Italy and the Mediterranean: Words, Sounds, and Images of the Post-Cold War Era

by N. Bouchard, V. Ferme

Overview

The Mediterranean has always loomed large in the history and culture of Italy, and since the 1980s this relationship has been represented in ever more varied forms as both national and regional identities have evolved within a globalized context. This interdisciplinary volume puts Italian artists (writers, musicians, and filmmakers) and intellectuals (philosophers, sociologists, and political scientists) in conversation with each other to explore Italy's Mediterranean identity while questioning the boundaries between Self and Other, and between native and foreign bodies. By moving beyond nation-centric models of cultural and ethnic homogeneity based on myths of progress and rationality, these wide-ranging contributions fashion new ways of belonging that transcend the cultural, economic, religious, and social categories that have characterized post Cold War Italy and Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137343451
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	09/16/2013
Series:	Italian and Italian American Studies
Edition description:	2013
Pages:	319
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Author Norma Bouchard: Norma Bouchard is Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Connecticut. Author Valerio Ferme: Valerie C. Ferme is the Chair of the Department of French & Italian at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. The Return to the Mediterranean in Contemporary Western Thought: Old Contexts, New Approaches 2. Interlude: From Discourses On to Discourses From the Italian Mediterranean 3. Geo-philosophies of the Mediterranean: From Massimo Cacciari and Franco Cassano to Mario Alcaro and Beyond 4. Sounds of Southern Shores: Musical Traditions and Adaptations in the Italian Mediterranean 5. Screening the Souths through Southern Eyes: Revisiting Italy and the Mediterranean through the Lenses of Globalization 6. Writing the Mediterraneity of the Italian South: Vincenzo Consolo, Carmine Abate, and Erri De Luca 7. The Mediterranean of Migrant, Post-colonial, and Exile Writers Post-face

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'Carefully researched and persuasively argued, this book examines the new and provocative discourses on the Mediterranean that have taken shape in the Italian context since the end of the Cold War as well as the simultaneous emergence of a distinctive tendency in cultural production - in music, cinema, and literature - that resonates with similar social and geophilosophical concerns. It offers a path-breaking contribution to Italian cultural studies.' - Áine O'Healy, Loyola Marymount University, USA

'In the past thirty years Italian public culture has been increasingly defined in terms of its relationship to the Mediterranean. In Italy and the Mediterranean Bouchard and Ferme present a thorough and compelling analysis of how intellectuals, musicians, filmmakers, and writers have re-elaborated Italian identities and successfully pushed the boundaries of national belonging. This book provides a rich and comprehensive study of contemporary Italian culture that will be of interest to scholars in various academic fields - from history to media studies, philosophy, cultural geography, music, and literature.' - Michela Ardizzoni, University of Colorado Boulder, USA, and author of North/South, East/West: Mapping Italianness on Television and Beyond Monopoly: Globalization and Contemporary Italian Media

Editorial Reviews

The book is both ambitious and meticulously researched and, insofar as it invites us to rethink the place of Italy in relation not only to the Mediterranean region but also to Europe and the rest of the world, it represents a timely critical contribution to the field of contemporary Italian studies.” (Nick Dines, H-SAE, H-Net Reviews, April,2018)

From the Publisher