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‘Palermo is a mosaic’: cosmopolitan rhetoric in the capital of Sicily Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-23 Sean Wyer
The political messaging of Leoluca Orlando, who served five terms as mayor of Sicily's capital, Palermo (most recently, until 2022), articulates a cosmopolitan vision of local identity. Orlando seeks to emphasise Palermo's ‘tolerant’ values, invoking the city's history to foster this image, as well as using a variety of rhetorical strategies. He portrays Palermo as having a true ‘essence’, which is
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Buffalo Bill's Wild West, cowboys, and the fate of the western in Italy Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-08 Paola Bonifazio
This article examines the first tour of Buffalo Bill's Wild West in Italy and the so-called ‘sfida dei butteri’ (the challenge of the Italian cowboys of the Pontine marshes), which took place in Rome in March 1890. Analysing nineteenth-century Italian newspapers and photographs, I demonstrate that populist, anti-capitalist, and anti-American sentiments marked the Italian media's responses to the American
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Imaginary work: media representations of work and gender in Italy from the economic miracle to the present day Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-15 Andrea Sangiovanni
The article explores media depictions of industrial labour in Italy, with a special focus on visual, film and television portrayals, spanning from the 1960s to the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Rather than delving into an analysis of labour processes, the primary objective of the article is to scrutinise the gendered representations of work and whether and how the representation of
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‘Entirely white’? Female immigrants and domestic work in Italy (1960s–1970s) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Alessandra Gissi
Recently, a renewed history of foreign immigration in Italy, focusing on the very first migration flows after the Second World War, has offered a more appropriate periodisation of the phenomenon. Women have been at the forefront of these flows, which were initially determined by the new postcolonial setting of the former Italian colonies (Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia). Subsequently, the immigrants
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Introduction: Gender and work in twentieth-century Italy: new approaches Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Maud Anne Bracke, Ilaria Favretto, Nicola Pizzolato
This introduction to the special issue ‘Gender and Work in Twentieth-Century Italy’ draws on key strands of historical scholarship on gender and work, including women workers’ experiences, labour market discrimination, domestic work, the impact of gender norms, and ideas of masculinity and femininity on work identities. It traces the development of feminist influence within this scholarship, from making
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Working in the dream factory: gendering women's film labour under Fascism Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Carla Mereu Keating
This article draws on a broad range of under-explored historical sources to document the career trajectories of the women who worked in the Italian film industry between 1930 and 1944. Challenging established histories that normalise male dominance in Italian cinema during and after Mussolini's regime, the article sheds light on women's overlooked contribution to Italy's sound film industry and explores
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Italian women workers and women activists between home and factory: the struggle against labour precarity (1950s–1970s) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Eloisa Betti
From a gender historical perspective, labour precarity constitutes a long-term phenomenon. Women's work represents a privileged observatory to understand how instability and precarity also characterised the cycle of economic and industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. The article compares the conditions of female factory workers with those of home-based workers, a traditionally invisible category
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Italy's diasporas: a discussion between Donna R. Gabaccia, Lucy Riall, Pamela Ballinger, and Konstantina Zanou Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Konstantina Zanou
It has been over 20 years since Donna R. Gabaccia's seminal work Italy's Many Diasporas was published (London & New York, 2000), an overview of the social, cultural and economic history of Italy's various migrations. Much has changed since then, but this book remains a classic. In this roundtable, historians Lucy Riall, Pamela Ballinger and Konstantina Zanou reflect on the value of Gabaccia's work
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Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war and their employment in the Italian hinterland (1915–1920) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Balázs Juhász
This essay deals with the criteria for the employment of POWs in Italy during the Great War. It is a contribution to the current research demonstrating the close connection between civilian and military spheres during the war, including in the area of internment. This intertwining is particularly evident when one studies the wartime economic system. Although the article shows that the contribution
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Political change through the culture of the Radical Party (1962–89) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-27 Lucia Bonfreschi
The article aims to sketch out the main features of the political culture of the Radical Party (PR). This political culture is paradigmatic of a much broader phenomenon that has affected the politics of Western democracies since the 1970s: the critique of traditional parties in the name of a party model formed by spontaneous groupings of society; the extreme emphasis placed on individual choices in
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Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) Summer School 2023: conference report Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, Chiara Brogi, Karen Bertorelli
This report is about the ASMI Summer School held in Pisa on 22–23 June 2023. The conference focused on twentieth-century history issues: gender studies, cultural studies, resistance studies, fascism studies and mafia studies, with the addition of a round table and two keynote lectures, which discussed the profession of the modern historian and the history of racism in Italy from the Second World War
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Fascist transnationalism during the occupation of Albania (1939–43) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Alexander Lang
This article links the study of transnational and imperial fascism in the context of the Italian occupation of Albania by examining how Italian authorities sought to turn Albanians abroad into assets rather than liabilities. Organising and monitoring Albanians occurred through conferences, youth institutions and consular activities. Studying such concrete contacts and negotiations allows us to explore
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Sex work and gendered tax imaginaries Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-15 Isabel Crowhurst
By exploring how the taxation of sex work is interpreted and explained, this article aims to expand theoretical and empirical understandings of tax imaginaries – the collectively formed meanings ascribed to taxes, taxpaying, and the purposes they serve – and how gender is mobilised in their construction. It argues that tax imaginaries created and circulated through online expert commentaries on the
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Teaching the difficult heritage of Italian Fascism Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Selena Daly, Hannah Malone, Vanda Wilcox
In recent years, the architectural legacy and so-called ‘difficult heritage’ of Fascist Italy has become a flourishing field of research. These topics have also begun to make their way into the undergraduate classroom. To date, however, there has been little research carried out into the methods we use to teach the history of Fascism in particular. In this short article, we outline how we have applied
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Calabrian self-perception and the struggle for recognition in the context of ’ndrangheta stereotypes: oral sources Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-03 Aurora Moxon
Calabrian ‘illegitimacy’ in the (inter)national imaginary today is largely the result of the region's association with the ’ndrangheta. Using analysis of oral history interviews, this research examines how this ‘illegitimacy’ influences the self-perception of Calabrians. It argues that a spectrum of prejudice and its effects can be mapped out both metaphorically and geographically. This spectrum incorporates
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To vote or not to vote in the homeland elections? Insights into voting abstention in Italy's constituency abroad Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Simone Battiston, Stefano Luconi, Marco Valbruzzi
Since its introduction in the early 2000s, legislation relating to the voting rights of Italians abroad has enabled millions of residents of voting age outside of Italy to engage in homeland elections and elect their own MPs. The inclusion of Italian citizens abroad in the Italian polity has nevertheless translated into a patchy electoral engagement. This article does not intend to provide an analysis
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Dynamics, experiences and political meaning of the black market in Second World War Italy Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Patrizia Sambuco
Rationing and illegal food trade in Second World War Italy have received very little scholarly attention in comparison to the scale and impact they had on people's daily life. This article contributes to filling this gap, first by providing an overview of the dynamics that already in the early years of the war determined the development of an illegal system of food trade. It then considers the experience
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Salvemini, militant historian, and his publications on Fascism Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-19 Mirko Grasso
This essay analyses Salvemini's major works on Fascism, namely The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy (1927), Mussolini Diplomate (1932) and Under the Axe of Fascism (1936). The focus of this analysis is twofold: to explore both Salvemini's methodology and the events leading to the publication of these works. In The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, Salvemini examines the origins and the rise of Mussolini's
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Metamorphosis of an intellectual: Gaetano Salvemini, exile in Europe and the United States Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Renato Camurri
Long neglected, Gaetano Salvemini's years of exile (1925–1949) now constitute a crucial period for reconsidering his intellectual and political profile. This article intends first to propose an overall interpretation of Salvemini's exile that considers the years 1919 to 1925 as the culmination of a profound turning point in his life. The central part of the essay is devoted to reconstructing the genesis
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Migration, Voices, and Methodology Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Patrizia Sambuco
If the ‘colour line’ was prophetically defined as the issue of the twentieth century, in the twenty-first century the concern of many scholars is with the research methodology that the attention on the colour line has generated. Migration, postcolonial, and blackness studies focusing on Italy have all asked fundamental questions on how to reframe history, memory, and culture. Charles Burdett (2018)
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What's new under the sun? A corpus linguistic analysis of the 2022 Italian election campaign themes in party manifestos Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Federico Trastulli, Laura Mastroianni
In this article, we introduce an innovative approach to examining campaign themes in Italy, by performing an original corpus linguistic analysis of the party manifestos related to the crucial 2022 election. Through its systematicity and flexibility, our approach allows us to gauge theory-driven propositions using a large amount of so far unexplored textual data. As anticipated, the 2022 Italian party
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Gaetano Salvemini: profile of a transnational intellectual Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-12 Renato Camurri, Alice Gussoni
Gaetano Salvemini (1873–1957) is one of the most influential intellectuals of Italian and European twentieth-century history. As 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of Salvemini's birth, this special issue of Modern Italy aims to attract the attention of an international readership and contribute to filling the gap in scholarly publications in English, offering a tool to approach Salvemini's intellectual
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Gaetano Salvemini and foreign policy during the First World War: the collaboration with The New Europe Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-12 Andrea Frangioni
In 1958, A.J.P. Taylor's essay The Troublemakers explored the tradition of dissent against power politics in the United Kingdom. Gaetano Salvemini, who had always shown a consistent interest in British political and cultural debates, shared many of the positions put forward by these ‘troublemakers’, such as free trade, the fight against military expenditure, and suspicions regarding standing armies
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Salvemini's antifascist exile in London: attracting the attention of a British audience Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-11 Alice Gussoni
In 1925 the Fascist dictatorship forced Gaetano Salvemini to leave Italy and begin a new life in exile. Salvemini understood he could find political and financial support in London to achieve two main aims: to live a decent life as an antifascist exile and fight the Fascist dictatorship from abroad. Thanks to a network encompassing intellectuals, academics, journalists, and politicians, London provided
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The Italian Olimpiadi Universitarie of 1922: at the origins of the Fascist ideology of sport Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-03 Erminio Fonzo
University sport was less developed in Italy than in other European countries in the first decades of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, in April 1922, students from the University of Rome organised a national multi-sport event, which they called the Olimpiadi Universitarie (University Olympic Games). Many eminent figures of the ruling class supported the initiative and thousands of undergraduates
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A discussion on Il colore della Repubblica. ‘Figli della guerra’ e razzismo nell'Italia postfascista, by Silvana Patriarca, Turin, Einaudi, 2021. With Valeria Deplano, Guri Schwarz and Silvana Patriarca Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-05-30 Francesco Cassata
Over the last 30 years, Silvana Patriarca, a professor of Contemporary History at Fordham University, New York, has deeply and consistently investigated the construction of the Italian national narrative: its ‘long term’ genealogy, its characteristics, its tensions. Her first book, Numbers and Nationhood (Patriarca 1996), focused on the co-production of statistical knowledge and the national image
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Naked men on the run, regression to childhood: cultural figures of the trauma during the First World War Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-05-23 Vinzia Fiorino
Although there is a wide-ranging historiography dealing with psychoneurosis, various manifestations of psychic suffering widespread among traumatised soldiers during the Great War have received less attention. This essay, based on an analysis of soldiers' clinical files in Italian psychiatric hospitals, draws out these phenomena. The main forms assumed by this kind of trauma are three: soldiers who
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The extreme right and the democratic institutions in Italy. The response of the regions to a national and trans-national phenomenon (1973–1975) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-05-15 Michelangelo Borri, Valerio Marinelli
This essay aims to analyse the presence of neofascist organisations and far-right terrorism in Italy in the early 1970s from a new perspective. Firstly, it will focus on the activities to combat the subversive structures of the ‘black galaxy’ carried out by regional institutions through the creation of special ‘regional commissions of inquiry on the problems of neofascism’. Between 1974 and 1975, these
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The name ’ndrangheta: history versus etymology Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-05-05 John Dickie
The article uses archival sources to critique the currently dominant etymological approach to the history of the word ’ndrangheta as used to refer to the Calabrian mafia. Scholars such as Paolo Martino and John Trumper have latched onto the word's ancient Greek origins to argue that the mafia organisation that we today call ’Ndrangheta has origins dating back many centuries. Moreover, according to
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The Years of Lead. Memory, history, journalism, victims Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-05-03 John Foot
‘Soprattutto un attore di quella drammatica fase della vita italiana è stato tuttavia privilegiato in modo schiacciante come oggetto di studio: il “soggetto terrorista”, ovvero i terroristi e le organizzazioni terroristiche.’ (‘One kind of actor in that dramatic period of Italian life has been privileged above all others, in an overwhelming way by researchers and others: the terrorists themselves and
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Poor, sinful and dangerous women: illegal prostitution in the Mezzogiorno before and after Unification Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-03-01 Oscar Greco
In the nineteenth century, when Italy was undergoing significant institutional and socio-economic changes, the bourgeoisie affirmed its principles of ‘respectability’. In this context, the spread of prostitution among the poorest and most disadvantaged classes of the South became a real obsession for bourgeois society. Through the study of primary sources relating to various health institutions, this
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Building pasta's empire: Barilla in Italian East Africa Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-28 Diana Garvin
This article investigates the role that Italian food companies like Barilla pasta played in creating narratives of East African empire at the apex of the Fascist ventennio. It aims to use the commercial remnants of Fascist empire to provide a more thorough accounting of how colonialism shaped the modern cultural history of Italian pasta. To do so, I analyze the paper ephemera, that is, the pasta advertisements
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The scientific discourse circulated during a national-populist commemoration: Dannunzian Fiume and the ‘Italo-cosmopolitan’ field of history Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-01-04 Christian Lamour
In today's Europe, commemorations can be times at which to affirm international reconciliation, based notably on the knowledge produced by historians who are becoming progressively cosmopolitan. However, commemorations are also used by national-populist political parties for electoral purposes and can lead to tensions with neighbouring states. This was the case in Trieste in September 2019, when the
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A discussion on Nel cantiere della memoria. Fascismo, Resistenza, Shoah, Foibe, by Filippo Focardi, Rome, Viella, 2020. With Valeria Galimi, Philip Cooke and Filippo Focardi Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2023-01-04 Andrea Mammone
The centenary of the March on Rome has prompted Modern Italy's Contexts and Debates section to focus on the public uses of history in reference to interwar Fascism. We are looking into the ‘Past, Present, and Future of the Italian Memory of Fascism’, to borrow the title of Guido Bartolini's interviews that were published in our issue 27 (4), 2022. While commemorations and anniversaries shouldn't inherently
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A history of Italy's health policy from the Republic to the new century Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 Chiara Giorgi
This article analyses the development of Italian health policies in the post-Second World War period. Shortly after the setting up of the ‘Beveridge model’ and the creation of the British National Health Service, Italy also introduced a new approach to health, which became part of the Constitution. However, the implementation of the necessary reforms was delayed due to resistance from the country's
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The disputed lake: Lake Garda between tourism and nationalism on the eve of the Great War Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-12-12 Maria Paola Pasini
This article reconstructs the heated – local and national – debate around the consistent and pervasive foreign presence in the border territory of Lake Garda on the eve of the Great War. Here, the growing nationalistic tensions that preceded the conflict intertwined with the emerging hospitality industry. Tourism, seen as a social phenomenon, can thus offer a privileged perspective on the transformations
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Right-wing extremism and lone-actor violence in Italy: the case of the 2018 Macerata shooting Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-12-12 Francesco Marone
On 3 February 2018, in the town of Macerata, an Italian citizen with far-right sympathies deliberately fired several shots from his car at nine African immigrants, injuring six. The article argues that this shooting can be considered an act of lone-actor terrorism, an anomaly in the Italian context. Based on the social science literature on this subject, the paper analyses the profile of the shooter
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Introduction: Critical issues in the study of visual and material culture of Italian colonialism Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Carmen Belmonte, Laura Moure Cecchini
In this special issue of Modern Italy, four early-career scholars examine how the study of objects and images rooted in Fascist imperialist history enables a sustained interrogation of Italy's colonial imaginary. Their articles explore the diverse possibilities offered by the study of visual and material culture for scholars of imperialism, as it is precisely this realm of visual and material culture
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The social lives of mass-produced images of the 1935–41 Italo-Ethiopian War Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Markus Wurzer
For the last 20 years, research on European colonialism has addressed private photo collections. Prior to that, interest was focused specifically on propaganda photography. In the hope that privately kept material could offer new, more ‘authentic’ insights into colonial everyday life, researchers have so far mostly ignored the mass-produced images which are often part of such private collections, too
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Images of black faces in Italian colonialism: mobile essentialisms Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Lucia Piccioni
This study analyses the essential question of the role of visual and material culture in the construction of a mass racial ideology during the Fascist colonial empire. The hypothesis behind this essay is that representations of the facial features of colonised populations may be understood as agents that transform what are in fact inconsistent and vague notions of identity and race into concrete and
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Colonies on the cover: Italo Balbo's Libia Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Priscilla Manfren
This essay will consider some key aspects of the imagery of the ventennio regarding the Italian overseas territories through the analysis of the covers of the illustrated magazine Libia, launched in 1937 in the context of the so-called ‘Fourth Shore’ of Italy, ruled between 1934 and 1940 by governor Italo Balbo. Firstly, this essay will address the existing bibliography on the relations between the
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The denial of shame: representations and annual commemorations of the Ethiopian war in the news magazine Epoca (1950–60) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Elena Cadamuro
This article investigates how the Ethiopian war was represented by Epoca – the most prolific Italian weekly news magazine for illustrated reportage in postwar Italy – during the last phase of Italian colonialism (1950–60). The analysis focuses specifically on two photographic commemorations published on the twentieth (1955) and twenty-fifth anniversary (1960). The aim of this contribution is to examine
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Culture in contemporary Milan: shedding tears on a glorious past, or surfing on global opportunities? Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-09 Andrea Goldstein
In 1881, Giovanni Verga defined Milan as ‘la città più città d'Italia’ (‘Italy's most urban city’). A statement of some significance, as at that time Rome and Turin could each legitimately claim to have much greater political if not economic clout. Almost one and a half centuries later, the role of the capitale morale as the pulsing heart of a country incessantly searching for both a modern national
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L'Italia di Fellini. Immagini, paesaggi, forme di vita Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-14 Louis Bayman
In 1993, a few months before his death, the veteran film director Federico Fellini was invited to the University of Bologna to receive an honorary doctorate. Bologna, the oldest modern university in the world, wished to bestow on Fellini its institutional recognition of his half a century in the Italian film industry. Not unflattered, Fellini declined, and wrote to the rector of the university that
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Past, present, and future of the Italian memory of Fascism. Interviews with Luisa Passerini, Filippo Focardi, John Foot, Robert Gordon, and Philip Cooke Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Guido Bartolini
This article consists of interviews with five world experts on the memory of Fascism. Taking the centenary of the March on Rome as an opportunity to rethink the development of Italian collective memory, the five interviewees were asked to reflect on different aspects of the Italian memory of Fascism, addressing the dominant conceptualisations, limits, and transformations of the discourses used to narrate
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European museology and colonial concord: Italy at the 1934 Expo du Sahara in Paris Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-07-29 Beatrice Falcucci
This article assesses Italy's participation in the Expo du Sahara in Paris in 1934, placing it within the framework of European colonial culture, exhibitions, and international relations during the 1930s. Hitherto, the Expo du Sahara has been largely ignored by historiography, but it offers important insights into Italo-French relations in the years immediately preceding Italy's invasion of Ethiopia
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The Russian invasion of Ukraine: some readings from Italian newspapers (20 February–5 March 2022) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-06-24 Giulia Lami, Simranjit Kaur Sahota
Over the last two years, the metaphor of war has often been used in Italy when discussing the fight against the pandemic, to describe the restrictions that have been introduced as a result, from lockdown to the Green Pass. Paradoxically, once the state of emergency ended, just as we were on the cusp of the long-awaited return to normality (to ‘peace’ in a sense), Russia's sudden invasion of Ukraine
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‘Citadels of spiritual resistance’: the Italian schools in Scotland, 1924–1940 Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-05-24 Remigio Petrocelli
This article focuses on Italian schools in Scotland during the Fascist ventennio. The Italian-Scottish case study will be helpful to understand one of the principal means, the schools, that the Fascist regime used from the early 1920s in order to preserve the Italian identity of second-generation Italians. From the first half of the 1930s, the schools also became one of the key channels for spreading
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Protective and risk factors for social withdrawal in adolescence. A mixed-method study of Italian students’ wellbeing Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-05-24 Franca Beccaria, Alice Scavarda, Antonella Roggero, Emanuela Rabaglietti
This research project is aimed at identifying risk and protective factors of social withdrawal, by studying some areas of young people's psychological wellbeing. The study took place in a medium-sized town in the north-west of Italy. A total of 1,102 students participated in the study. An online survey was sent to all the students attending the second year of local high schools, then the results were
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A tale of two epicentres: Lombardy and New York City at the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic – CORRIGENDUM Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-25 Luca Storti,John Torpey,Joselle Dagnes,Marianna Filandri,Justine Lyons
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Ringing in the papal restoration: Francesco Cancellieri's treatise on the Capitoline bells (1806) Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-12 Miles Pattenden
In 1806 the antiquarian Francesco Cancellieri wrote a treatise on the new bells fabricated for the campanile of the Capitoline palaces, replacing earlier ones destroyed during the Roman Republic of 1798-9. Cancellieri's text, and the story of those bells which it contains, offers important insights into the significance of bells in early nineteenth-century Italian Catholicism and also about clerical
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‘Parma dreamin’’: Malerba's Il serpente Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-05 Joseph Francese
In Il serpente, Luigi Malerba's first novel, the writer moves from the objectifying perspective, working-class protagonists, and themes of neorealism to a subjective realism that sets aside the direct dialogue of his first book (La scoperta dell'alfabeto, a collection of brief narratives) in favor of the exterior monologue. The narrating voice of Il serpente feels compelled to relive the guilt, shame
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A tale of two epicentres: Lombardy and New York City at the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-03-23 Luca Storti, John Torpey, Joselle Dagnes, Marianna Filandri, Justine Lyons
The paper explores the tale of two 'epicentres’ – metropolitan New York and Lombardy – and seeks to depict the socio-demographic patterns that characterise the worst cases of infection, hospitalisation, and death during the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. By drawing upon secondary data concerning sub-territorial units within the two regions – ZIP-code level and counties in New York
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Verbal folklore in contemporary southern Italy: a not-so-distant mirror of cultural and environmental change Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-02-21 Liberata Luciani
The socio-cultural and environmental shifts that have taken place in southern Italy over the last 30 years can usefully be traced by their impact on folkloric texts which present modifications that tend to emerge progressively over time. An analysis of such modifications to a body of southern Italian folkloric texts – as used in practice over the last three decades – finds that these reflect and are
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Global populism and Italy. An interview with Federico Finchelstein Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-02-18 Marzia Maccaferri, Andrea Mammone
Federico Finchelstein is Professor of History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, New York. He is one of the leading scholars on fascism and populism. Professor Finchelstein is the author of many books that have been translated into several languages, including the successful From Fascism to Populism in History (University of California Press, 2017). His new monograph, Fascist
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Italia ribelle. Sommosse popolari e rivolte militari nel 1920 by Andrea Ventura, Rome, Carocci Editore, 2020, 195 pp., €21.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-88-290-0407-2 Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-02-11 Vanda Wilcox
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They, the people. Italian Fascism and the ambivalences of corporative populism Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-02-02 Laura Cerasi
This paper argues that, in terms of their view of the ‘people’, leaderistic plebiscitarism and corporative organicism are two sides of the same coin, which resulted in aspirational fascist totalitarian democracy. The binary – and intrinsically ambiguous – view of the ‘people’ is examined first in the passive and indeterminate qualities attributed to the Italian population, then in the institutional
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Representations of ‘Italian populism’ in film Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-01-26 Gianluca Fantoni, Marco Paoli, Armando Rotondi
The aim of this article is to illustrate some key points that will hopefully encourage further reflection on the cinematic representations and meanings of populism in both an Italian and international context. Firstly, we attempt a definition of populism as applied to cinema, drawing on both political science and the literature on film history. Secondly, we turn to film critics and directors, discussing
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Populism and Italy: a theoretical and epistemological conundrum Modern Italy (IF 0.4) Pub Date : 2022-01-24 Marzia Maccaferri
Considered by many scholars to be principally a catch-all or a useless concept, populism has rarely gone hand-in-hand with historical reflection. Building upon ‘the need to return populism to history’, this article offers an overview of the reasons why populism as a concept and as a potential sequence of historical events seems to fit well in post-Second World War Italy, and aims to suggest areas for