La storia italiana contemporanea è una delle principali fonti di ispirazione per la produzione di serie televisive in Italia, con una particolare attenzione dedicata agli anni settanta. L’obiettivo ...dell’articolo è analizzare un caso specifico e controverso: la serie televisiva Gli anni spezzati. La fiction racconta la storia del commissario Luigi Calabresi, dei giudici Mario Sossi e Francesco Coco e dell’ingegnere Giorgio Venuti. Analizzando la serie da una prospettiva semiotica e narratologica, l’articolo sostiene che ne Gli anni spezzati prenda forma una visione della storia e degli anni settanta come segnati dalla crisi del padre, la cui figura è impersonata dai quattro protagonisti. La fiction rappresenta, e realizza nell’epilogo, la ricerca e il desiderio di ritorno del padre come necessario alla chiusura di un periodo storico segnato da disordine e sofferenza. L’ipotesi viene supportata da una analisi della letteratura accademica sulla rappresentazione degli anni settanta nel contesto italiano. In questo senso, l’articolo propone un superamento del modello interpretativo edipico che è stato finora predominante nell’analisi delle rappresentazioni dei cosiddetti anni di piombo.
From a semiotic perspective on the study of cultural memory, this article deals theoretically and methodologically with the category of event, with a case study on the so-called "strage di Ustica ...(Ustica massacre, a plane crash that happened in Italy in June 27, 1980). In the first part of the article, I will describe how interpretative and generative semiotics dealt with the notion of "event". In particular, I will look at how in the 1960s and 1970s Eco and Greimas tackled the topic in their writings but without elaborating it further. Hence, I will elaborate a hypothesis on how to think events semiotically and how to analyze them, as historical, public or media events. In the second part, the article will develop a semiotic analysis of the Ustica event, looking at how it was narrated in the news (in particular on newspapers) during the 1980s, based on a corpus of 766 articles from La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and La Stampa.
L’accesso alla dignità del lutto, cioè la possibilità per una determinata comunità di ricordare i morti e di trasmettere la loro memoria, richiede numerosi atti semiotici di mediazione. In questo ...articolo ci concentriamo sul caso argentino durante la sua fase post-dittatura, durante la quale sono stati creati numerosi luoghi di memoria e sono stati previsti rituali particolari di commemorazione nello spazio urbano per ricordare i desaparecidos. La seconda parte di questo articolo è dedicata al Parque de la memoria y los derechos humanos, situato sul Rio de la Plata, molto vicino all’aeroporto da cui salivano i “voli della morte”. In che modo il parco rappresenta uno spazio che può aiutare a superare un passato traumatico per coloro che sono scomparsi? E in che modo il design di questo spazio costituisce una pratica peculiare di commemorazione urbana?
AbstractThis chapter offers an examination of the nexus between space and memory by exploring the concepts of lieu and milieu de mémoire. My aim is to show how, in memory-making processes, these two ...semiotic configurations are not mutually exclusive, as Pierre Nora argues, but mutually articulated. In the first part of the chapter, I will discuss Nora's definitions, comparing them to Michel de Certeau's articulation of lieu and espace and through the lens of Algirdas J. Greimas's model of narrativity. In the second part, I will translate theoretical and methodological reflections into a practical analysis, specifically through an exploration of the case of the Italian concentration camp of Fossoli.Keywords: Place of Memory; Fossoli; Algirdas Julien Greimas; Pierre Nora; Michel de Certeau.Ever since the publication of Pierre Nora's monumental collection (Nora 1996 1984), the category of lieu de mémoire – translated as ‘place’ or ‘site’ of memory – has offered one of the main conceptual prisms through which to analyse the space–memory nexus. In the introduction to the collection, Nora explains that ‘collective memory was rooted, in order to create a vast topology of French symbolism’, and that the aim of his work is to analyse how ‘the collective heritage of France was crystallised in places of memory’ (Nora 1996 1984: xv). According to the historian, the category of lieu de mémoire describes the way memory assumes and reaches a cultural and collective dimension in our times. Despite the focus on France, the category of lieu de mémoire has been used to interpret the meaning of tangible and intangible heritage in other, sometimes very different, national contexts (for Italy see, for example, Isnenghi 1996–1997).This chapter argues for a semiotic reinterpretation of the notion of lieu de mémoire in terms of a particular and specific way of – among others – forming space and memory, and the nexus between them. In fact, Nora's concept ‘tends to emphasise one layer only, one point in the entire life cycle of a given location’, preventing any acknowledgment of ‘the coexistence of a plurality of meanings and experiences’ (Arrigoni and Galani 2019: 164) in the way we produce and connect spatiality and memory.
Ever since the publication of Pierre Nora’s monumental collection (Nora 1996 1984), the category of lieu de mémoire – translated as ‘place’ or ‘site’ of memory – has offered one of the main ...conceptual prisms through which to analyse the space–memory nexus. In the introduction to the collection, Nora explains that ‘collective memory was rooted, in order to create a vast topology of French symbolism’, and that the aim of his work is to analyse how ‘the collective heritage of France was crystallised in places of memory’ (Nora 1996 1984: XV). According to the historian, the category of lieu
The focus of this dissertation is the relationship between the necessity for protection and the construction of cultural identities. In particular, by cultural identities I mean the representation ...and construction of communities: national communities, religious communities or local communities. By protection I mean the need for individuals and groups to be reassured about dangers and risks. From an anthropological point of view, the relationship between the need for protection and the formation and construction of collective identities is driven by the defensive function of culture. This was recognized explicitly by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jurij Lotman.
To explore the “protective hypothesis,” it was especially useful to compare the immunitarian paradigm, proposed by Roberto Esposito, with a semiotic approach to the problem. According to Esposito, immunity traces borders, dividing Community from what should be kept outside: the enemies, dangers and chaos, and, in general, whatever is perceived to be a threat to collective and individual life. I recognized two dimensions in the concept of immunity. The first is the logic dimension: every element of a system makes sense because of the network of differential relations
in which it is inscribed; the second dimension is the social praxis of division and definition of who. We are (or what is inside the border), and who They are (or what is, and must be kept, outside the border).
I tested my hypothesis by analyzing two subject areas in particular: first, the security practices in London after 9/11 and 7/7; and, second, the Spiritual Guide of 9/11 suicide bombers. In both cases, one observes the construction of two entities: We and They. The difference between the two cases is their “model of the world”: in the London case, one finds the political paradigms of security as Sovereignty, Governamentality and Biopolitics. In the Spiritual Guide, one observes a religious model of the Community of God confronting the Community of Evil. From a semiotic point view, the problem is the origin of respective values, the origin of respective moral universes, and the construction of authority. In both cases, I found that emotional dynamics are crucial in the process of forming collective identities and in the process of motivating the involved subjects: specifically, the role of fear and terror is the primary factor, and represents the principal focus of my research.
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