent that it seems to have gone "beyond" itself: beyond its very language and discourse; its traditional consumption practices and spaces; its position and function within the social (as well as the medial) sphere. As a consequence, during the last two decades, research in film studies has significantly widened its scope: the study of cinema has been re-articulated in several fields of inquiry and through a variety of methodological approaches and (inter)disciplinary perspectives, in an attempt to keep up with these most recent developments. This section of Cinéma&Cie aims therefore to function as a permanent observatory of this "beyondness".