Description
Italian literature is among the most ancient and influential Western literatures. With its classics spanning from the Middle Ages to our contemporaneity, the impact of Italian literature worldwide has been and still is enormous - think of the influence of Dante in shaping Holocaust narratives and that of Italo Calvino on postmodern fiction. Italian literature remains a subject of enduring interest for academics, students, and general audiences. After the long and still resisting season of nationalisms, the time is ripe to rethink Italian literature against the background of a more and more globalized world.The Oxford Handbook of Italian Literature considers the development, status, and significance of Italian Literature in this globalized context. Organized into four parts (Institutions; Production; Controversies; and Icons), this Handbook approaches Italian literature across its historical span through a variety of perspectives and methodologies, including nationalism, internationalism, and transnationalism, culture, gender and ethnic studies, and ecocriticism, with constant and careful attention to the forms and contents of literary practices and discourses. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive survey of Italian literature to date, ranging broadly from Dante's times to the contemporary world bestselling phenomenon of Elena Ferrante. Italian literature emerges as a case in point for reorientating literary studies towards the experimentation of difference, permeability, and integration.Bringing together distinguished scholars of Italian literature from major world universities, including the US, UK, Italy, France, Ireland, Canada, and Germany, these 54 chapters unsettle and reshape the field of Italian literature. This Handbook aims to inspire scholars and writers in Italian Studies to explore innovative conceptual frameworks and facilitate a comparative dialogue with scholars of other literary traditions around the world: an especially vital goal in our increasingly interconnected world.
Table of Contents
1. Identity 1. Italy and Italianness Stefano Jossa (Royal Holloway, University of London / Università di Palermo) 2. The Question of the Language and the Languages of Literature Helena Sanson (University of Cambridge) 3. The Myth of Dante Catherine Keen (University College London) 4. The Myth of the Renaissance Simon Gilson (University of Oxford) 5. Making the Italians: Rereading the Risorgimento Gabriella Romani (Seton Hall University) 6. Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and Resistance Guido Bonsaver (University of Oxford) 7. Beyond the National Paradigm: Transnational and Translational Approaches to Italian LiteratureCharles Burdett (Durham University) and Loredana Polezzi (Stony Brook University)8. The Matter of Race: Race Thinking, Racism, and the Construction of 'Italianness' Silvana Patriarca (Fordham University) 9. Italian Postcolonial Literature: A Decolonizing Approach to Italian Culture and Society Caterina Romeo (Università di Roma "La Sapienza")10. Women Writers and the "Male" CanonJane Tylus (Yale University) 11. Queer(ing) Italy: Perspectives, Genealogies, Relationality Charlotte Ross (University of Oxford) 12. Italian Thought Lorenzo Fabbri (University of Minnesota)13. Italian Lit and World Lit Thomas Harrison (UCLA) 14. Community-Making in Contemporary Italian Poetry Adele Bardazzi (Utrecht University)15. Writing Italian Prose TodayEdda Goodrich (Writer)2. Production and Transmission 16. Plurilingualism: The Impact of Latin, the Role of Dialects, and Experimental Languages Franco Pierno (University of Toronto) 17. The Invention of the Sonnet Federica Pich (Università di Trento) 18. Novella and Racconto: the Italian Short Story Gabriele Pedullà (Università Roma Tre) 19. Revising Models in Times of Transition: The Genres of Commentary and DialogueTatiana Crivelli (University of Zurich) 20. Petrarchism and Petrarchist Community Virginia Cox (University of Cambridge) 21. Orality and Literature in the Commedia dell'Arte Robert Henke (Washington University in St. Louis)22. Italian Literature and the Academies Jane Everson (Royal Holloway, University of London) 23. Histories of Italian Literature Matteo Di Gesù (Università degli Studi di Palermo) 24. Sites of Literary Memory Paolo Bartoloni and Michela Dainetti (University of Galway) 25. Print Culture and the Making of Italian LiteratureBrian Richardson (University of Leeds) 26. Digital Editing Paola Italia (Università di Bologna) 27. Literary Objects Federica Pedriali (University of Edinburgh) 3. Controversies and Intersections 28. The Pedant Within: Making the Italian Intellectual Tradition Rocco Rubini (University of Chicago)29. Catholicism and Secularism Erminia Ardissino (Università di Torino) 30. "A sea without floor or shore": the literary Baroque in Italy Jon Snyder (UC Santa Barbara) 31. Body and Soul in Italian Romanticism: Alessandro Manzoni's Christian Political Economy Joseph Luzzi (Bard College) 32. The Italian Novel Clotilde Bertoni (Università degli Studi di Palermo) 33. Modernism (Pirandello, Svevo, Gadda) Laura Wittman (Stanford University) 34. Lyric Machines: The Afterlives of F. T. Marinetti's and Nanni Balestrini's Avant-Garde PoetryGian Maria Annovi (USC Dornsife) 35. Literature and Science in Modern ItalyPier Paolo Antonello (University of Cambridge) 36. Literature and the Visual: from Manzoni's The Betrothed to Banti's Artemisia (via Caravaggio) Daniela Brogi (Università per Stranieri di Siena) 37. Early Modern Intersections between Music and PoetryFrancesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University) 38. The Place of Theatre Patricia Gaborik (Independent Scholar) 39. Intermedial Literature: From Cinema through Television to the Internet Clodagh Brook (Trinity College Dublin) 40. Children's Literature and its Readers in a Globalizing ItalyMaria Truglio (Penn State)41. The Dangerous Belpaese: Literature and Ecology in Modern ItalyMarco Malvestio (Università degli Studi di Padova/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)4. Icons 42. The Networks of Dante's Divine Comedy Jennifer Rushworth (University College London) 43. 'Cosa bella mortal passa e non dura': Petrarchan Metamorphoses (Tasso, Shakespeare, Sor Juana, and Khalvati) Manuele Gragnolati (University of Paris-Sorbonne) and Francesca Southerdern (University of Oxford) 44. The Whole Book: Eroticism and Censorship in Boccaccio's DecameronKristina Olson (George Mason University) 45. Humanism and Renaissance Bernhard Huss (Freie Universität Berlin) 46. Icons in Time: Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Chivalric Literature through the Ages Ita Mac Carthy (Durham University) 47. Italian Opera Jessica Peritz (Yale University) 48. Bringing Italy into Modernity: F. T. Marinetti, Futurism and the Invention of the Avant-Garde Luca Somigli (University of Toronto) 49. If This is a Man: Primo Levi and Holocaust Literature Niccolò Scaffai (Università degli Studi di Siena) 50. 1968 Across Borders Robert Gordon (University of Cambridge) 51. Italy's Nobel Laureates: Carducci, Deledda, Pirandello, Quasimodo, Montale, Fo Michael Subialka (UC Davis) 52. Italian Crime Fiction Stefano Serafini (Independent Scholar) 53. Undoing Italy with Ferrante, Sapienza, Scego, and Lahiri: Transanational Approaches to Contemporary Italian Literature Alberica Bazzoni (Università degli Studi di Siena and University of Oxford) 54. Meetings with Remarkable Italians Ian Thomson (Writer/University of East Anglia)
