Full Description
Performing Stragismo and Counterspectacularisation offers a new theoretical lens on political violence as spectacle, drawing on performance theory to explore how acts of violence - particularly terrorism - are staged, circulated, and remembered. It interrogates the role of spectacularity in shaping public discourse, tracing how power and media mobilise violence into a visual and rhetorical regime that leaves deep imprints on collective memory.
In response, this book proposes counterspectacularisation: a repertoire of critical strategies developed by the public and by performance-makers to resist or reframe the spectacle of terror. Through a mix of theoretical reflection, close analysis of performance case studies, and four original artworks created by the author, the text explores how performance can respond ethically to silences and fractures in memory. It advocates for cross-disciplinary approaches that challenge dominant representations of violence and that offer alternative frameworks for grappling with trauma, remembrance, and representation in an age of political spectacle.
This will be of particular value to researchers working on the afterlives of terrorism and state violence, especially within memory studies, media studies, and trauma theory. It will also speak to scholars in Italian studies, ethnography, and performance.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One
Chapter One Performing (state) violence - "I remember images of this train ripped apart"
Introduction
The spectacular 1970s
The aesthetics of stragisti
The Italicus spectacle
The Bologna station spectacle
Spectacularised trials
Representation
Conclusion
Chapter Two Performing resistance - "Bologna has a lot to teach"
Introduction
The influence of Nuovo Teatro
The state funerals and the resistance narrative
The Italicus commemoration
The Bologna train station commemorative complex
Counterspectacularisation
Conclusion
Chapter Three Bodies in remembrance - "They became collective dead. They are ours too"
Introduction
"Da ferito a morte"
The two Antigones
From Cantiere 2 agosto to Un'altra vita
Conclusion
Part Two
Chapter Four Methodologies of Encounter - "I don't have any particular memories"
Introduction
Wider context
Methodology
Recruitment
Intersubjectivity and power dynamics
Research design
Findings
Conclusion
Chapter Five Representing memory gaps - "It looks like a movie, but it was like this"
Introduction
Devising counterspectacularisation
Conclusion
Conclusions
Bibliography
