An exploration of how film has made legible the Italian long ’68 as a moment of crisis and transitionTraditionally, the definition of political cinema assumes a relationship between cinema and ...politics. In contrast to this view, author Mauro Resmini sees this relationship as an impasse. To illustrate this theory, Resmini turns to Italian cinema to explore how films have reinvented the link between popular art and radical politics in Italy from 1968 to the early 1980s, a period of intense political and cultural struggles also known as the long ’68.Italian Political Cinema conjures a multifaceted, complex portrayal of Italian society. Centered on emblematic figures in Italian cinema, it maps the currents of antagonism and repression that defined this period in the country’s history. Resmini explores how film imagined the possibilities, obstacles, and pitfalls that characterized the Italian long ’68 as a moment of crisis and transition. From workerism to autonomist Marxism to feminism, this book further expands the debate on political cinema with a critical interpretation of influential texts, some of which are currently only available in Italian.A comprehensive and novel redefinition of political film, Italian Political Cinema introduces its audience to lesser-known directors alongside greats such as Pasolini, Bertolucci, Antonioni, and Bellocchio. Resmini offers access to untranslated work in Italian philosophy, political theory, and film theory, and forcefully advocates for the continued artistic and political relevance of these films in our time.
Among the world's hotly contested, obsessively controlled, and often dangerous borders, none is deadlier than the Mediterranean Sea. Since 2000, at least 25,000 people have lost their lives ...attempting to reach Italy and the rest of Europe, most by drowning in the Mediterranean. Every day, unauthorized migrants and refugees bound for Europe put their lives in the hands of maritime smugglers, while fishermen, diplomats, priests, bureaucrats, armed forces sailors, and hesitant bystanders waver between indifference and intervention-with harrowing results.
InCrimes of Peace, Maurizio Albahari investigates why the Mediterranean Sea is the world's deadliest border, and what alternatives could improve this state of affairs. He also examines the dismal conditions of migrants in transit and the institutional framework in which they move or are physically confined. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of places, people, and European politics, Albahari supplements fieldwork in coastal southern Italy and neighboring Mediterranean locales with a meticulous documentary investigation, transforming abstract statistics into names and narratives that place the responsibility for the Mediterranean migration crisis in the very heart of liberal democracy. Global fault lines are scrutinized: between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; military and humanitarian governance; detention and hospitality; transnational crime and statecraft; the universal law of the sea and the thresholds of a globalized yet parochial world.Crimes of Peaceilluminates crucial questions of sovereignty and rights: for migrants trying to enter Europe along the Mediterranean shore, the answers are a matter of life or death.
Whether as excavators and re-enactors, or co-organising research campaigns and outreach activities, the participation of the general public in archaeology has become a well-represented practice, but ...the impact remains underexplored. Evaluating participation can influence fieldwork practice and enrich the academic discussion on public archaeology.
Wandering Women: Urban Ecologies of Italian Feminist
Filmmaking explores the work of contemporary
Italian women directors from feminist and ecological
perspectives. Mostly relegated to the margins of
...the cultural scene, and concerned with women's marginality, the
compelling films Wandering Women sheds light on tell
stories of displacement and liminality that unfold through the act
of walking in the city. The unusual emptiness of the cities that
the nomadic female protagonists traverse highlights the absence of,
and their wish for, life-sustaining communities. Laura Di Bianco
contends that women's urban filmmaking-while articulating a claim
for belonging and asserting cinematic and social agency-brings into
view landscapes of the Anthropocene, where urban decay and the
erasure of nature intersect with human alienation. Though a minor
cinema, it is also a powerful movement of resistance against the
dominant male narratives about the world we inhabit.
Based on interviews with directors, Wandering Women
deepens the understanding of contemporary Italian cinema while
enriching the field of feminist ecocritical literature.
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.
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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