Full Description
Italy has long been thought of as a terra di mezzo, a land in between, a crossroads where life "above" exists together with life "below." Italy's underworld is taken as a given fact, and enjoys a global, if not romanticized, reputation. This volume is a first-of-its-kind study that explores how crime and illegality have served to make modern Italy and Italians. Its chapters set into relief "crime Italian style": a distinct formation comprised of the porousness between licit and illicit and the malleability of illegality that has distinguished Italy as a nation-state since Unification. From courtrooms to television screens, and mafia dons to political activists, this volume delves into Italy's criminal patrimony as well as the entanglements between Italian politics and organized crime, how ideas about crime and criminality cross borders and become attached to people, and how the representational force of the media continues to transform who or what is marked as criminal. This volume reconnects Italy to its heritage of crime and punishment to offer a new take on modern Italian identity that recognizes its relationship to illegality as a central, rather than peripheral, attribute.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Introduction: Crime Italian Style
Stephanie Malia Hom
I: STATE, SOCIETY, & ILLEGALITY
The Trattativa Stato-mafia: Transforming the State of Mafia Affairs
Robin Pickering-Iazzi
Tangentopoli: Justice, Spectacle, and the Making of a New Political Era
Paolo Campolonghi
Making Italians Aware of Italy: National Public Television and Organized Crime (1962-85)
Alessandra Montalbano
From "Cosa Nostra" to "Cosa Grigia": How Criminal Systems in Italy are Changing after the Arrest of Fugitive Boss Matteo
Messina Denaro!!!Giacomo Di Girolamo
II: CRIMINAL BORDERS
"To Weigh the Hand": Cheaters, Scammers, and Italianness in São Paulo
Giulia Riccò
Transatlantic Punishment: The Extradition of Silvia Baraldini
Ellen Nerenberg
Terra dannata / dannati della terra: The Convergence of Farmworker, Food Justice, and Anti-Caporalato Movements
Eleanor Paynter
III: DELINQUENT SUBJECTS
Graphologics: Handwriting, Character, and Social Danger
David Horn
A Laboratory of Male Citizenship: The Juvenile Reformatory of Tivoli, 1879-1914
Mary Gibson
Fascist Woman, Delinquent Woman: The Case of Leonarda Cianciulli
Stephanie Malia Hom
IV: PICTURING CRIME
(Transnational) Crime in Italian Silent Cinema
Robert Rushing
Not The Godfather: Two Investigative Films and Organized Crime
David Forgacs
"This Place Hasn't Changed in 2000 Years": Transnational Italian Crime Television
Dana Renga
EPILOGUE
George Floyd, Soumaila Sacko, and Alika Ogorchukwu. Performative Anti-Racism and Black Lives in Italy
Angelica Pesarini
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
