Contents.docx

Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philoligy, 2016

Librosdelacorte, 2023

This essay proposes three models of Mediterranean space and action that emerge out of early modern narratives and visuals (particularly maps). These overlapping models, for the long sixteenth century, are: 1) itinerary; 2) empire; and 3) predator, all of which appear under the broader frame of geographic-commercial space that is either conflicted or pacific. I employ a preliminary narrative, The Deeds of Commander Pietro Mocenigo, by Coriolano Cippico, a galley commander in the Ottoman-Venetian conflict of 1470-1474; then, the isolario of Giovanni Camocio, as it appeared in the aftermath of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Camocio's maps focus attention on that battle and on imperial conflict. But his vision of the Mediterranean is that of a range of familiar, maritime spaces dotted with fortresses and harbors, sometimes enmeshed in conflict and more often not.

Sea of Literatures, 2023

Islands have shaped literary forms just as those literary forms have structured our access to the specific spatiality of islands. This mediation happens via the figural, the trope; thus, representations of islands in literary texts are first of all to be considered as figures that reconfigure the topological space in a tropological way. This reconfiguration depends on historical and geographical conditions. The specificity of the Mediterranean island cannot be a supra-temporal essence, but only a characteristic or a bundle of characteristics that becomes visible through contrasts with other islands or literatures. There is no such thing as a single key concept of literary Mediterranean islandness. This paper does not delineate a literary history of the Mediterranean islands, nor does it claim to develop a finely grained matrix of analysis applicable to any literary example that touches on islands and the Mediterranean. In a necessarily superficial journey through certain parts of the history of literature, focusing on the period from ancient to early modern times, the paper's aim is to detect phenomena that repeat. Departing from these phenomena, more general concepts are approached. In this respect, the contribution is a proposal for reflecting on the island as a category in the literature of and on the Mediterranean.

2016

William Shakespeare’s Othello is indubitably one of his most popular and successful plays.Nevertheless, like his other great works, it suffers from some literary and stylistic faults and problems. Several eminent critics such as Thomas Rymer, Samuel Johnson, A. C. Bradley, Harley Granville Barker, and J. Dover Wilson have dealt with this issue. Some of the most important faults they have found in this play include the question of time, the improbability of the events, the inconsistency of characterization, moral defects, and the absence of poetic justice. In some cases, the faults attributed to this great play are the result of misguided and wrongheaded criticism; in others, however, they are real deficiencies resulted from Shakespeare’s carelessness or his concern over the success of his play in performance rather than its plausibility and critical correctness as aliterary text. In the present article, these problems are discussed, and it is explained whether they are serious probl...

Islanders: The Making of the Mediterranean, 2023

Accompanying an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, this book explores island identities in the ancient Mediterranean, questioning how ‘insularity’– being of an island – affected and shaped art production and creativity, architectural evolution, migrations and movement of people. It extends beyond the ancient, incorporating current discourses on island versus mainland cultural identities, in contemporary Art and other disciplines. Throughout history, islands have been treated as distinct places, unlike mainland and continental masses. In geographic terms, islands are merely pieces of land surrounded by water, but the perception of island life has never been neutral. Rather, the term ‘insularity’ – belonging to/being of an island – has been romanticized and associated with otherness. Islands have often been deemed to have different histories from the mainland and with more readily isolated socio-political, cultural and economic characteristics. Yet connectivity has also been an important feature of island life as the sea can be a linking rather than just a dividing body, motivating and maintaining informal and formal connections. 55 unique archaeological objects – most never displayed before outside Cyprus, Crete and Sardinia – tell exceptional stories of insular identity, over a period of 4000 years. The movement of people and episodes of migration between islands and their surrounding mainlands is also explored, through architecture, material culture, crafts and technologies present in the Mediterranean islands. Islanders has a broad diachronic scope and applies integrative analytical approach, bringing together research findings from scientific fields within archaeology, as well as a multi-scalar approach to past human interaction within continental and island environments.

Estudos Germânicos, 1984

2006