This book is the first critical interdisciplinary examination in English of Italian women’s contributions to intellectual, artistic, and cultural production in modern Italy. Examining commonalities and diversities from the country’s Unification to today, the volume provides insight into the challenges that Italian women engaged in cultural production have faced, and the strategies they have deployed in order to achieve their objectives. The essays address a range of issues, from women’s self-identification and public ownership of their professional roles as laborers in the intellectual and cultural realm, to questions about motherhood and financial remuneration, to the role of creative foreign women in Italy. Through critical analysis and direct testimony from new and typically marginalized voices, including an Arab-Italian writer, an Italian-Dominican filmmaker, and a transgender activist, new forms of ongoing struggle emerge that redefine the culturally diverse landscape of female intellectual and creative production in Italy today. The volume rethinks a solely national “Made in Italy” reading of the subject of female intellectual labor, demonstrating instead the wide network of influences and relationships that have existed for Italian women in their professional aspirations.
Author(s): Sharon Hecker, Catherine Ramsey-Portolano
Series: Italian and Italian American Studies
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 447
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Chapter 1: New Perspectives on the Roles of Women in Italy’s Modern Intellectual History
References
Part I: Modeling Female Labor
Chapter 2: Fading Away: Women Disappearing from Literature Textbooks (How Italy Obliterates Female Intellectual Work)
Introduction: Gender Equality in Textbooks and Why It Matters
Women in Italian Textbooks in Low Secondary, Secondary and Higher Education
Women and the Literary Canon
The Marginalization of Female Scholars, Horizontal and Vertical Segregation
Conclusion
References
Textbooks Cited
Works Cited
Chapter 3: Futurist Women Artists and the (Pro)Creative Metaphor
Reclaiming the Fruits of Labor
Mina Loy
Benedetta
Marisa Mori
Politics of Control
References
Chapter 4: Elena Ferrante’s Women Intellectuals: Writing and the Paradoxical Relationship to the Mother
References
Chapter 5: Learning from the 1970s: Women’s Work Inside and Outside the Home
Italian Feminism and Autonomia
Reproduction, and What’s Wrong with Marx
Looking Back Is Looking Forward
References
Part II: Performance as Strategy
Chapter 6: From Art History to Life Writing: Anna Banti’s Feminist Resonance
Gender and Genres
Recognizing Artemisia
Banti’s Resonance in Italian Feminism
References
Chapter 7: The Body and the Asemantic Writing in the Performance of Tomaso Binga
Introduction
Questioning Identities
From Object to Subject
The “Living Alphabet”
Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: The Hard Work of Being Women in 1960s Italy: Cecilia Mangini and the Documentary Essere donne
References
Chapter 9: Marcella Campagnano and the Invention of Femininity
References
Part III: Questions of Female Authority
Chapter 10: Jolanda, Angiolo Orvieto and Cosimo Giorgieri-Contri: Asymmetric Mentoring Relationships
References
Chapter 11: Alda Merini: Stigma and the Struggle for Authority as a Woman Writer
Between Dream and Reality: The Early Period
“From inside the tomb I, too, woke up again”:5 The Post-Asylum Period
Reclaiming the Right to Live and Create: The Final Years
References
Chapter 12: Strike a Pose: Italian Women Artists’ Self-Representation in Photographic Portraits in the 1960s and 1970s
Carla Accardi
Giosetta Fioroni
Conclusion
References
Chapter 13: Materializing Difference: Visions of Subjectivity in the Intermedia Works of Ketty La Rocca
Introduction
Negative Capability and Women’s Art: Ketty La Rocca in Context
“you also means I”: La Rocca and Cavarero’s Body of Language
“those things that no one wants”: La Rocca and Niccolai’s Hand-Books
Il mio lavoro: La Rocca and Lonzi’s Self-Erasure
Conclusions
References
Part IV: Collaborations, Networks and Support Systems
Chapter 14: Reimagining Art Practice, Recasting Myths: The Story of Two Groups of Feminist Artists in Southern Italy in the Late 1970s
The Michelangelo Complex
Gruppo XX
Gruppo Donne/Immagine/Creatività
The Myth of Pandora’s Box
Reception, Audience, and Impact
Conclusion
References
Chapter 15: Contradictions and the Re-Invention of One’s Own Role: The Publishing House Scritti di Rivolta Femminile in the Life/Work of Carla Lonzi
The Re-Invention of One’s Own Role
From Art History to Feminism
Farewell to Roles
Work as a Refusal of Work
The Reinvention of the Self
References
Chapter 16: Building a Different Memory Together: The Politics of Feminist Archives in Italy
Introduction
The Politics of History and Memory
Feminist Path, Culture, and Archives
Archives and the Documentary Network
Conclusion
References
Part V: Foreigners in Italy
Chapter 17: Reconstructing Edmonia Lewis’s Roman Life: An Exploration of Her Presence in the Eternal City
Introduction
From Turtle Island to Rome
The Vatican: A Mohawk in Rome and the Apollo Belvedere
Via della Frezza 27: Walking to Edmonia Lewis’s First Roman Atelier
Caffè Greco and the Doleful Ditty
The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere and Black Madonna Iconography
Bust of Christ and the Tradition of the Nazarenes
An Artistic Exodus: Leaving Rome for Paris and London
References
Chapter 18: Ombra Felice? Jessie Boswell and Daphne Maugham in Felice Casorati’s Shadow
Jessie Boswell
Daphne Maugham
Out of the Shadows
References
Chapter 19: Russian Women Artists in Italy Between the Two Wars: Careers, Social Policies, and Intercultural Relations Between Revolution and Fascism
Russian Women Artists Beyond Russia on the Eve of Political Catastrophe
The Image of “Russian” Women in Italy
Russian Women Artists in Italian Society Under the Fascist Regime
Conclusion
References
Chapter 20: Gender Codes in Art and Industry: Beverly Pepper, an American in Postwar Italy
References
Part VI: Cultural Exchanges
Chapter 21: Mario and Edita Broglio: The Dynamics of an Artist Couple in Fascist Italy
The Three Lives of Edita
Edita and Mario
Rocco Canea
References
Archive Material
Chapter 22: Weaving Connections Between Rome and New York: The Role of Gabriella Drudi
Gabriella Drudi’s Formation as a Literary Agent, Translator, Author, and Art Critic
Drudi’s Approach to Art Criticism
Drudi’s Work as a Translator
Drudi and Rosenberg
Conclusion
References
Chapter 23: Editors’ Conversation with German Art Historians Oona Lochner and Isabel Mehl: Writing Like a Feminist—In Dialogue with Carla Lonzi
References
Part VII: Questioning Boundaries
Chapter 24: Pinks, Purples and Shades of Porpora: The Life of Porpora Marcasciano and the Work of Trans Activism
Finding Her “Collocazione” (Place): The Early Years
Historical Conditions, Trailblazers, Naples, Rome, and Bologna
Sex Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights
MIT Bologna
Names, Words, Saying, Telling, and Naming Oneself
Conclusion
References
Chapter 25: Editors’ Conversation with Italian-Dominican Filmmaker Laila Petrone: Visualizing Multicultural Italian Women
Chapter 26: Editors’ Conversation with Algerian-Italian Author and Translator Amal Bouchareb: Arab Women’s Cultural Production in Italy—Struggling Against Stereotypical Representations or Fitting into Neo-Orientalist/White Feminist Paradigms?
Index
