Musical culture in Jewish communities in early modern
Italy was much more diverse than researchers originally
thought.
An interdisciplinary reassessment, Music and Jewish Culture
in Early Modern ...Italy evaluates the social, cultural,
political, economic, and religious circumstances that shaped this
community, especially in light of the need to recognize individual
experiences within minority populations. Contributors draw from
rich materials, topics, and approaches as they explore the
inherently diverse understandings of music in daily life, the many
ways that Jewish communities conceived of music, and the reception
of and responses to Jewish musical culture.
Highlighting the multifaceted experience of music within Jewish
communities, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern
Italy sheds new light on the place of music in complex,
previously misunderstood environments.
The cultural and material legacies of the Roman Republic and Empire in evidence throughout Rome have made it the "Eternal City." Too often, however, this patrimony has caused Rome to be seen as ...static and antique, insulated from the transformations of the modern world. In Excavating Modernity, Joshua Arthurs dramatically revises this perception, arguing that as both place and idea, Rome was strongly shaped by a radical vision of modernity imposed by Mussolini's regime between the two world wars.
Italian Fascism's appropriation of the Roman past-the idea of Rome, or romanità- encapsulated the Fascist virtues of discipline, hierarchy, and order; the Fascist "new man" was modeled on the Roman legionary, the epitome of the virile citizen-soldier. This vision of modernity also transcended Italy's borders, with the Roman Empire providing a foundation for Fascism's own vision of Mediterranean domination and a European New Order. At the same time, romanità also served as a vocabulary of anxiety about modernity. Fears of population decline, racial degeneration and revolution were mapped onto the barbarian invasions and the fall of Rome. Offering a critical assessment of romanità and its effects, Arthurs explores the ways in which academics, officials, and ideologues approached Rome not as a site of distant glories but as a blueprint for contemporary life, a source of dynamic values to shape the present and future.
In terms of migration, Italy is often thought of as a source country - a place from which people came rather than one to which people go. However, in the past few decades, Italy has indeed become a ...destination for many people from poor or war-torn countries seeking a better life in a stable environment. Graziella Parati'sMigration Italyexamines immigration to Italy in the past twenty years, and explores the processes of cultural hybridization that have occurred.
Working from a cultural studies viewpoint, Parati constructs a theoretical framework for discussing Italy as a country of immigration. She gives special attention to immigrant literature, positing that it functions as an act of resistance, a means to talk back to the laws that regulate the lives of migrants. Parati also examines Italian cinema, demonstrating how native and non-native filmmakers alike create parallels between old and new migrations, complicating the definitions of sameness and difference.
These definitions and the complexities inherent in the different cultural, legal, and political positions of Italy's people are at the heart ofMigration Italy, a unique work of immense importance for understanding society in both modern-day Italy and, indeed, the entire European continent.
Betting on Freedom Scola, Carinal Angelo; Geninazzi, Luigi; Lancelloti, Carlo
07/2021
eBook
In this wide-ranging conversation with the Italian journalist Luigi Geninazzi, Cardinal Angelo Scola discusses both the salient moments of his own life and the path and situation of the Church and ...society in Europe over the last half-century. The Cardinal recounts his life, speaking of the extraordinary gift of particular friendships he has had, starting with Luigi Giussani, founder of the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation (CL), and moving on to discuss Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri De Lubac, and Joseph Ratzinger. A figure who bridges the past three pontificates, Scola discusses his relationships with St. John Paul II, by whom he was nominated a bishop at the relatively young age of forty nine; Benedict XVI, with whom he has had an intense intellectual friendship for decades; and Pope Francis, of whom he speaks with affection and hope. At the center of this rich fresco of anecdotes and reflections stands a crucial question: what is the true path of the Church today? Between those who reduce Christianity to a mere civil religion and those who propose a purist return to the Gospel, the cardinal indicates a "third way" by betting on the freedom of the human person to recognize the supreme value of Christ. This is at the same time a bet on the active commitment of believers to contribute, starting from faith, to the birth of a new Europe, inevitably more diverse but no loss of its identity.
Amid the disintegration of the Kingdom of Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new form of collective government-the commune-arose in the cities of northern and central Italy.Sleepwalking ...into a New Worldtakes a bold new look at how these autonomous city-states came about, and fundamentally alters our understanding of one of the most important political and cultural innovations of the medieval world.
Chris Wickham provides richly textured portraits of three cities-Milan, Pisa, and Rome-and sets them against a vibrant backcloth of other towns. He argues that, in all but a few cases, the elites of these cities and towns developed one of the first nonmonarchical forms of government in medieval Europe, unaware that they were creating something altogether new. Wickham makes clear that the Italian city commune was by no means a democracy in the modern sense, but that it was so novel that outsiders did not know what to make of it. He describes how, as the old order unraveled, the communes emerged, governed by consular elites "chosen by the people," and subject to neither emperor nor king. They regularly fought each other, yet they grew organized and confident enough to ally together to defeat Frederick Barbarossa, the German emperor, at the Battle of Legnano in 1176.
Sleepwalking into a New Worldreveals how the development of the autonomous city-state took place, which would in the end make possible the robust civic culture of the Renaissance.
Alessandra Tarquini's A History of Italian Fascist Culture,
1922-1943 is widely recognized as an authoritative synthesis
of the field. The book was published to much critical acclaim in
2011 and ...revised and expanded five years later. This long-awaited
translation presents Tarquini's compact, clear prose to readers
previously unable to read it in the original Italian. Tarquini
sketches the universe of Italian fascism in three broad directions:
the regime's cultural policies, the condition of various art forms
and scholarly disciplines, and the ideology underpinning the
totalitarian state. She details the choices the ruling class made
between 1922 and 1943, revealing how cultural policies shaped the
country and how intellectuals and artists contributed to those
decisions. The result is a view of fascist ideology as a system of
visions, ideals, and, above all, myths capable of orienting
political action and promoting a precise worldview. Building on
George L. Mosse's foundational research, Tarquini provides the best
single-volume work available to fully understand a complex and
challenging subject. It reveals how the fascists used culture-art,
cinema, music, theater, and literature-to build a conservative
revolution that purported to protect the traditional social fabric
while presenting itself as maximally oriented toward the future.
This book focuses on the political participation and grassroots mobilization of immigrants and racialized communities in the European context. Based on extensive data collected in Italy, it explores ...the role that alliances among pro-immigrant groups play in shaping political participation, asking why and how immigrant activists mobilize in hostile environments, why and how they create alliances with some white allies rather than others, and what might explain variations in forms of political participation and grassroots mobilization at the local level. Using social movement, critical race, and post-colonial theories, the author examines the ways in which both institutional and non-institutional actors, including immigrant activists, become involved and compete in the local arena over immigration and integration issues, and assesses the mechanisms by which both conventional and non-conventional forms of participation are made possible, or obstructed. By placing immigrant activists at the center of the analysis, the book offers a valuable and novel insider perspective on political activism and the claims-making of marginalized groups. It also demonstrates how pro-immigrant groups can play a role in racializing immigrant activists. A study of the effects on participation in social mobilization of coalitions, conflicts, and racialization processes among pro-immigrant groups and immigrant activists, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science, and political sociology with interests in migration, ethnic and racial relations, social movements, and local governance.
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