Italy in the world and the world in Italy: Tracing alternative cultural trajectories

摘要

Focusing on Italy and its diasporas, this project argues for a complex understanding of nation and subject formations as they are produced transnationally and cross-regionally through culture. The cultural texts I analyze span from the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries and include novels and memoirs (Aleramo, Pianavia Vivaldi), oral narratives (Ets), theatrical productions (by the Federal Theatre Project and the Italian theatre in 1930s New York, and by Teatro delle Albe in 1990s Italy), films (Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers and Burn! and Montaldo's Sacco and Vanzetti) and music (by 1990s underground bands from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna). By studying texts that register the encounter of individuals and communities in Italy and abroad affected, albeit differently, by colonialism, migration, fascism, resistance struggles, and globalization, I trace moments of affinity or conflict among diverse groups, across several decades and geographical locations. I posit the cultural trajectories highlighted by these texts, and the conversations they enable, as critical possibilities that extend beyond the case of Italy to create a different understanding of human relationships. This alternative understanding challenges center-periphery discourses within and between the West and the Third World and calls attention to forms of mutual identification, recognition, and solidarity across various lines.