- Utrecht University, Faculty of Humanities, Alumnusadd
- Memory Studies, Cultural Memory, Social and Collective Memory, Digital memories, Oral history, Gender Studies, and 33 moreAnni di piombo, Italy (History), Modern Italian History, Italian Cultural Studies, Contemporary Italian History and Politics, Oral History and Documentary, Oral History and Memory, Visual Studies, Film Studies, TV studies, Documentary Film, Italian Cinema, Italian Feminism, History of Italian Feminism, Second Wave Feminism, Third Wave Feminism, Contemporary Feminism, Feminist activism, Women's History, History of Women's Studies, Generational Memory, 1968 in Europe, 1968-1977, Italy 1970s, Social Movements, Protest Movements, Student protests, Protest and resistance, Digital Humanities, Proofreading, Copyediting, Academic copyediting, and Academic proofreadingedit
- Academic editor and translator (Italian > English) in the Humanities and Social Sciences / Correttrice e traduttrice ... moreAcademic editor and translator (Italian > English) in the Humanities and Social Sciences / Correttrice e traduttrice accademica in area umanistica e sociologica.
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I obtained my undergraduate and MA degrees at the University of Utrecht (French, Comparative Literature and Italian), before joining the University of Warwick (UK) to pursue a doctoral degree in Italian. In 2010 I concluded my thesis on the public memory of Italian student protests in the late 1970s, after which I held an Early Career Fellowship at the Warwick Institute of Advanced Study, and two Visiting Fellowships at the University of London and at the University of Utrecht. Between 2013 and 2016 I was a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of Glasgow (UK). My postdoctoral project explored the history and memory of second-wave feminism in Italy, drawing predominantly on oral history data and archival material.
I have published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals. I have (co-)edited four special issues and the volume 'Memory in a Mediated World: Remembrance and Reconstruction' (2015). My monograph, entitled 'Negotiating Memories of Protest in Western Europe. The Case of Italy', was published in 2013.edit
This contribution explores the origins and development of the Italian women’s movement beyond and in contrast with the hegemonizing narrative of 1968. By adopting a wider, chronological and “decentralized” perspective, and by taking stock... more
This contribution explores the origins and development of the Italian women’s movement beyond and in contrast with the hegemonizing narrative of 1968. By adopting a wider, chronological and “decentralized” perspective, and by taking stock of the specific characteristics of the women’s movement and its different, more “personal” type of doing politics, the chapter promotes an analysis of the women’s movement “despite” the 1968 experience.
Research Interests:
This chapter offers an exploration of the role of nostalgia – its limitations and potentials – in reflections about legacies of second-wave feminism in contemporary Italy. By making a distinction between nostalgia for feminism, a... more
This chapter offers an exploration of the role of nostalgia – its limitations and potentials – in reflections about legacies of second-wave feminism in contemporary Italy. By making a distinction between nostalgia for feminism, a backwards looking, melancholic approach that draws on a linear and progressive idea of time, and feminist nostalgia, which is instead prospective and implies a nonlinear progression, I demonstrate how the former is not so much a longing for the loss of the 1970s women’s movement (among second-wave feminists), but is translated into a desire to preserve, revitalize and give continuity to this feminist past by passing it on to future generations. This approach, however, fails to acknowledge the existence of new feminist subjectivities and to engage with issues that fall outside of the temporal scope of second-wave feminism, and risks turning this nostalgia for feminism into a dead end. I will illustrate my findings by comparing two texts that engage in generational discourses: Fra me e te. Madre e figlia si scrivono: Pensieri, passioni, femminismi, by Mariella Gramaglia and Maddalena Vianello; and Mia madre femminista. Voci di una rivoluzione che continua, by Marina Santini and Luciana Tavernini.
Research Interests:
In times when public and private spheres are mediated more than ever, this volume looks at the way personal and collective memories are employed to revise and reconstruct old and new forms of individual and social life. Considering both... more
In times when public and private spheres are mediated more than ever, this volume looks at the way personal and collective memories are employed to revise and reconstruct old and new forms of individual and social life. Considering both retrospective memories and the prospective employment of memories, Memory in a Mediated World examines troubled times that demand resolution, recovery and restoration. The chapters assembled in this volume provide empirically grounded analyses of how media are employed by individuals and social groups to connect the past, the present and the future. The volume argues that experiences of private or public crisis often allow for a projective use of memories, be they individual or collective. Hence, contrary to the idea that such states of exception eliminate memories, the volume examines the ways in which memories in and of traumatic, conflictual or incisive events and experiences are addressed through a productive employment of past experiences, ideas, relationships or strategies.
Research Interests:
This chapter explores the legacy of second-wave feminism in Italy by studying the complex relation between second-wave and third-wave feminist generations in contemporary Italy. Drawing on the concepts of travelling memory and the... more
This chapter explores the legacy of second-wave feminism in Italy by studying the complex relation between second-wave and third-wave feminist generations in contemporary Italy. Drawing on the concepts of travelling memory and the remediation of memory, in particular Astrid Erll’s five dimensions of movement, i.e. carriers, media, contents, practices and forms, I study the relationship between different generations of feminists and the role feminist memories, which I analyze using the dual terms of heritage and inheritance, play in the process of identity formation among younger generations.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In times when public and private spheres are mediated more than ever, this volume looks at the way personal and collective memories are employed to revise and reconstruct old and new forms of individual and social life. Considering both... more
In times when public and private spheres are mediated more than ever, this volume looks at the way personal and collective memories are employed to revise and reconstruct old and new forms of individual and social life. Considering both retrospective memories and the prospective employment of memories, Memory in a Mediated World examines troubled times that demand resolution, recovery and restoration. The chapters assembled in this volume provide empirically grounded analyses of how media are employed by individuals and social groups to connect the past, the present and the future. The volume argues that experiences of private or public crisis often allow for a projective use of memories, be they individual or collective. Hence, contrary to the idea that such states of exception eliminate memories, the volume examines the ways in which memories in and of traumatic, conflictual or incisive events and experiences are addressed through a productive employment of past experiences, ideas, relationships or strategies.
Research Interests:
Since Italy’s transition to the Second Republic in the early 1990s, a period marked by attempts to come to terms with the traumatic experience of the violent 1970s, cinema and television have increasingly been (ab)used for the re-writing... more
Since Italy’s transition to the Second Republic in the early 1990s, a period marked by attempts to come to terms with the traumatic experience of the violent 1970s, cinema and television have increasingly been (ab)used for the re-writing of national history, often within a revisionist framework and for the promotion of reconciliation processes. The miniseries Donne armate (Sergio Corbucci, 1991) is one such attempt to work through the trauma of political violence. Produced in the same period as Sergio Zavoli’s TV documentary La notte della Repubblica, where former terrorists from both sides of the ideological specter are offered the chance to publicly express their personal reflections, Donne armate also promotes a discourse of reconciliation, bringing together two women from different sides of the law: a female terrorist and a police woman. However, this attempt at reconciling the nation with the terrorists of the past goes beyond the symbolic union between the two women, who eventually collaborate in order to dismantle a criminal organization set out to kill both women. It is also the casting of Lina Sastri in the role of the terrorist, calling back memories of an almost identical role she played in Giuseppe Bertolucci’s Segreti segreti (1984), that emphasizes the idea of reconciliation, Sastri’s character in Donne armate giving evidence of a moral rehabilitation that lacked in Bertolucci’s film. Drawing, among other things, on theories of cultural memory and trauma, this article then discusses – through an analysis of both Donne armate and a number of films and TV programmes broadcast in the early 1990s – the political potentialities of television in processes of healing and national reconciliation.
Research Interests:
Drawing on the case study of a violent incident in 1970s Italy, in this chapter I analyze how contentious memories of protest travel across time and space, and what the impact of globalization and decentralization is on the creation of... more
Drawing on the case study of a violent incident in 1970s Italy, in this chapter I analyze how contentious memories of protest travel across time and space, and what the impact of globalization and decentralization is on the creation of collective memories and identities of protest in the present. I thus trace developments in the collective memory of the incident, in the way a former student movement has used this memory for the construction of a group identity, and how this memory was fitted into a wider, national and global perspective in different historical times.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Introduction: Negotiating memories of protest 1 - 'Years of lead'? Political violence in perspective 2 - 'Wonderful years'? Myth, nostalgia and authority 3 - The trauma of 1977 4 - Affective labour: Between mourning and moral duty 5... more
Introduction: Negotiating memories of protest
1 - 'Years of lead'? Political violence in perspective
2 - 'Wonderful years'? Myth, nostalgia and authority
3 - The trauma of 1977
4 - Affective labour: Between mourning and moral duty
5 - Seeking consensus: Political uses of the past
6 - Rebuilding group identities on the far left
7 - Memory sites: Negotiating protest in urban space
Conclusion: Trappen in private spaces"
Chapter 1 - ‘Years of lead’? Political Violence in Perspective
This chapter contains a brief historical overview of the most important political, economical and social transformations in the late 1960s and 1970s, and their impact on the development of a new political subject in Italy and Germany as opposed to France and Great Britain, where the 1968 ‘momentum’ had a more limited reach. It provides an account of contentious politics in those years and challenges dominant, ‘condemning’ memories of the 1970s in Germany and Italy, where this period is also known as the ‘years of lead’. The chapter analyzes the origins of this notion, its application, and its emphasis on narratives of victimhood and trauma. It thus identifies strategies of selection and omission in the creation of a national history of the 1970s.
Chapter 2 - ‘Wonderful years’? Myth, Nostalgia and Possessive Memory
The analysis of the difficult historicization of the late 1960s and 1970s is continued in Chapter 2, which focuses on the celebratory memory of the protests of 1968, their reception, and the (de)construction of their myth. It thus investigates activists’ difficult relationship with traditional historiography, their nostalgic and ‘possessive’ memory of this past and the consequences of this attitude for contemporary research(ers) of protest in Europe. In addition to the historical ‘silences’ identified in the first chapter, this second chapter then addresses individual and collective silences in the history of these social movements. In doing so it reflects upon the value of oral history methodology in the creation of a more inclusive and complete history of European social movements in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Chapter 3 - The Trauma of 1977
The third chapter explores the origins and composition of the 1977 student movement in Italy. It outlines the specific characteristics of the ‘Movement of ’77’ and provides a brief historical outline of the political and social situation of Bologna in the mid-1970s. This helps explain the traumatic impact of the incidents that occurred on and after 11 March 1977, when student and activist Francesco Lorusso was shot dead by a police officer during riots in the university zone. A discursive and visual analysis of the local press and news reports on national television demonstrates how the public memory of these incidents was shaped at the time, and to what extent we may speak of a ‘traumatic’ memory of 1977.
Chapter 4 - Mourning and Moral Duty. The Affective Labour of Victims’ Families
This is the first of three chapters that zoom in on one specific memory community and its attempts to negotiate a memory of Lorusso in the public sphere, in the 30 years following the incidents of 1977 in Bologna. It examines processes of ‘affective labour’, i.e. the relation between Lorusso’s family and the families of victims of terrorism in 1970s Italy, who often gathered in victims’ family associations. It demonstrates how Lorusso’s difficult victim status affected his family’s authority as a memory agent, forcing it to develop a variety of strategies to renegotiate his person in the public sphere. It also analyzes the family’s role in the annual commemoration on March 11th, and its interaction with relatives of other victims of ‘state’ violence.
Chapter 5 - Political Uses of the Past. The Official Memory of 1977
This chapter explores the implications of the incidents of 1977 for local politics: it demonstrates how difficult memories of political violence are (re)used and manipulated in an attempt to (re)gain a political electorate. It focuses on the historical left in Bologna, primarily the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and its political heirs in the 1990s-2000s, the way the PCI re-interpreted the events of 1977 in subsequent years, and the historical context which determined these re-interpretations. Next, it discusses the role of other local politicians, political parties and the University in negotiations of Lorusso’s public memory. The chapter is particularly concerned with debates about anniversaries, proposed memory sites and the general question whether Lorusso should be remembered at all, and how he should be remembered.
Chapter 6 - Rebuilding Group Identities to the Far Left
This chapter focuses on the alternative left-wing milieu. It provides a brief history of an alternative commemorative march which served as a ‘counter-memory’ of both the incidents of March 1977 and other incidents of political violence in and beyond the 1970s. It thus examines the meaning Lorusso’s life was given by the various subgroups of the former student movement. It also explores the concessions and compromises his companions made in order to give his memory visibility in the public sphere. Finally, it shows that Lorusso’s death is not an exclusive memory of the 1977 generation. The chapter then provides insight into the relationship between death and identity formation, emotions and protest, the tensions between heroism and victimhood, and the concept of generational memory.
Chapter 7 - Memory Sites: the Negotiation of Protest in the Urban Space
The book concludes with an exploration of the memory sites that were proposed, debated or created in order to commemorate the incidents of March 1977, and Lorusso’s person. Drawing on the concept of grassroots memorials, the chapter centers around two contradictory sites of memory: a commemorative plaque placed by Lorusso's friends and family, which - in spite of the conventional form - represents a highly spontaneous, critical and ‘fragmented’ form of commemoration; a public garden dedicated to Lorusso in the 1990s by the local administration. The chapter explores debates about difficult memories and how these were negotiated in the public sphere, and promotes a more general discussion about the role of memory sites in the creation of shared memory discourses and reconciliation processes.
1 - 'Years of lead'? Political violence in perspective
2 - 'Wonderful years'? Myth, nostalgia and authority
3 - The trauma of 1977
4 - Affective labour: Between mourning and moral duty
5 - Seeking consensus: Political uses of the past
6 - Rebuilding group identities on the far left
7 - Memory sites: Negotiating protest in urban space
Conclusion: Trappen in private spaces"
Chapter 1 - ‘Years of lead’? Political Violence in Perspective
This chapter contains a brief historical overview of the most important political, economical and social transformations in the late 1960s and 1970s, and their impact on the development of a new political subject in Italy and Germany as opposed to France and Great Britain, where the 1968 ‘momentum’ had a more limited reach. It provides an account of contentious politics in those years and challenges dominant, ‘condemning’ memories of the 1970s in Germany and Italy, where this period is also known as the ‘years of lead’. The chapter analyzes the origins of this notion, its application, and its emphasis on narratives of victimhood and trauma. It thus identifies strategies of selection and omission in the creation of a national history of the 1970s.
Chapter 2 - ‘Wonderful years’? Myth, Nostalgia and Possessive Memory
The analysis of the difficult historicization of the late 1960s and 1970s is continued in Chapter 2, which focuses on the celebratory memory of the protests of 1968, their reception, and the (de)construction of their myth. It thus investigates activists’ difficult relationship with traditional historiography, their nostalgic and ‘possessive’ memory of this past and the consequences of this attitude for contemporary research(ers) of protest in Europe. In addition to the historical ‘silences’ identified in the first chapter, this second chapter then addresses individual and collective silences in the history of these social movements. In doing so it reflects upon the value of oral history methodology in the creation of a more inclusive and complete history of European social movements in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Chapter 3 - The Trauma of 1977
The third chapter explores the origins and composition of the 1977 student movement in Italy. It outlines the specific characteristics of the ‘Movement of ’77’ and provides a brief historical outline of the political and social situation of Bologna in the mid-1970s. This helps explain the traumatic impact of the incidents that occurred on and after 11 March 1977, when student and activist Francesco Lorusso was shot dead by a police officer during riots in the university zone. A discursive and visual analysis of the local press and news reports on national television demonstrates how the public memory of these incidents was shaped at the time, and to what extent we may speak of a ‘traumatic’ memory of 1977.
Chapter 4 - Mourning and Moral Duty. The Affective Labour of Victims’ Families
This is the first of three chapters that zoom in on one specific memory community and its attempts to negotiate a memory of Lorusso in the public sphere, in the 30 years following the incidents of 1977 in Bologna. It examines processes of ‘affective labour’, i.e. the relation between Lorusso’s family and the families of victims of terrorism in 1970s Italy, who often gathered in victims’ family associations. It demonstrates how Lorusso’s difficult victim status affected his family’s authority as a memory agent, forcing it to develop a variety of strategies to renegotiate his person in the public sphere. It also analyzes the family’s role in the annual commemoration on March 11th, and its interaction with relatives of other victims of ‘state’ violence.
Chapter 5 - Political Uses of the Past. The Official Memory of 1977
This chapter explores the implications of the incidents of 1977 for local politics: it demonstrates how difficult memories of political violence are (re)used and manipulated in an attempt to (re)gain a political electorate. It focuses on the historical left in Bologna, primarily the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and its political heirs in the 1990s-2000s, the way the PCI re-interpreted the events of 1977 in subsequent years, and the historical context which determined these re-interpretations. Next, it discusses the role of other local politicians, political parties and the University in negotiations of Lorusso’s public memory. The chapter is particularly concerned with debates about anniversaries, proposed memory sites and the general question whether Lorusso should be remembered at all, and how he should be remembered.
Chapter 6 - Rebuilding Group Identities to the Far Left
This chapter focuses on the alternative left-wing milieu. It provides a brief history of an alternative commemorative march which served as a ‘counter-memory’ of both the incidents of March 1977 and other incidents of political violence in and beyond the 1970s. It thus examines the meaning Lorusso’s life was given by the various subgroups of the former student movement. It also explores the concessions and compromises his companions made in order to give his memory visibility in the public sphere. Finally, it shows that Lorusso’s death is not an exclusive memory of the 1977 generation. The chapter then provides insight into the relationship between death and identity formation, emotions and protest, the tensions between heroism and victimhood, and the concept of generational memory.
Chapter 7 - Memory Sites: the Negotiation of Protest in the Urban Space
The book concludes with an exploration of the memory sites that were proposed, debated or created in order to commemorate the incidents of March 1977, and Lorusso’s person. Drawing on the concept of grassroots memorials, the chapter centers around two contradictory sites of memory: a commemorative plaque placed by Lorusso's friends and family, which - in spite of the conventional form - represents a highly spontaneous, critical and ‘fragmented’ form of commemoration; a public garden dedicated to Lorusso in the 1990s by the local administration. The chapter explores debates about difficult memories and how these were negotiated in the public sphere, and promotes a more general discussion about the role of memory sites in the creation of shared memory discourses and reconciliation processes.
Research Interests:
This article investigates the relationship between space appropriation and women’s writing and publishing activities, in the context of second-wave feminism in Milan. From the early 1970s onwards, Milan’s feminist movement – which arose... more
This article investigates the relationship between space appropriation and women’s writing and publishing activities, in the context of second-wave feminism in Milan. From the early 1970s onwards, Milan’s feminist movement – which arose from the conjunction between transnational, national and local factors – engaged in a variety of translating, writing and publishing projects. In fact, Milan was one of the first Italian cities to publish translations of foreign feminist texts. More importantly, it was the site of the earliest feminist theoretical production in Italy. The article argues that, at different points of the decade, the empowering act of writing, publishing and circulating feminist knowledge reflected a search for a more profound consciousness of the female self which was intricately connected to the (symbolical and material) appropriation of women-only spaces in the city. In particular, it discusses three different expressions of this interaction between physical and discursive space: the feminist publishing house Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, the Libreria delle donne di Milano and the 150 hours monographic courses in the Affori neighbourhood.
Research Interests:
The Italian women’s movement of the 1970s was one of the largest and most diverse in Europe. However, after the movement's decline in the late 1970s, scholarly interest in women studies and in the history of second-wave feminism has... more
The Italian women’s movement of the 1970s was one of the largest and most diverse in Europe. However, after the movement's decline in the late 1970s, scholarly interest in women studies and in the history of second-wave feminism has primarily been upheld through the creation and promotion of women's archives, documentary centres and libraries. More recently, new generations of women have engaged in battles for women's rights, debates about gender issues and feminist scholarship, relying increasingly on new media technologies and social media. It is tempting to conclude that the generation gap that so often marks the relationship between different feminist generations is enhanced by such a technological divide. This article, instead, challenges this assumption by studying the case of an information-based organization that was created in the early 1980s by a group of local feminists in the Italian city of Bologna, and which adopted a strongly digital approach to historical scholarship in the early 1990s. What is the impact of a similar, digital approach to women's history on the nature of historical scholarship and the shape of the archive? Can the digital break through academic hierarchies and institutional barriers, and give a voice to those who have long remained outside of official historiography?
Research Interests:
Since Italy’s transition to the Second Republic in the early 1990s, a period marked furthermore by attempts to come to terms with the traumatic experience of the violent 1970s, cinema and television have increasingly been (ab)used for the... more
Since Italy’s transition to the Second Republic in the early 1990s, a period marked furthermore by attempts to come to terms with the traumatic experience of the violent 1970s, cinema and television have increasingly been (ab)used for the re-writing of national history, often within a revisionist framework, and for the promotion of new discourses of reconciliation. The miniseries Donne armate (Sergio Corbucci, 1991) is one such attempt to work through the trauma of political violence by re-humanizing – in the words of Giancarlo Lombardi (2009) – the demonized figure of the terrorist. Produced in the same period as Sergio Zavoli’s TV documentary La notte della repubblica, where former terrorists from both sides of the ideological specter are offered the chance to publicly express their personal reflections and regrets, Donne armate also promotes a discourse of reconciliation by bringing together two women belonging to different sides of the law: a terrorist and a police woman. This reconciliation with Italy’s violent past is reinforced by the casting of Lina Sastri in the role of the terrorist, calling back memories of Giuseppe Bertolucci’s Segreti segreti (1984), where Sastri interpreted a ruthless terrorist killer who is eventually defeated by the law. Drawing, among other things, on theories of cultural memory and trauma, this article discusses – through an analysis of both Donne armate and a number of TV programmes on terrorism, broadcast in the early 1990s – the political potentialities and limits of television, in processes of healing and national reconciliation.
Research Interests:
In Italy, women have long been stereotypically marked as either objects of sexual desire or as producers of new life. This changed radically in the 1970s, when second-wave feminism redefined gender relations and experimented with new... more
In Italy, women have long been stereotypically marked as either objects of sexual desire or as producers of new life. This changed radically in the 1970s, when second-wave feminism redefined gender relations and experimented with new paths of life not determined by matrimony and maternity. The legalisation of abortion, during the second half of the decade, is now hailed as one of the primary achievements of the women’s movement. A theme closely connected to abortion such as motherhood, on the other hand, seems to have been excluded from the public memory of 1970s feminism. Drawing on the outcomes of an oral history project, this article unearths the dominant discourses and individual and collective silences within the public memory of the 1970s women’s movement in the Italian city of Bologna, and explores the processes of creating ‘composure’ among women as they remember their experiences of motherhood and abortion.
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È comunemente accettato, nell'ambito degli studi di memoria e dei mass media, il fatto che le nuove tecnologie - dalla televisione ai social network - abbiano creato «la possibilità di una circolazione senza precedenti di immagini e di... more
È comunemente accettato, nell'ambito degli studi di memoria e dei mass media, il fatto che le nuove tecnologie - dalla televisione ai social network - abbiano creato «la possibilità di una circolazione senza precedenti di immagini e di narrazioni del passato». In altre parole, i mass media, come ci spiega anche Paolo Jedlowski, «determinano le nostre immagini della realtà», permettendo alla memoria pubblica del passato di essere acquisita da chiunque. Tra i primi eventi socio-politici del '900 che sono stati fatti circolare in televisione ci sono le proteste del '68. Chi non ricorda l'immagine della bionda Marianne de Mai, portata sulle spalle per le strade del Quartier Latin a Parigi mentre impugna una bandiera, oppure quella dei due atleti afro-americani, vincitori delle Olimpiadi a Città del Messico nello stesso anno, con i pugni alzati in un saluto verso il cielo? Ma non solo i media fanno circolare le memorie con più faciltà ed estensione: l'effet de réel - com'è stato teorizzato da Roland Barthes - dei media, in particolare quelli visivi, crea un'esperienza più personale degli eventi passati, ovverossia un senso di partecipazione più diretta, anche quando non si è vissuto un evento personalmente. In altre parole, quando «le immagini e le idee entrano in contatto con l'archivio personale di esperienze di una persona», i media fanno sì che le memorie pubbliche vengano vissute più da vicino.
Oltre a creare memorie più condivisibili e condivise, le immagini trasmesse dai media prendono anche forma nella mediazione del passato che ha luogo in questa trasmissione. Ovverossia, l'atto di conservare, presentare e condividere dati visivi può influenzare il modo in cui il passato è ricordato e le identità passate vengono ricostruite nel presente. In effetti, la memoria e i media si formano a vicenda, soprattutto nell'era del digitale, dove le nuove tecnologie hanno provocato una «esplosione globale della partecipazione pubblica », stimolando una produzione più auto-riflessiva di memoria.
Questo saggio analizza il processo di condivisione di immagini fotografiche in rete, in relazione al movimento studentesco degli anni '70 nella città di Bologna. Più precisamente, si indaga su una serie di album fotografici che il fotografo Enrico Scuro ha caricato - all'inizio del 2011 - sul social network Facebook, guadagnandosi il nome di «biografo visivo di una generazione». In seguito a questa iniziativa, i settantasettini hanno ricostruito, in rete, le loro memorie individuali e collettive di questi anni, lasciando commenti e taggandosi en masse nelle varie fotografie. Partendo da teorie sulla memoria collettiva e culturale, il saggio esaminerà come primo punto il tipo di fotografie che Scuro ha selezionato per ciò che vorrei definire un "album di famiglia"; come le ha ordinate; e quali sono state le reazioni da parte degli utenti. In secondo luogo, si cercherà di capire il significato di questi album nella ricostruzione, 35 anni dopo, di un'identità collettiva per gli ex protagonisti del "Movimento del '77" a Bologna. Quant'è importante la nostalgia in queste rievocazioni del passato, e quanto influisce sul senso di appartenenza il fatto che le fotografie siano digitali piuttosto che analogiche? Quest'ultimo punto verrà discusso anche in relazione alla pubblicazione, nel dicembre del 2011, di una selezione delle fotografie in forma cartacea.
Oltre a creare memorie più condivisibili e condivise, le immagini trasmesse dai media prendono anche forma nella mediazione del passato che ha luogo in questa trasmissione. Ovverossia, l'atto di conservare, presentare e condividere dati visivi può influenzare il modo in cui il passato è ricordato e le identità passate vengono ricostruite nel presente. In effetti, la memoria e i media si formano a vicenda, soprattutto nell'era del digitale, dove le nuove tecnologie hanno provocato una «esplosione globale della partecipazione pubblica », stimolando una produzione più auto-riflessiva di memoria.
Questo saggio analizza il processo di condivisione di immagini fotografiche in rete, in relazione al movimento studentesco degli anni '70 nella città di Bologna. Più precisamente, si indaga su una serie di album fotografici che il fotografo Enrico Scuro ha caricato - all'inizio del 2011 - sul social network Facebook, guadagnandosi il nome di «biografo visivo di una generazione». In seguito a questa iniziativa, i settantasettini hanno ricostruito, in rete, le loro memorie individuali e collettive di questi anni, lasciando commenti e taggandosi en masse nelle varie fotografie. Partendo da teorie sulla memoria collettiva e culturale, il saggio esaminerà come primo punto il tipo di fotografie che Scuro ha selezionato per ciò che vorrei definire un "album di famiglia"; come le ha ordinate; e quali sono state le reazioni da parte degli utenti. In secondo luogo, si cercherà di capire il significato di questi album nella ricostruzione, 35 anni dopo, di un'identità collettiva per gli ex protagonisti del "Movimento del '77" a Bologna. Quant'è importante la nostalgia in queste rievocazioni del passato, e quanto influisce sul senso di appartenenza il fatto che le fotografie siano digitali piuttosto che analogiche? Quest'ultimo punto verrà discusso anche in relazione alla pubblicazione, nel dicembre del 2011, di una selezione delle fotografie in forma cartacea.
Research Interests: Photography, Italian Studies, Digital Media, 1970s Culture, Facebook, and 7 moreFamily Album, Nostalgia, Facebook Studies, Italy 1970s, New Media, Social Network Analysis, e-research, Link analysis, Social Network Sites, Twitter, Facebook, Political Communication, Nostalgia and Memory, and 1968-1977
In this article I argue that the management of the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila and the subsequent reconstruction process has produced a negative, collective memory of civil protection service in Italy, leading two centri sociali - in the... more
In this article I argue that the management of the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila and the subsequent reconstruction process has produced a negative, collective memory of civil protection service in Italy, leading two centri sociali - in the wake of an earthquake that struck Emilia-Romagna in 2012, forcing thousands of people to relocate into the tendopoli camps run by the Protezione Civile - to break the rigid schemes of the Protezione Civile by promoting a grassroots project of emergency management. Drawing inspiration from the No Tav battle in Piedmont, the centri sociali moved away both from the urban territory and the global battles that have most marked their political activism, engaging instead in an humanitarian aid project that clashes with the die-hard image of radical left-wing antagonism. What drove these groups to take their battle into the country side? Are we witnessing a return to a more local protest culture?
Research Interests:
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Memories are increasingly shaped and shared through the media, in particular visual media such as photography. However, it is not just the images that allow for memories to enter our individual and collective identities: the latter take... more
Memories are increasingly shaped and shared through the media, in particular visual media such as photography. However, it is not just the images that allow for memories to enter our individual and collective identities: the latter take shape in the mediation of the past through images. In other words, the very act of selecting, storing, and sharing visual data has an impact on the way the past is recalled and identities are reconstructed in the present. What happens, though, when photo albums go digital, and private snapshots become available to all? This article analyses the collective sharing of a series of photo albums of the 1977 student movement in Bologna, on the social networking site Facebook, in 2011. It explores how the collective (hi)story of the 1977 generation is reproduced online, why this specific medium was so successful in reconnecting these people thirty-five years later, and what the impact is of digital media and social networks on the reconstruction of collective identities in the present.
Research Interests: New Media, Digital Media, Social Media, Digital Memory, Facebook, and 13 moreOnline Journalism, Digital Archives, Photography (Visual Studies), Google, Youtube, Digital Marketing, Italy 1970s, Italian 1977 Movement, Generational Memory, Digital Story Telling, Iphones, Paywalls, and Virtual Revolution
The decade spanning from 1968 to 1980, known also as the anni di piombo, is among the most difficult and traumatic periods in Italian post-war history. One of the most memorable years of this decade was 1977, when a new student movement... more
The decade spanning from 1968 to 1980, known also as the anni di piombo, is among the most difficult and traumatic periods in Italian post-war history. One of the most memorable years of this decade was 1977, when a new student movement stood up against the established order. The so-called Movement of ’77 manifested itself among others in Bologna, where it had a predominantly creative and joyful character. Nevertheless, the protests were violently struck down when left-wing student Francesco Lorusso was killed by police forces during clashes, resulting in an urban guerriglia. This incident worsened the relationship between the historical left and younger generations of (more radical) left-wing activists, and marked the beginning of the end of the Movement of ’77. The chapter on 1977 was, however, never really closed, and a ‘counter-memory’ has continued to divide the local community ever since. In this article, we shall see how different memory communities in Bologna have dealt with this ‘collective trauma’, focusing on the former Movement of ’77 and the way it has used public commemorative rituals to rebuild a collective identity for itself in subsequent years.
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More than 30 years ago the violent death - on 11 March 1977 - of a left-wing student in the Italian city of Bologna brought an end to a student protest movement, the ‘Movement of ’77’. Today nostalgia dominates public commemorations of... more
More than 30 years ago the violent death - on 11 March 1977 - of a left-wing student in the Italian city of Bologna brought an end to a student protest movement, the ‘Movement of ’77’. Today nostalgia dominates public commemorations of the movement as it manifested itself in Bologna. However, this memory is not an exclusive memory of the 1977 generation. A number of young, left-wing activists that draw on the myth of 1977 in Bologna and in particular on the memory of the local Workers Autonomy faction appropriate this memory in a similarly nostalgic manner. This article then explores the value of nostalgia in generational memory: how does it relate to past, present and future, and to what extent does it influence processes of identity formation among youth groups? I argue that nostalgia is more than a longing for the past, and that it can be conceived as progressive and future-orientated, providing empowerment for specific social groups.
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In 1977, a new Italian student movement arose which turned itself explicitly against traditional left-wing parties and unions. In the university town of Bologna, a student and sympathiser of a former left-wing, extra-parliamentary group -... more
In 1977, a new Italian student movement arose which turned itself explicitly against traditional left-wing parties and unions. In the university town of Bologna, a student and sympathiser of a former left-wing, extra-parliamentary group - Francesco Lorusso - was shot dead by police during clashes, on 11 March 1977. Surprisingly, a group of left-wing intellectuals who engaged more directly with social problems, stood up against the ruling Communist Party and the way it had handled and interpreted the incidents of March 1977. In this article I discuss the controversial relationship between these intellectuals and the hegemonic powers in Bologna.
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Although more than thirty years have passed, Italy is still struggling with the difficult memory of the 1970s, a decade marked by outbursts of political violence that has become known as the "anni di piombo". A climax was reached in March... more
Although more than thirty years have passed, Italy is still struggling with the difficult memory of the 1970s, a decade marked by outbursts of political violence that has become known as the "anni di piombo". A climax was reached in March 1977 when a left-wing student - 25-year-old Francesco Lorusso - was shot dead by police during clashes in the city of Bologna, where a new protest movement had erupted towards the end of 1976. The wound left by the incident, as well as by the violent reaction of the so-called «'77 Movement» in Bologna and the severe manner the authorities dealt with the upheaval, never healed, and continues to haunt the city up to the present day. Consequently, the "Movimento del '77" has continued to be dominated by personal memories of eye witnesses and former protagonists of the clashes. In this article, we shall take a closer look at a number of local memory communities - mostly Lorusso's family and the association dedicated to the student - and the way these have commemorated Lorusso throughout the years and thus contributed to the creation of a public, local memory of the "fatti di marzo".
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Although more than 30 years have past, Italy continues to struggle with the difficult memory of the 1970s, a decade marked by an extreme intensification of political violence. The incapacity and unwillingness of Italian society to come to... more
Although more than 30 years have past, Italy continues to struggle with the difficult memory of the 1970s, a decade marked by an extreme intensification of political violence. The incapacity and unwillingness of Italian society to come to terms with this traumatic past contributes to the maintenance of a range of conflicting memories, which is particularly immanent in history education, one of the primary sources in processes of memory construction. In this essay I analyse a number of Italian school textbooks published over the past 30 years, using the concept of cultural forgetting in an attempt to unfold the political strategies of memory construction, or rather, 'obstruction' in history education. I find that Italian school textbooks use facts in very selective ways, often creating distorted images of the past which contribute to the difficult memory of the 1970s in Italy. In discussing the findings, I consider the role of memory communities in the creation of 'counter-memories' as opposed to the dominant, 'official' memories that tend to omit, sideline or simply ignore facts that might contribute to a better understanding of the origins and consequences of political violence in Italy in the 1970s.
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This article studies the (mis)representation of political violence in the 1970s in Italian schoolbooks, through an empirical analysis of thirty textbooks published between 1980 and 2008. It demonstrates that there is a persistence of a... more
This article studies the (mis)representation of political violence in the 1970s in Italian schoolbooks, through an empirical analysis of thirty textbooks published between 1980 and 2008. It demonstrates that there is a persistence of a collective trauma which impedes any serious, impartial reflections on political violence in those years, and subsequently complicates processes of national reconciliation.
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Traduzione in italiano dell'articolo 'Je ne suis pas Catherine Deneuve. Reflections on contemporary debates about sexual self-determination in Italy', pubblicato nel numero speciale di Modern Italy Vol 23, no. 2, 2018, Sexuality and Power... more
Traduzione in italiano dell'articolo 'Je ne suis pas Catherine Deneuve. Reflections on contemporary debates about sexual self-determination in Italy', pubblicato nel numero speciale di Modern Italy Vol 23, no. 2, 2018, Sexuality and Power in Contemporary Italy: Subjectivities Between Gender Norms, Agency and Social Transformation.
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Contexts and Debates article commenting on debates about sexuality and sexual self-determination in contemporary Italy, as part of the special issue 'Sexuality and Power in Contemporary Italy: Subjectivities Between Gender Norms, Agency... more
Contexts and Debates article commenting on debates about sexuality and sexual self-determination in contemporary Italy, as part of the special issue 'Sexuality and Power in Contemporary Italy: Subjectivities Between Gender Norms, Agency and Social Transformation'.
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Special issue co-edited with Arianna Mainardi and Elena Zambelli, for the journal Modern Italy.
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Numero monografico di Storia e problemi contemporanei, curato insieme a Inge Lanslots e Silvia Casilio.
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This special issue offers a timely investigation into the role humour has played in Italian culture, society and politics over the past thirty years. It does so by applying a ‘humorous framework’, in an attempt to understand how this... more
This special issue offers a timely investigation into the role humour has played in Italian culture, society and politics over the past thirty years. It does so by applying a ‘humorous framework’, in an attempt to understand how this affects political discourse. As such it offers a novel and interdisciplinary approach to a phenomenon that has so far received limited attention in academic research.
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This special issue explores the way Italian fictional series, produced from the end of the Cold War onwards, have been instrumental in rewriting the country’s public memory, in the moment of historical and political transition that... more
This special issue explores the way Italian fictional series, produced from the end of the Cold War onwards, have been instrumental in rewriting the country’s public memory, in the moment of historical and political transition that followed the disappearance of political parties belonging to the Constitutional pact established in 1945. Using the provocative neologism ‘televisionism’, i.e. the usage of television as a way to promote new historical narratives which find their political and intellectual roots in post-Cold War historical revisionism, the special issue explores different points of view and debates on the ways in which television reconfigures the relation between the past and the present.
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This special issue – with case studies from France, Germany, UK and Italy – explores different trajectories and narratives of 1968. Through the application of oral history methodology, it creates a more inclusive and complex history which... more
This special issue – with case studies from France, Germany, UK and Italy – explores different trajectories and narratives of 1968. Through the application of oral history methodology, it creates a more inclusive and complex history which moves beyond established memories of 1968.
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Blog post on the Covid crisis and casualisation in Higher Education, available at https://youreditingalternative.com/2020/04/09/covid-19-curse-or-opportunity/
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Blog post on PhD mental health, available at https://youreditingalternative.com/2019/10/16/breaking-out-of-the-cocoon-that-is-called-a-phd-episode-2-of-the-fabulous-four/
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Blog post on assessment of teaching in Higher Education, available at https://youreditingalternative.com/2019/07/12/may-you-drown-in-student-feedback-episode-4-of-the-fabulous-four/
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Blog post on the REF (Research Excellence Framework), available at https://youreditingalternative.com/2019/06/24/its-that-time-of-ref-again-episode-2-of-the-fabulous-four/
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"Cinema has played a key role in articulating the impact and legacies of the so-called anni di piombo in Italy, the years of intra-national political terrorism that lasted from 1969 until well into... more
"Cinema has played a key role in articulating the impact and legacies of the so-called anni di piombo in Italy, the years of intra-national political terrorism that lasted from 1969 until well into the 1980s. Tragedia all'italiana offers an analytical exploration of Italian cinema's representation and refraction of those years, showing how a substantial and still growing corpus of films has shaped the ways in which Italians have assimilated and remembered the events of this period. This is the first monograph in English on terrorism and film in Italy, a topic that is attracting the interest of a wide range of scholars of film, cultural studies and critical terrorism studies. It provides novel analytical categories for an intriguing corpus of films and offers careful accounts of works and genres as diverse as La meglio gioventú, Buongiorno, notte, the poliziottesco (cop film) and the commedia all'italiana. The author argues that fiction film can provide an effective frame for the elaboration of historical experience but that the cinema is symptomatic both of its time and of the codes of the medium itself - in terms of its elisions, omissions and evasions as well as its emphases. The book is a study of a body of films that has elaborated the experience of terrorism as a fascinating and even essential part of the heritage of modern Italy."
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In 2009, 31-year old Stefano Cucchi died in an Italian prison after being beaten in police custody. Had it not been for the perseverance of his family, Cucchi’s death would have remained no more than a tragic incident. The Cucchi case is... more
In 2009, 31-year old Stefano Cucchi died in an Italian prison after being beaten in police custody. Had it not been for the perseverance of his family, Cucchi’s death would have remained no more than a tragic incident. The Cucchi case is exemplary for a country where the role of ‘vernacular’ memory communities has proven crucial in the pursuit of justice and the working through of trauma. This ‘trend’ originated in the 1970s, when various associations for the victims of terrorism were created in order not only to commemorate these victims, but also to obtain truth and justice – mostly without success. The memory work performed by such memory communities is particularly relevant when the perpetrator is a representative of the state, and consensus on the victim in question is low. This paper discusses one such case of ‘state violence’ and denied justice: on 11 March 1977, student and activist Francesco Lorusso was shot dead during riots in the Italian city of Bologna. Lorusso’s difficult victim status – being shot during a violent confrontation with police – complicated the family’s task of obtaining justice and finding closure, affecting its authority and responsibility as a ‘guarantor of truth’. Subsequently, it was forced to make compromises and adopt strategies to make his memory more widely ‘shared’. The paper then discusses the way Lorusso’s family has tried to negotiate a public memory of his disputed figure in the 30 years following the incidents. I will examine the family’s attempts to gain official recognition and moral compensation; the ‘affective labour’ it has performed throughout the years, i.e. its connecting with families of other victims of violence in order to gain consensus and work through the trauma; and the various social and cultural practices it adopted so as to promote a counter-memory of Lorusso.
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In the early 1990s, Susan Faludi - in her prize winning Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991) - argued for the existence of a media driven, antifeminist backlash against the 1970s women’s liberation movement. A... more
In the early 1990s, Susan Faludi - in her prize winning Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991) - argued for the existence of a media driven, antifeminist backlash against the 1970s women’s liberation movement. A similar backlash seems to be living a revival, as the recent online social campaign #Women against feminism demonstrates. At the same time, however, a renewed engagement with feminism has also manifested itself.
What does feminism mean in the present day, and to what extent is the current attitude towards feminism different from the way feminism has been seen in the past? What are the legacies of second-wave feminism and what can we still learn from it today? Are younger generations of women aware of the persistence of sexism, sexual violence and gender inequality, and can feminism be useful in tackling these issues?
This workshop brings together academics, activists and professionals engaged in battles for women’s rights and against gender discrimination, sexism and sexual violence, as well as women from the local community. It aims to explore current attitudes towards feminism and its legacy in the present, and promote discussions about the role feminism can play in the struggle for a more equal and less sexist society.
What does feminism mean in the present day, and to what extent is the current attitude towards feminism different from the way feminism has been seen in the past? What are the legacies of second-wave feminism and what can we still learn from it today? Are younger generations of women aware of the persistence of sexism, sexual violence and gender inequality, and can feminism be useful in tackling these issues?
This workshop brings together academics, activists and professionals engaged in battles for women’s rights and against gender discrimination, sexism and sexual violence, as well as women from the local community. It aims to explore current attitudes towards feminism and its legacy in the present, and promote discussions about the role feminism can play in the struggle for a more equal and less sexist society.
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International symposium, Friday 22 May 2015 University College Dublin Despite having been viewed as inherently speaking of the powerlessness and passivity characterising those who claimed it, the status of victim is currently coveted... more
International symposium, Friday 22 May 2015
University College Dublin
Despite having been viewed as inherently speaking of the powerlessness and passivity characterising those who claimed it, the status of victim is currently coveted by almost anyone and everyone who can lay claim to having experienced – or suffered the loss of a loved one due to – some kind of limit-event. In recognising the extent to which the Italian and Spanish public discourses have been affected by this worrying phenomenon, historian Giovanni De Luna has drawn attention to the question of the ‘privatisation’ of public memory and the implications that a focus on one’s dolore has for the articulation of an official interpretation of the national past (De Luna, 2011: 14-15).
Evidently, there is much to be feared in a world ostensibly full of victims struggling for primacy and media visibility, and the symposium described below will explore some of the implications of victim proliferation and victim-based discourse in relation to a series of case studies drawing on Italian and Spanish twentieth century history and its impact on literary
works produced in both countries.
University College Dublin
Despite having been viewed as inherently speaking of the powerlessness and passivity characterising those who claimed it, the status of victim is currently coveted by almost anyone and everyone who can lay claim to having experienced – or suffered the loss of a loved one due to – some kind of limit-event. In recognising the extent to which the Italian and Spanish public discourses have been affected by this worrying phenomenon, historian Giovanni De Luna has drawn attention to the question of the ‘privatisation’ of public memory and the implications that a focus on one’s dolore has for the articulation of an official interpretation of the national past (De Luna, 2011: 14-15).
Evidently, there is much to be feared in a world ostensibly full of victims struggling for primacy and media visibility, and the symposium described below will explore some of the implications of victim proliferation and victim-based discourse in relation to a series of case studies drawing on Italian and Spanish twentieth century history and its impact on literary
works produced in both countries.