I teach contemporary Italian literature and culture at Yale University, with a range of interests which also include Italian cinema, intellectual history, and 20th century visual art. I wrote extensively on the relationship between literature and science and I worked on the notion of ethics and commitment in contemporary Italian culture. I have also a strong interest in the work of René Girard and mimetic theory in general. I am co-editor of the series ‘Italian Modernities’ for Peter Lang, Oxford. Address: Humanities Quadrangle, 320 York St, New Haven, CT 06511
This book explores the relationship between literature and science in 20th century Italian writin... more This book explores the relationship between literature and science in 20th century Italian writing, with particular reference to Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Carlo Emilio Gadda and Leonardo Sinisgalli.
René Girard is one of the most divisive and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. Over the ... more René Girard is one of the most divisive and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. Over the past forty years, his work has continued to exert an influence across literary theory, philosophy and the social sciences. Echoing the format of his early works, Evolution and Conversion brings Girard into dialogue with two sympathetic interviewers and allows him to speak candidly about the major tenets of his life and thought. Hailed by Michel Serres as "the Charles Darwin" of human sciences, Girard is in fact one of the few thinkers who has given full consideration to an evolutionary perspective to explain the emergence of culture and institutions. Evolution and Conversion draws out not only this aspect of his thought but also emphasises the centrality of religion to his work. Girard's reflection on the relationship between violence and religion is both original and persuasive and, given the urgency of this issue in our contemporary world, in need of a reappraisal.
... Los orígenes de la cultura: conversaciones con Pierpaolo Antonello y João Cezar de Castro Roc... more ... Los orígenes de la cultura: conversaciones con Pierpaolo Antonello y João Cezar de Castro Rocha. Información General. Autores: René Girard, Pierpaolo Antonello, João Cezar de Castro Rocha; Editores: Madrid : Trotta, 2006; Año de publicación: 2006; País: España; ...
No other European country experienced the disruption of political and everyday life suffered by I... more No other European country experienced the disruption of political and everyday life suffered by Italy in the so-called 'years of lead' (1969-c.1983), when there were more than 12,000 incidents of terrorist violence. This experience affected all aspects of Italian cultural life, shaping political, judicial and everyday language as well as artistic representation of every kind. In this innovative and broad-ranging study, experts from the fields of philosophy, history, media, law, cinema, theatre and literary studies trace how the experience and legacies of terrorism have determined the form and content of Italian cultural production and shaped the country's way of thinking about such events.
"The debate over the place of religion in secular, democratic societies dominates philosophical a... more "The debate over the place of religion in secular, democratic societies dominates philosophical and intellectual discourse. These arguments often polarize around simplistic reductions, making efforts at reconciliation impossible. Yet more rational stances do exist, positions that broker a peace between relativism and religion in people's public, private, and ethical lives.
Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith advances just such a dialogue, featuring the collaboration of two major philosophers known for their progressive approach to this issue. Seeking unity over difference, Gianni Vattimo and René Girard turn to Max Weber, Eric Auerbach, and Marcel Gauchet, among others, in their exploration of truth and liberty, relativism and faith, and the tensions of a world filled with new forms of religiously inspired violence.
Vattimo and Girard ultimately conclude that secularism and the involvement (or lack thereof) of religion in governance are, in essence, produced by Christianity. In other words, Christianity is "the religion of the exit from religion," and democracy, civil rights, the free market, and individual freedoms are all facilitated by Christian culture. Through an exchange that is both intimate and enlightening, Vattimo and Girard share their unparalleled insight into the relationships among religion, modernity, and the role of Christianity, especially as it exists in our multicultural world."
The links between literature and science have been the subject of increasing interest in recent y... more The links between literature and science have been the subject of increasing interest in recent years, as writers and scientists have tried to bridge the gap between 'the two cultures'. In this volume dedicated to the work of Pat Boyde, the distinguished British Dantist, leading scholars from Britain, North America and Italy explore this interdisciplinary movement in Italian literature. The twelve chapters encompass four broad periods - Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment to Positivism, and the Twentieth Century - and examine new connections between the discourses of literature and science in the works of Italy's greatest writers, from Dante to Calvino.
Proceedings of a conference held in Falconara, Italy in 2006. It is a systematic appraisal of the... more Proceedings of a conference held in Falconara, Italy in 2006. It is a systematic appraisal of the explanatory power of the René Girard's interpretative framework as put forward in Mensonge romantique et verité romanesque, specifically in relation to one of the key European literary tradition. The book aims to show how many classic authors of Italian literature can be illuminated by Girard's mimetic theory. Contributions on Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Manzoni, Svevo, Pasolini, Sciascia, Morante.
The representation of violence in contemporary cinema analyzed through René Girard's theory of sa... more The representation of violence in contemporary cinema analyzed through René Girard's theory of sacrifice and scapegoating. It includes essays by René Girard (The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson), Andrew McKenna (Federico Fellini), Diana Culbertson (Au revoir les enfants, Louis Malle), Edmund Arens (Dead man walking, Tim Robbins), Pierpaolo Antonello (Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino), Maria Stella Barberi (The Funeral, Abel Ferrara), Giuseppe Fornari (Eyes wide shut, Stanley Kubrik), Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Alessandro Castelli (Lars Von Trier), Marco Rovelli (Dogville, Lars Von Trier), Olivier Maurel (Zelig, Woody Allen)
"This book challenges widespread and largely negative assumptions about Italian postmodernism and... more "This book challenges widespread and largely negative assumptions about Italian postmodernism and postmodernism in general. It considers contemporary Italian culture as a particularly interesting testing-ground for pluriform struggles of an ethical or political kind, struggles which build upon, whilst rejecting the essentialist assumptions behind, conventional notions of artistic commitment, or impegno.
Drawing on a variety of cultural fields and artistic media - from cinema to the literary genres of autobiography, romance and the giallo; from feminism to pensiero debole; from theatrical performance to shared practices of cultural memory - the volume charts instances of ethical commitment and emancipatory social and political intervention in Italian culture within a post-ideological and post-hegemonic framework, siding with a more constructive and less 'apocalyptic' analysis of the cultural climate of the past two decades in Italy. This balancing act is described by the contributors as 'postmodern impegno'. The authors, artists and thinkers discussed in the essays include, among others, Eraldo Affinati, Adriana Cavarero, Marco Tullio Giordana, Carlo Lucarelli, Nanni Moretti, Marco Paolini, Roberto Saviano, Gianni Vattimo and Antonio Tabucchi."
This book explores the relationship between literature and science in 20th century Italian writin... more This book explores the relationship between literature and science in 20th century Italian writing, with particular reference to Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Carlo Emilio Gadda and Leonardo Sinisgalli.
René Girard is one of the most divisive and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. Over the ... more René Girard is one of the most divisive and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. Over the past forty years, his work has continued to exert an influence across literary theory, philosophy and the social sciences. Echoing the format of his early works, Evolution and Conversion brings Girard into dialogue with two sympathetic interviewers and allows him to speak candidly about the major tenets of his life and thought. Hailed by Michel Serres as "the Charles Darwin" of human sciences, Girard is in fact one of the few thinkers who has given full consideration to an evolutionary perspective to explain the emergence of culture and institutions. Evolution and Conversion draws out not only this aspect of his thought but also emphasises the centrality of religion to his work. Girard's reflection on the relationship between violence and religion is both original and persuasive and, given the urgency of this issue in our contemporary world, in need of a reappraisal.
... Los orígenes de la cultura: conversaciones con Pierpaolo Antonello y João Cezar de Castro Roc... more ... Los orígenes de la cultura: conversaciones con Pierpaolo Antonello y João Cezar de Castro Rocha. Información General. Autores: René Girard, Pierpaolo Antonello, João Cezar de Castro Rocha; Editores: Madrid : Trotta, 2006; Año de publicación: 2006; País: España; ...
No other European country experienced the disruption of political and everyday life suffered by I... more No other European country experienced the disruption of political and everyday life suffered by Italy in the so-called 'years of lead' (1969-c.1983), when there were more than 12,000 incidents of terrorist violence. This experience affected all aspects of Italian cultural life, shaping political, judicial and everyday language as well as artistic representation of every kind. In this innovative and broad-ranging study, experts from the fields of philosophy, history, media, law, cinema, theatre and literary studies trace how the experience and legacies of terrorism have determined the form and content of Italian cultural production and shaped the country's way of thinking about such events.
"The debate over the place of religion in secular, democratic societies dominates philosophical a... more "The debate over the place of religion in secular, democratic societies dominates philosophical and intellectual discourse. These arguments often polarize around simplistic reductions, making efforts at reconciliation impossible. Yet more rational stances do exist, positions that broker a peace between relativism and religion in people's public, private, and ethical lives.
Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith advances just such a dialogue, featuring the collaboration of two major philosophers known for their progressive approach to this issue. Seeking unity over difference, Gianni Vattimo and René Girard turn to Max Weber, Eric Auerbach, and Marcel Gauchet, among others, in their exploration of truth and liberty, relativism and faith, and the tensions of a world filled with new forms of religiously inspired violence.
Vattimo and Girard ultimately conclude that secularism and the involvement (or lack thereof) of religion in governance are, in essence, produced by Christianity. In other words, Christianity is "the religion of the exit from religion," and democracy, civil rights, the free market, and individual freedoms are all facilitated by Christian culture. Through an exchange that is both intimate and enlightening, Vattimo and Girard share their unparalleled insight into the relationships among religion, modernity, and the role of Christianity, especially as it exists in our multicultural world."
The links between literature and science have been the subject of increasing interest in recent y... more The links between literature and science have been the subject of increasing interest in recent years, as writers and scientists have tried to bridge the gap between 'the two cultures'. In this volume dedicated to the work of Pat Boyde, the distinguished British Dantist, leading scholars from Britain, North America and Italy explore this interdisciplinary movement in Italian literature. The twelve chapters encompass four broad periods - Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment to Positivism, and the Twentieth Century - and examine new connections between the discourses of literature and science in the works of Italy's greatest writers, from Dante to Calvino.
Proceedings of a conference held in Falconara, Italy in 2006. It is a systematic appraisal of the... more Proceedings of a conference held in Falconara, Italy in 2006. It is a systematic appraisal of the explanatory power of the René Girard's interpretative framework as put forward in Mensonge romantique et verité romanesque, specifically in relation to one of the key European literary tradition. The book aims to show how many classic authors of Italian literature can be illuminated by Girard's mimetic theory. Contributions on Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Manzoni, Svevo, Pasolini, Sciascia, Morante.
The representation of violence in contemporary cinema analyzed through René Girard's theory of sa... more The representation of violence in contemporary cinema analyzed through René Girard's theory of sacrifice and scapegoating. It includes essays by René Girard (The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson), Andrew McKenna (Federico Fellini), Diana Culbertson (Au revoir les enfants, Louis Malle), Edmund Arens (Dead man walking, Tim Robbins), Pierpaolo Antonello (Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino), Maria Stella Barberi (The Funeral, Abel Ferrara), Giuseppe Fornari (Eyes wide shut, Stanley Kubrik), Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Alessandro Castelli (Lars Von Trier), Marco Rovelli (Dogville, Lars Von Trier), Olivier Maurel (Zelig, Woody Allen)
"This book challenges widespread and largely negative assumptions about Italian postmodernism and... more "This book challenges widespread and largely negative assumptions about Italian postmodernism and postmodernism in general. It considers contemporary Italian culture as a particularly interesting testing-ground for pluriform struggles of an ethical or political kind, struggles which build upon, whilst rejecting the essentialist assumptions behind, conventional notions of artistic commitment, or impegno.
Drawing on a variety of cultural fields and artistic media - from cinema to the literary genres of autobiography, romance and the giallo; from feminism to pensiero debole; from theatrical performance to shared practices of cultural memory - the volume charts instances of ethical commitment and emancipatory social and political intervention in Italian culture within a post-ideological and post-hegemonic framework, siding with a more constructive and less 'apocalyptic' analysis of the cultural climate of the past two decades in Italy. This balancing act is described by the contributors as 'postmodern impegno'. The authors, artists and thinkers discussed in the essays include, among others, Eraldo Affinati, Adriana Cavarero, Marco Tullio Giordana, Carlo Lucarelli, Nanni Moretti, Marco Paolini, Roberto Saviano, Gianni Vattimo and Antonio Tabucchi."
REVIEW FROM Forum for Modern Language Studies, 48: 4 (2012), p. 490
Through a variety of inputs ... more REVIEW FROM Forum for Modern Language Studies, 48: 4 (2012), p. 490
Through a variety of inputs from experts in philosophy, literary studies, law, history, media, cinema and theatre, this study outlines how left- and right-wing Italian terrorism has been portrayed
in the arts. As stated by the editors, its main focal point is the re-meditation of the so-called ‘Anni di piombo’ (c. 1969–83), a period in Italy’s recent past that has been described as a ‘minor civil war’. The parallel between the historical situation and its representation is constantly guaranteed by an effective, punctual contextualization largely based on original documents such as news transcripts, excerpts from the victims’ notes or interviews, and passages of terrorists’ confessions. Although the critical and exegetical bibliography on Italian terrorism and its literary and cinematographic transpositions is substantial, this broad-ranging collection of fourteen essays is innovative in offering an extremely rich and multi-faceted portrait of this complex topic. Thanks to the juxtaposition of very different perspectives and interests, the study makes a real contribution to show how terrorist brutality was expressed, encoded and schematized by the people involved in these dramatic events even before the violent actions became the object of rhetorical analysis, and the subject of different kinds of fiction. By considering some of the most emblematic moments of this period alongside peripheral episodes, this research aims also to demonstrate how the wide spectrum of fictional re-thinking of such a traumatic past has become an important means of working through this national trauma.
Alla luce della nutrita critica esistente, questo saggio vuole riconsiderare e aggiornare la lett... more Alla luce della nutrita critica esistente, questo saggio vuole riconsiderare e aggiornare la lettura del romanzo Sirene di Laura Pugno (2006) sia attraverso una analisi tipologica, sia attraverso una sua rilettura in chiave teorica, con preciso riferimento alle prospettive esposte da Rosi Braidotti in The Posthuman (2013). Sirene è prova esemplare di come la fantascienza si presenti come il genere più efficace per raccontare questioni teorico-critiche del tempo presente, nella fattispecie eco-critica, post-umano e critica di genere. Résumé 1.
This essay brings Michel Serres' «books of foundation» into a dialogue with René Girard's theory ... more This essay brings Michel Serres' «books of foundation» into a dialogue with René Girard's theory of the origin of culture, by extending Girard's insights about the foundational mechanism of cultural and social order on a spatial matrix, broadly defined. Foundational myths are predicated on ritualistic sacrificial practices that structure both the physical and the social spaces through principles of exclusion, which define physical limits and boundaries, but also the geometry of political order and societal structures.
attention deficit, and other psychic disorders. All the essays are linked by a recurrent critical... more attention deficit, and other psychic disorders. All the essays are linked by a recurrent critical operation: Esposito exposes the emptiness of a plurality of beliefs, principles, and representations. This tendency is adopted as a lens through which he looks at the vacuum in which our political language dwells at its most molecular level. That's why Esposito makes a distinction between manifest meaning and underlying meaning of the terms that constitute the foundation of Western political thought. If the first, Esposito argues, is "univocal, monolinear, and self-enclosed", the second is "contradictory" and 'antinomic" (48). Esposito's deconstructive critique does an extraordinary job not only in identifying political complexities, social traumas and fractures, but also in showing possible openings towards new perspectives and hopes for the future. For the English speaker, this translation represents a magnificent introduction to an inspirational political thinker.
In P. Antonello and A. O’Leary (eds.), Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Po... more In P. Antonello and A. O’Leary (eds.), Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Political Violence in Italy 1969-2009 (London-Leeds: Legenda-Maney, 2009), pp. 30-47.
This essay examines three exemplar cases of Italian industrial cinema, a genre that experienced a... more This essay examines three exemplar cases of Italian industrial cinema, a genre that experienced a particular and extended apogee during the decades of Italy's economic boom: Michelangelo Antonioni's Sette canne, un vestito (1948), Ermanno Olmi's Costruzioni meccaniche Riva (1956), and Vittorio De Seta and Franco Dodi's Gela 1959: pozzi a mare (1960). Aims of this analysis are to tease out some ideological and aesthetic tensions that could appear to point, on the one hand, to some formal and thematic continuity between pre-World War II output and that of later years; and, on the other, to the particular role played by technology in shaping a specific formalistic vocabulary in these films.
Che rapporto c'è fra gli scrittori veneti e il loro paesaggio? Come è stato visto e racconta... more Che rapporto c'è fra gli scrittori veneti e il loro paesaggio? Come è stato visto e raccontato questo territorio dalla narrativa e dalla poesia contemporanee, soprattutto in quel cruciale passaggio storico tra una ruralità arcaica proprio della prima metà del secolo, alla ...
In an interview with Gabriella Poli in 1976, Primo Levi explained that all his books had been bor... more In an interview with Gabriella Poli in 1976, Primo Levi explained that all his books had been born in pairs, as twins: two books on his Lager experience - If This is a Man ( Se questo e un uomo , 1947) and The Truce ( La tregua , 1963) - were followed by two collections of science-fiction short-stories - Storie naturali ('Natural Histories', 1966) and Vizio di forma ('Formal Defect', 1971) (partly collected in a single volume in English, The Sixth Day ). The unconventional and heterogeneous (auto)biography of an inorganic chemist, The Periodic Table ( Il sistema periodico , 1975) was planned to be paired with a book on the trade of an organic chemist, with the working title of Il doppio legame ('The Double Bond'). Levi never completed this book; instead he paired The Periodic Table with the fourteen stories of The Wrench ( La chiave a stella , 1978), centred on a highly skilled Piedmontese master rigger, Libertino Faussone. This particular coupling might look looser than the others, but it has striking significance for our understanding of Levi's work. Its prime effect is to underscore the challenge Levi presents to abstract, systematic notions of scientific knowledge (implicit in the image and concept of the ' sistema periodico'), in favour of the technical, applied skills common to both the (inorganic) chemist and the rigger. At the centre of Levi's concerns in these two books, in other words, is the idea of knowledge as being both a material and existential construction rather than a purely abstract or theoretical one, as well as a notion of the unity of art (as craft) and technology, at both the experimental and manual levels. Taken together, the diptych of The Periodic Table and The Wrench offers one of the most interesting of modern representations - in philosophical, epistemological, aesthetic and ethical terms - of what Levi would call the homo faber , man as maker or tool-maker, the fabricator and artist who works upon hard material such as stone or wood.
Il Divo: A discussion Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo (2008) is, indisputably, one of the key films of... more Il Divo: A discussion Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo (2008) is, indisputably, one of the key films of recent years, and it has already generated a large amount of analysis and debate. We present this batch of four papers (an interpretation, two responses and a reply to these responses) as a contribution to this debate. We hope to reprise this model of discussion in relation to key films (new or old) and key themes in future issues.
Can we specify the wider antecedents of this agenda? Th e reader who has only nodding acquaintanc... more Can we specify the wider antecedents of this agenda? Th e reader who has only nodding acquaintance with Girardian theory, or none at all, may well be grateful for some guidance in the leading ideas that bring this French American anthropologist and culture theorist to the particular point of insight and questioning at which we here meet him. It is most economically provided by referring to his latest work, Achever By starting from the ideas of "attack" and "aggression, " we commonly misthink violence. In fact, violence is almost always-already caught in a structure of reciprocity between rivalrous and confl icted parties, and it is the defensive function that is primary (in the sense that it is what causes confl icts to endure and to escalate). One of the signs of this is that we never think of ourselves as "attacking" anyone except as a way of defending ourselves from some threat to which that structure of reciprocity exposes us. Another is
This essay is a general discussion on the possible contours taken by the the notion of impegno in... more This essay is a general discussion on the possible contours taken by the the notion of impegno in the contemporary Italian context, seen from the point of view of critical and academic practices, particularly in the light of contextual socio-economic, technological and disciplinary changes. While an alignment with the paradigmatic shift occurred at the international level where a number of studies have been discussing the emancipatory role of literature, cinema, and the media from the point of view of readers and audiences is felt much needed, a paradigmatic refashioning of the critical debate and of the public sphere is currently occurring, which gives rise of new possibilities for critical engagement facilitated by the so-called Web 3.0. This new media-ecology provides fora by which the critical practice is much more horizontal and democratic in nature, while authorship and readership present a more dynamic cross-fertilisation
Taking as its point of departure the existing critical literature on the intersections between Re... more Taking as its point of departure the existing critical literature on the intersections between René Girard’s and Giorgio Agamben’s anthropogenetic theories, this essay aims to add further considerations to the debate by discussing some of Agamben’s intuitions within a Girardian paradigmatic explanatory framework. I show how by regressing the archeological analysis to a pre-institutional and pre-legal moment, and by re-examining the antinomic structure of the sacred in its genetic organizing form (so briskly dismissed by Agamben in Homo Sacer), one can account more cogently for certain key issues relevant to Agamben’s theoretical project, such as the “paradox of sovereignty,” the nature of the “state of exception,” and the dissociation between culpa and individual responsibility in archaic law, as recently discussed in Karman. I also put forward arguments concerning the limitations of Agamben’s immanent ontology to account for the zoe/bios distinction as a key structural element of h...
This essay examines Bruno Munari's innovative picture books within the broader context of his 'ma... more This essay examines Bruno Munari's innovative picture books within the broader context of his 'major' artistic work. Specifically, it illustrates and discusses how Munari's production that is linked to Futurism, Abstractionism, or Concrete art, has been remediated in his books and activities for children. Munari's work is on this score an unparalleled example of the ways the visual language of experimental art could be translated into effective and meaningful visual experiences for lay people, including children.
Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, 2019
he aim of this special collection of essays, titled Intersubjectivity, Desire, and Mimetic Theory... more he aim of this special collection of essays, titled Intersubjectivity, Desire, and Mimetic Theory: René Girard and Psychoanalysis, is to reappraise the relationship between René Girard's thought and the psychoanalytic tradition. The tripartite structure of the title clearly echoes the English title of Girard's first book, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, with which he introduced the psychological dynamics of mimetic desire as represented in modern European novels. 1 Through the reference to the intentionally broad notions of "intersubjectivity," "desire," and "mimetic theory," our title also signals the intention to cover the multifarious aspects and issues that inform Girard's thinking in relation to core issues of psychoanalysis, by casting the net very broadly and exploring the theoretical implications of the encounter between the mimetic and the psychoanalytic discourse in a variety of fields and disciplines, such as philosophy, literary criticism, anthropology, psychotherapy, neuropsychology, and socio-psychology. On the one hand, this collection discusses the potential theoretical and discursive integrations that mimetic theory would need in order to account for various psychological manifestations, including psychopathologies of different kinds, and social phenomena; on the other hand, the collection
This essay is part of an ongoing research project on the relationship between technology and the ... more This essay is part of an ongoing research project on the relationship between technology and the arts in 20 th century Italy. It will be titled Leonardo's Children, and it aims to present a series of case studies on how Leonardo da Vinci's method and understanding of the relationship between art and technology has been conceptualized and reproduced in 20 th-century Italian culture. It is an interdisciplinary project that will consider visual artists such as Bruno Munari and Eugenio Carmi, writers such as Primo Levi and Carlo Emilio Gadda, architects like Paolo Portoghesi and Pier Luigi Nervi, musicians like Giorgio Battistelli. A shorter version of this essay has been published in G. Berghaus (ed.), Futurism and the Technological Imagination. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. We want to thank the book editor Gunter Berghaus, and Esther Roth at Editions Rodopi for granting us the permission to make this text available on Munart. Bruno Munari is surely known worldwide mainly for his post-WWII activity as an eclectic artist, designer and pedagogue. His ability of combining a holistic understanding of artistic praxis with a dose of irony and lightness earned him the reputation of being "the Leonardo and the Peter Pan of twentieth century Italian art" (Restany 1999: 254).
Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies, 2011
Page 1. ITALIAN COMICS OF THE 1970s AND 1980s S1MONE CASTALDI Page 2. ITALIAN COMICS OF THE 1970s... more Page 1. ITALIAN COMICS OF THE 1970s AND 1980s S1MONE CASTALDI Page 2. ITALIAN COMICS OF THE 1970s AND 1980s S1MONE CASTALDI Page 3. Drawn and Dangerous Page 4. This page intentionally left blank Page 5. ...
Conference organisers: Eleonora Lima (Trinity College Dublin); Michele Maiolani (University of Ca... more Conference organisers: Eleonora Lima (Trinity College Dublin); Michele Maiolani (University of Cambridge); Marco Malvestio (University of Padua / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
EVENT OVERVIEW
While Primo Levi is mainly known for his painstaking and harsh books about his imprisonment in Auschwitz, he also wrote two collections of short stories that can be labelled as science fiction: 'Storie naturali' (1966) and 'Vizio di forma' (1971). A chemist by training, Levi wrote these stories at a time when science fiction was still perceived as unworthy of attention by Italian intellectuals—to the extent that 'Storie naturali' was initially published under a pseudonym. In both books, Levi uses science fiction to investigate the ethical implications of technological progress and probe its hidden and inherent flaws while adopting a tone that was only apparently light. The eerie effect reached by many of these short stories is due to a strong clash: the literary genre was considered superficial and disengaged by the vast majority of Levi’s contemporaries, and yet the writer addresses crucial existential questions in his narrations of clones, intelligent technologies, mutant animals.
By drawing attention to Levi’s contributions in science fiction, this one-day conference aims to contribute to reshaping the scholarly reputation of this genre within Italian Studies and to question Levi’s perception vis-à-vis his position within the hierarchy of genres. This event brings together some of the most renowned scholars who have explored the intersections between his work and science fiction. The speakers will dialogue with early-career researchers and established Levi scholars to foster the debate on this new area of research and explore it from an interdisciplinary perspective.
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Books by Pierpaolo Antonello
Edited Books by Pierpaolo Antonello
Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith advances just such a dialogue, featuring the collaboration of two major philosophers known for their progressive approach to this issue. Seeking unity over difference, Gianni Vattimo and René Girard turn to Max Weber, Eric Auerbach, and Marcel Gauchet, among others, in their exploration of truth and liberty, relativism and faith, and the tensions of a world filled with new forms of religiously inspired violence.
Vattimo and Girard ultimately conclude that secularism and the involvement (or lack thereof) of religion in governance are, in essence, produced by Christianity. In other words, Christianity is "the religion of the exit from religion," and democracy, civil rights, the free market, and individual freedoms are all facilitated by Christian culture. Through an exchange that is both intimate and enlightening, Vattimo and Girard share their unparalleled insight into the relationships among religion, modernity, and the role of Christianity, especially as it exists in our multicultural world."
Drawing on a variety of cultural fields and artistic media - from cinema to the literary genres of autobiography, romance and the giallo; from feminism to pensiero debole; from theatrical performance to shared practices of cultural memory - the volume charts instances of ethical commitment and emancipatory social and political intervention in Italian culture within a post-ideological and post-hegemonic framework, siding with a more constructive and less 'apocalyptic' analysis of the cultural climate of the past two decades in Italy. This balancing act is described by the contributors as 'postmodern impegno'. The authors, artists and thinkers discussed in the essays include, among others, Eraldo Affinati, Adriana Cavarero, Marco Tullio Giordana, Carlo Lucarelli, Nanni Moretti, Marco Paolini, Roberto Saviano, Gianni Vattimo and Antonio Tabucchi."
Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith advances just such a dialogue, featuring the collaboration of two major philosophers known for their progressive approach to this issue. Seeking unity over difference, Gianni Vattimo and René Girard turn to Max Weber, Eric Auerbach, and Marcel Gauchet, among others, in their exploration of truth and liberty, relativism and faith, and the tensions of a world filled with new forms of religiously inspired violence.
Vattimo and Girard ultimately conclude that secularism and the involvement (or lack thereof) of religion in governance are, in essence, produced by Christianity. In other words, Christianity is "the religion of the exit from religion," and democracy, civil rights, the free market, and individual freedoms are all facilitated by Christian culture. Through an exchange that is both intimate and enlightening, Vattimo and Girard share their unparalleled insight into the relationships among religion, modernity, and the role of Christianity, especially as it exists in our multicultural world."
Drawing on a variety of cultural fields and artistic media - from cinema to the literary genres of autobiography, romance and the giallo; from feminism to pensiero debole; from theatrical performance to shared practices of cultural memory - the volume charts instances of ethical commitment and emancipatory social and political intervention in Italian culture within a post-ideological and post-hegemonic framework, siding with a more constructive and less 'apocalyptic' analysis of the cultural climate of the past two decades in Italy. This balancing act is described by the contributors as 'postmodern impegno'. The authors, artists and thinkers discussed in the essays include, among others, Eraldo Affinati, Adriana Cavarero, Marco Tullio Giordana, Carlo Lucarelli, Nanni Moretti, Marco Paolini, Roberto Saviano, Gianni Vattimo and Antonio Tabucchi."
Through a variety of inputs from experts in philosophy, literary studies, law, history, media, cinema and theatre, this study outlines how left- and right-wing Italian terrorism has been portrayed
in the arts. As stated by the editors, its main focal point is the re-meditation of the so-called ‘Anni di piombo’ (c. 1969–83), a period in Italy’s recent past that has been described as a ‘minor civil war’. The parallel between the historical situation and its representation is constantly guaranteed by an effective, punctual contextualization largely based on original documents such as news transcripts, excerpts from the victims’ notes or interviews, and passages of terrorists’ confessions. Although the critical and exegetical bibliography on Italian terrorism and its literary and cinematographic transpositions is substantial, this broad-ranging collection of fourteen essays is innovative in offering an extremely rich and multi-faceted portrait of this complex topic. Thanks to the juxtaposition of very different perspectives and interests, the study makes a real contribution to show how terrorist brutality was expressed, encoded and schematized by the people involved in these dramatic events even before the violent actions became the object of rhetorical analysis, and the subject of different kinds of fiction. By considering some of the most emblematic moments of this period alongside peripheral episodes, this research aims also to demonstrate how the wide spectrum of fictional re-thinking of such a traumatic past has become an important means of working through this national trauma.
Venue: University of London, Room 234, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
EVENT OVERVIEW
While Primo Levi is mainly known for his painstaking and harsh books about his imprisonment in Auschwitz, he also wrote two collections of short stories that can be labelled as science fiction: 'Storie naturali' (1966) and 'Vizio di forma' (1971). A chemist by training, Levi wrote these stories at a time when science fiction was still perceived as unworthy of attention by Italian intellectuals—to the extent that 'Storie naturali' was initially published under a pseudonym. In both books, Levi uses science fiction to investigate the ethical implications of technological progress and probe its hidden and inherent flaws while adopting a tone that was only apparently light. The eerie effect reached by many of these short stories is due to a strong clash: the literary genre was considered superficial and disengaged by the vast majority of Levi’s contemporaries, and yet the writer addresses crucial existential questions in his narrations of clones, intelligent technologies, mutant animals.
By drawing attention to Levi’s contributions in science fiction, this one-day conference aims to contribute to reshaping the scholarly reputation of this genre within Italian Studies and to question Levi’s perception vis-à-vis his position within the hierarchy of genres. This event brings together some of the most renowned scholars who have explored the intersections between his work and science fiction. The speakers will dialogue with early-career researchers and established Levi scholars to foster the debate on this new area of research and explore it from an interdisciplinary perspective.