States of Emergency


Book Description







The Conservatory of Santa Teresa


Book Description

This volume is the first translation of Romano Bilenchi’s 1940 masterpiece to appear in English. This is surprising since The Conservatory of Santa Teresa is much more than an invaluable historical document of life in provincial Tuscany around the time of the First World War. It is truly one of the most important works of fiction published in Italy under Fascism. In telling of the pre-adolescent Sergio’s encounter with the larger world of sex, politics, and the violence and cruelty of adult life, Bilenchi succeeds in representing a universal paradigm, that of the clash of innocence with experience. But what makes Sergio’s trajectory unique is that he goes through it in the company of three extraordinary women who are at once femmes fatales and benevolent guides: his mother, his aunt, and his tutor, all almost unbearably beautiful, as least in Sergio’s eyes. These women, plus the dazzling landscape of the Sienese countryside as captured by Bilenchi, make Sergio’s journey an enviable even if sometimes painful and bewildering experience.




Alberto Giacometti


Book Description

This publication focuses on the so-called "crisis period" (after 1935 and during the Second World War). Gathering art-historical essays addressing the crisis in Giacometti's work and modernity in general, as well as more than 100 key works, the editors revisit his work through the notions of a split and non-linearity. Exhibition: Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, November 5, 2009 - February 2, 2010; Museo Cantonale d'arte, Lugano, March 20 - June 20, 2010.




Beyond the Suffering of Being: Desire in Giacomo Leopardi and Samuel Beckett


Book Description

This book challenges critical approaches that argue for Giacomo Leopardi’s and Samuel Beckett’s pessimism and nihilism. Such approaches stem from the quotation of Leopardi in Beckett’s monograph Proust, as part of a discussion about the removal of desire. Nonetheless, in contrast to ataraxia as a form of ablation of desire, the desire of and for the Other is here presented as central in the two authors’ oeuvres. Desire in Leopardi and Beckett is read as lying at the cusp between the theories of Jacques Lacan and Emmanuel Levinas, a desire that splits as much as it moulds the subject when called to address the Other (inspiring what Levinas terms ‘infinity’ as opposed to ‘totality,’ an infinity pitted against the nothingness crucial to pessimist and nihilist readings).




Una Donna


Book Description

Una Donna by Sibilla Aleramo Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1906 e ripubblicato nel corso degli anni in molteplici edizioni, questo romanzo nasce dall'esperienza autobiografica dell'autrice ed è frutto di quei fermenti sociali che portarono alla nascita del femminismo, di cui la Aleramo stessa si sentì parte attiva. Nell'intento di rivelare, per la prima volta, "l'anima femminile moderna," con grande spirito realistico la Aleramo compone pagine di aperta denuncia e di critica sociale, affrontando argomenti come la povertà e l'ignoranza, le differenze regionali, il socialismo e naturalmente la condizione svantaggiosa da cui la donna avrebbe dovuto riscattarsi. La sua immediata fortuna in Italia e nei paesi in cui fu tradotto segnalò una nuova scrittrice, che in seguito avrebbe fornito altre prove di valore, segnatamente nella poesia We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.




Jean-Paul Sartre: La Morale Introvabile


Book Description

La "Grande Morale," progettata da J.-P. Sartre tra il 1947 e il 1949 come naturale completamento della filosofia esistenzialista esposta ne L'essere e il nulla e L'esistenzialismo e un umanismo, non e mai stata pubblicata: abbandonata e ripresa piu volte nei successivi vent'anni, ha finito per costituire un serbatoio di annotazioni e di riflessioni sempre dirottate altrove, una specie di fantasma letterario, onnipresente, ma pronto a dileguarsi ogni volta che sembrava avere raggiunto una forma consistente. Sappiamo oggi, grazie alla pubblicazione dei molti inediti sartriani, che la riflessione sulla morale ha accompagnato tutti gli snodi fondamentali del pensiero di Sartre, dai cosiddetti scritti giovanili alle opere della maturita, dalla svolta "dialettica" sino all'ultima discussa intervista, rilasciata poco prima della scomparsa. Gli studi qui riuniti hanno nei Quaderni per una morale (1947-48) il loro centro di gravita e di maggiore interesse. Di questo tentativo abortito di scrivere una "Morale" essi provano a disegnare la parabola, dalle origini remote nei Taccuini della strana guerra (1939) sino al Santo Genet commediante e martire (1952), che ne sancisce l'abbandono. Senza disdegnare qualche incursione nell'estetica sartriana, poiche della "morale introvabile" non c'e in realta testo che non rechi qualche traccia."




Chilly Scenes of Winter


Book Description

This is the story of a love-smitten Charles; his friend Sam, the Phi Beta Kappa and former coat salesman; and Charles' mother, who spends a lot of time in the bathtub feeling depressed.




In Giacometti's Studio


Book Description

"This deeply engaging book focuses on one of the most evocative and influential spaces in twentieth-century art: the tiny, ramshackle studio behind Montparnasse where the great sculptor Alberto Giacometti lived and worked from the late 1926 until his death. For nearly forty years, this chaotic but visually riveting space was the absolute centre of Giacometti's world, as well as a magnet for a whole generation of artists and writers in Paris, from Picasso and Braque to Balthus, from Breton and Sartre to Genet and Beckett."--Dust jacket.




Multifunctionality The Policy Implications


Book Description

Building on the path-breaking work Multifunctionality: Towards an Analytical Framework, this report takes the subject a step further. It attempts to guide policy-makers to the best possible decisions taking account of the multifunctional character of agriculture.