In Corpore

In Corpore collects essays devoted to the critical exploration of the presence and impact of bodies in recent and contemporary Italian cultural producation, in light of current developments in thinking about bodies and their locations within cultures. The prominent position occupied by the body in Italian culture is at once undeniable and problematic. Dominant perspectives continue to inform a large number of representations of Italy and of Italians, and many of these images are deeply dependent on conceptualizations of bodies, of their roles, functions, and relative positions. Whether we are talking of models of masculinity, of gendered roles within the Italian family or of the infamous cliche of the 'bella figura,' the tendency is for such images to produce unified singular interpretations of 'Italian culture' and to assign stable locations to 'Italian bodies' within it. The essays included in the present volume, on the other hand, assume a pluarlity of conceptions of 'culture' and of 'the body.' Part I looks at the way in which images of 'Italy''and of 'Italians' have been formed and distributed by writers, artists, politicians, and scientists. The second half of the volume concentrates on literary representations of the body produced by authors such as Verga, Pozzi, Cassola, Pasolini, Tabucchi, and Santacroce. Contributors explore national, subnational, and intranational models of culture, while the authors and works examined range from the world of 'canonic' literature to that of marginal subcultures. A variety of media and modes of representation are brought into focus, from the visual arts, to cinema, literature, travel writing, 'scientific' prose, documentary photography, and even X-rays. This collection will be of interest to scholars and students of Italian culture, teachers of Italian, historians, and art historians with interests in contemporary Italy, as well as to scholars and students of gender and cultural studies. Recent years have seen an exponential growth in critical and theoretical work that examines bodies of scholarly work drawn on in this collection, question and shed light on the modalities by and through which bodies are staged, described, presented, deconstructed, and delighted in. Yet the contributions collected in this volume share a number of defining traits. All of them firmly link representations (and their interpretations) with relevant modes of production and fruition, locating both within a specific social and historical context. Chronologically, they can all be said to deal with postunification Italy, with a prevalence of contributions examining twentieth-century material. And, collectively, they offer a complex account of the role played by real and fictional bodies in the development of both the dominant and resistance strands of twentieth-century Italian culture.