Marco Paolini


Book Description

Marco Paolini: A Deep Map is a theoretical analysis of eight iconic Marco Paolini's monologues. The book presents Marco Paolini's dramaturgy and his narrative theater between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st Century.




The Theater of Narration


Book Description

Honorable Mention, Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies This book examines the theater of narration, an Italian performance genre and aesthetic that revisits historical events of national importance from local perspectives, drawing on the rich relationship between personal experiences and historical accounts. Incorporating original research from the private archives of leading narrators—artists who write and perform their work—Juliet Guzzetta argues that the practice teaches audiences how ordinary people aren’t simply witnesses to history but participants in its creation. The theater of narration emerged in Italy during the labor and student protests, domestic terrorism, and social progress of the 1970s. Developing Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s style of political theater, influenced by Jerzy Grotowski and Bertolt Brecht, and following in the freewheeling actor‐author traditions of the commedia dell’arte, narrators created a new form of popular theater that grew in prominence in the 1990s and continues to gain recognition. Guzzetta traces the history of the theater of narration, contextualizing its origins—both political and intellectual—and centers the contributions of Teatro Settimo, a performance group overlooked in previous studies. She also examines the genre’s experiments in television and media. The first full-length book in English on the subject, The Theater of Narration leverages close readings and a wealth of primary sources to examine the techniques used by narrators to remake history—a process that reveals the ways in which history itself is a theater of narration.




New Theatre in Italy


Book Description

New Theatre in Italy 1963-2013 makes the case for the centrality of late-millennium Italian avant-garde theatre in the development of the new forms of performance that have emerged in the 21st Century. Starting in the Sixties, young artists and militants in Italy reacted to the violence in their streets and ruptures in the family unit that are now recognized as having been harbingers of the end of the global post-war system. As traditional rituals of State and Church faltered, a new generation of cultural operators, largely untrained and driven away from political activism, formed collectives to explore new ways of speaking theatrically, new ways to create and experience performance, and new relationships between performer and spectator. Although the vast majority of the works created were transient, like all performance, their aesthetic and social effects continue to surface today across media on a global scale, affecting visual art, cinema, television and the behavioural aesthetics of social networks.




Body of State


Book Description

Body of State offers a critical perspective on the Moro Affair and on Marco Baliani's work. With contributions from scholars, theater practitioners, teachers, and students, it constitutes a unique resource for disciplines that train on the intersection of art and politics. The relevance of the topic raise the interest of the audience as well.




The Last Forty Years of Italian Popular Culture


Book Description

What is Italian pop culture? This volume provides an answer to this question, offering an insight into some of the most recent and interesting developments in the field of pop culture. The reader will find essays on a variety of topics including literature, theater, music, social media, comics, politics, and even Christmas. Each contribution here places stress on the popular. The main reference points guiding the chapters are, in fact, the pioneering works by Antonio Gramsci and Umberto Eco. The result is, therefore, a portrait of a country where mass participation in cultural events always accompanies some form of reflection on the national identity and other related issues. Historians and sociologists, as well as musicologists and philosophers (in addition to pop culture aficionados), will find the text an engaging and indispensable read.




Remembering Aldo Moro


Book Description

The 1978 kidnapping and murder of Christian Democrat politician, Aldo Moro, marked the watershed of Italy's experience of political violence in the period known as the 'years of lead' (1969-c.1983). This uniquely interdisciplinary volume explores the evolving legacy of Moro's death in the Italian cultural imaginary, from the late 1970s to the present. Bringing a wide range of critical perspectives to bear, interventions by experts in the fields of political science, social anthropology, philosophy, and cultural critique elicit new understandings of the events of 1978 and explain their significance and relevance to present-day Italian culture and society.




Voicing the Word


Book Description

Drawing on the recent renewal of interest in the debate on orality and literacy this book investigates the varying perceptions and representations of orality in contemporary Italian fiction, providing a fresh perspective on this rich and fast-developing debate and on the study of the Italian literary language. The book brings together a number of complementary approaches to orality from the fields of linguistics, literary and media studies and offers a detailed analysis of a broad variety of authors and texts that appeared over the last three decades - ranging from internationally acclaimed writers such as Celati, Duranti and Tabucchi, through De Luca and Baricco, to the latest generation of writers, such as Campo, Ballestra and Nove. By exploring the complementary facets of Italian orality, and its diachronical developments since the seventies, this study questions the traditionally dichotomic approach to the study of orality and literacy and posits a more flexible, cross-modal approach that accounts for the increasing hybridisation of text forms and media and for the greater interaction between the spoken and the written as well as their representations.




The Archipelago


Book Description

'An enjoyable, highly readable history that manages to bring murky, often fiendishly complex events into the light' Sunday Times Italy emerged from the Second World War in ruins. Divided, invaded and economically broken, it was a nation that some people claimed had ceased to exist. And yet, as rural society disappeared almost overnight, by the 1960s, it could boast the fastest-growing economy in the world. In The Archipelago, historian John Foot chronicles Italy's tumultuous history from the post-war period to the present day. From the silent assimilation of fascists into society after 1945 to the artistic peak of neorealist cinema, he examines both the corrupt and celebrated sides of the country. While often portrayed as a failed state on the margins of Europe, Italy has instead been at the centre of innovation and change – a political laboratory. This new history tells the fascinating story of a country always marked by scandal but with the constant ability to re-invent itself. Comprising original research and lively insights, The Archipelago chronicles the crises and modernisations of more than seventy years of post-war Italy, from its fields, factories, squares and housing estates to Rome's political intrigue.




Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.




Contemporary Italian Narrative and 1970s Terrorism


Book Description

This book is about literary representations of the both left- and right-wing Italian terrorism of the 1970s by contemporary Italian authors. In offering detailed analyses of the many contemporary novels that have terrorism in either their foreground or background, it offers a “take” on postmodern narrative practices that is alternative to and more positive than the highly critical assessment of Italian postmodernism that has characterized some sectors of current Italian literary criticism. It explores how contemporary Italian writers have developed narrative strategies that enable them to represent the fraught experience of Italian terrorism in the 1970s. In its conclusions, the book suggests that to meet the challenge of representation posed by terrorism fiction rather than fact is the writer’s best friend and most effective tool.