The question that forms the foundation of this project is quite simple: how can space help us discuss literature and vice versa? The chapters of this dissertation explore the writing of Francesco Dall’Ongaro, Italo Svevo, Pier Antonio Quarantotti Gambini, and Marisa Madieri, each of whom addresses spatial concepts in their textual representations of the northern Adriatic region. Utilizing the related yet distinct approaches of spatial literary studies and geocriticism, paired with intellectual history, I find that the northern Adriatic region can be construed as a literary creation comprised of distinct, resistant narratives. The four texts under discussion promote a particular narrative of the region, revealing different strategies for its literary construction. Furthermore, this project aims to demonstrate that the spatially-attentive critic, no matter the discipline, has a vital role in deconstructing the process by which spaces enter the imaginary through cultural production.

The scholarly consensus is that the early essays “Il mare dell’oggettività” and “La sfida al labirinto” are two of the most important Italo Calvino wrote on his literary poetics, influencing the metaphors and problematics of his entire corpus: the sea of objectivity, the labyrinth, chaotic flux, a rational cogito subjectivity, binary oppositions etc. The essays were made available to a general public in the collection Una pietra sopra in 1980, part of a selection of texts handpicked by Calvino himself. Curiously, the 1986 English translation titled The Uses of Literature does not contain these important and influential essays, making them unavailable to an Anglophone audience. These essays are here now translated, accompanied by a critical commentary by the translator about their relevance and importance to Calvino’s corpus. The problematics discussed in these essays would re-emerge, with remarkable consistency, in the metaphorical imagery Calvino deployed throughout his career. Nevertheless, Calvino evolves the problematics significantly throughout his career, almost inverting his original stance. Rather than this being an inversion, however, the translator argues that Calvino’s evolution represents a dialectical movement propelled by contradiction, and that therein lies the actual poetics or the stylized mode of thought that these essays inaugurated. Viewing the essays in this light renders them, and Calvino’s entire corpus, ripe for dialogic encounter and collision with otherwise parallel philosophical traditions and schools of thought.

My recent compositions are situated within a postmodern theoretical framework. The heterogeneity of materials and hybridity of musical formation in these works are interpreted and contextualized within a personal reading of postmodern theories. The critical essay traces my aesthetics through a historical investigation into the definition of musical postmodernism. Through extensive citation and analysis of the writings of Julius T. Fraser, Italo Calvino, and Richard Rorty, the essay aims to provide a theoretical context for the interpretation of the musical examples. The creative documentation contains three newly-composed musical works: Piano Trio from Opus 3/c, Opus 6 for Violin, and Opus 7 for Piccolo. The works' postmodern features include creative approaches to the fragmentation of musical time into separate levels, historical allusions, and the exploration of multiplicity.

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En 1896, les missionnaires salésiens fondent une école des arts et métiers à Alexandrie destinée à un prolétariat immigré d’origine européenne. Dans les années suivantes, la mission multiplie les ouvertures d’écoles dans les villes du Delta et du Canal, mais sa réputation est avant tout liée aux filières professionnelles. Menacées de disparition sous Nasser, à l’instar des autres établissements d’enseignement étrangers, les écoles salésiennes se maintiennent dans le cadre d’accords de coopération bilatérale entre l’Égypte et l’Italie. Ce travail interroge la longévité de la présence missionnaire et la durabilité d’un ensemble d’établissements scolaires au-delà de dates retenues comme points de rupture entre une Égypte coloniale et postcoloniale. Il est question de l’investissement éducatif sur un modèle étranger d’enseignement professionnel et du rôle que les écoles missionnaires ont joué dans la formation de communautés de métiers. Au miroir des établissements salésiens, c’est la mise en place d’un enseignement technique en Égypte, les enjeux éducatifs, économiques et politiques qu’il incarne qu’on entrevoit. Par ailleurs, l’histoire des missionnaires salésiens et de leur réseau scolaire s’inscrit dans un cadre plus large : l’histoire des migrations méditerranéennes vers l’Égypte, l’histoire de l’Église, de la mission et de son aggiornamento et celle des relations italo-égyptiennes. C’est une histoire tout à la fois locale et globale qu’il s’agit d’éclairer. En rupture avec les approches nationaliste et nostalgique, ce travail se veut une contribution originale à l’histoire des missions et de l’enseignement étranger en Égypte. / In 1896 the Salesian missionaries established a school of Arts and Crafts in Alexandria, which was intended for working class European immigrants. In the following years, the mission founded other schools in the Delta and Suez Canal regions, but its reputation was particularly tied to its vocational training institutes. Threatened with disappearance under Nasser, like others foreign schools, the Salesian institutes managed to survive within the framework of Italo-Egyptian cooperation agreements. This dissertation questions the longevity of the missionary presence and the durability of the Salesian school network, hence expanding the boundaries between what is commonly delineated as colonial and post-colonial Egypt. The educational investment that Egyptian families made in Salesian vocational schools is analysed as well as the role the mission played in training trades and professional communities. Through the lens of the Salesian schools we catch a glimpse of the emergence of vocational education in Egypt, its educational, economic and political stakes. Moreover, the history of the Salesian missionaries and their schools is analysed within a broader framework: the history of Mediterranean migrations to Egypt, Church and mission histories as well as their aggiornamento, and eventually the history of Italo-Egyptian relations. The aim is to shed light on a history which is concurrently local and global. Distancing itself both from nationalistic and nostalgic approaches, this work aims to provide an original contribution to the history of missions and foreign education in Egypt.

A presente pesquisa propôs a análise de todos os vinte contos que compõem a obra Marcovaldo ou As estações na cidade (2015 [1963]), de Italo Calvino. O foco das análises voltou-se para o protagonista, Marcovaldo, um trabalhador pobre e em permanente estado de desconforto com as mudanças ocorridas no contexto social pós-guerra, especialmente na Itália, no período de seu milagre econômico, que foi impulsionado pelo fim de medidas protecionistas na economia (GINSBORG, 2003). Ao tentar romper com esse cenário, buscando a beleza genuína da natureza, Marcovaldo vê-se experienciando situações que sempre o levam ao descontentamento, intrinsecamente ligado a um novo tipo de relação humana e social, construída a partir não somente da consolidação das sociedades capitalistas modernas, como igualmente da imposição de um padrão único de comportamento à sociedade — a mutação antropológica, como proposto por Pier Paolo Pasolini (1978, 1997). A pesquisa debruçou-se sobre o olhar Ecocrítico (GARRARD, 2006), despertado pela obra em questão, que sugere, a partir da Literatura (e da incorporação de outras áreas como a Sociologia, a Biologia, a Antropologia), o estudo da natureza, suas relações com a mulher e o homem e o refinamento da percepção acerca de questões ecológicas frágeis, captadas com mais afinco a partir da década de 1960 (PIGA; MANSANO, 2015), apesar de as mudanças de perspectiva sobre a sensibilidade em relação à natureza estarem em constante modificação principalmente desde o Iluminismo (THOMAS, 2010 [1983]). A esta pesquisa foram igualmente incorporados pressupostos da Ecosofia (GUATTARI, 2006 [1989]), que sugere um ressignificar de procedimentos e discursos hegemônicos advindos do sistema sócio-político-econômico capitalista. Para tanto, fez-se necessário, conjuntamente, compreender problemáticas concernentes à conjuntura ambiental do século XX e seu impacto sobre as classes menos favorecidas economicamente (BOFF, 1995), assim como assimilar os desdobramentos referentes ao ecologismo dos pobres (via econômica baseada na justiça social), preconizado por Joan Martínez Alier (2014 [2007]), tendo em vista a classe social à qual Marcovaldo pertence. Alicerçada nos princípios descritos, a esta pesquisa coube, portanto, analisar as interações de Marcovaldo e sua família com a natureza e suas possibilidades, suas modificações e incorporação a um efervescente mercado consumidor, com vistas a refletir sobre a crise ecológica (das três ecologias, conforme Guattari) e assinalar hipóteses de superação para a mesma, por meio da apologia de um convívio menos predatório do ser humano relativamente aos outros seres que ao seu lado coabitam na Terra. / The present research proposed the analysis of all twenty short stories that compose the book Marcovaldo or the seasons in the city (2015 [1963]), by Italo Calvino. The analyses focused on the protagonist, Marcovaldo, an impoverished proletarian that finds himself in a continuous state of discomfort with the changes that occurred in the post-war social context, especially in Italy during the period of the economic miracle, which was driven by the end of protectionist measures in the economy (GINSBORG, 2003). In trying to break away from this scenario, seeking the genuine beauty of nature, Marcovaldo ends up experiencing situations that always lead him to a discontent that is inextricably linked to a new kind of human and social relationship, built not only on the consolidation of modern capitalist societies, but also on the imposition of a single standard of behavior on society – an anthropological mutation, as proposed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1978, 1997). The research focused on the Ecocritical approach (GARRARD, 2006), awakened by the object, which suggests the study (incorporating references from areas such as Sociology, Biology and Anthropology to Literary Theory) of nature, its relationship with women and men, and the refining of perceptions about delicate ecological issues, captured more intensively since the 1960s (PIGA, MANSANO, 2015), although the changes in perspective on sensitivity to nature are constantly shifting, mainly since the Enlightenment (THOMAS, 2010 [1983]). This research also integrated the assumptions of Ecosophy (GUATTARI, 2006 [1989]), which suggests a re-signifying of hegemonic procedures and discourses derived from the capitalist socio-political-economic system. In order to do so, it was necessary, jointly, to understand issues related to the environmental context of the twentieth century and its impact on economically disadvantaged classes (BOFF, 1995), as well as to assimilate the consequences related to the environmentalism of the poor, advocated by Joan Martínez Alier (2014 [2007]), in view of the social class to which Marcovaldo belongs. Based on the principles described, this research therefore had to analyze the interactions of Marcovaldo and his family with nature and its possibilities, its modifications and assimilation into an effervescent consumer market, aiming to reflect on the ecological crisis (of the three ecologies, according to Guattari) and point out hypotheses of overcoming it, by means of the apology of a less predatory human conviviality in relation to the other beings that, with them, live on planet Earth.

This master thesis deals with the phenomenon of non-human narrator in the literary fiction. The theoretical part of the thesis provides a conceptual framework. The framework is based on the so-called unnatural narratology. Firstly, the thesis discusses non-human narrators that are conventionally accepted. Secondly, the thesis provides a case study of non-human narrators that are perceived as unnatural. The case study includes examples from both canonical works and contemporary works. The research focuses on two main levels related to the usage of the phenomenon of non-human narration as used in the narratives: the level of "meaning" and the level of "form and effect".

La présente étude conduit les traditions fragmentées de la culture littéraire de Trieste vers les préoccupations contemporaines de la littérature mondiale à l’époque actuelle où la mondialisation est largement perçue comme le paradigme historique prédominant de la modernité. Ce que j’appelle la « littérature globalisée » renvoie à la refonte de la Weltliteratur – envisagée par Goethe et traduite comme « world literature » ou la « littérature universelle » – par des discours sur la culture mondiale et le post-nationalisme. Cependant, lorsque les études littéraires posent les questions de la « littérature globalisée », elles sont confrontées à un problème : le passage de l’idée universelle inhérente au paradigme de Goethe entre le Scylla d’un internationalisme relativiste et occidental, et le Charybde d’un mondialisme atopique et déshumanisé. Les spécialistes de la littérature mondiale qui tendent vers la première position acquièrent un fondement institutionnel en travaillant avec l’hypothèse implicite selon laquelle les nations sont fondées sur les langues nationales, ce qui souscrit à la relation entre la littérature mondiale et les littératures nationales. L’universalité de cette hypothèse implicite est réfutée par l’écriture triestine. Dans cette étude, je soutiens que l’écriture triestine du début du XXe siècle agit comme un précurseur de la réflexion sur la culture littéraire globalisée du XXIe siècle. Elle dispose de sa propre économie de sens, de sorte qu’elle n’entre pas dans les nationalismes littéraires, mais elle ne tombe pas non plus dans le mondialisme atopique. Elle n’est pas catégoriquement opposée à la littérature nationale; mais elle ne permet pas aux traditions nationales de prendre racine. Les écrivains de Triestine exprimaient le désir d’un sentiment d’unité et d’appartenance, ainsi que celui d’une conscience critique qui dissout ce désir. Ils résistaient à l’idéalisation de ces particularismes et n’ont jamais réussi à réaliser la coalescence de ses écrits dans une tradition littéraire unifiée. Par conséquent, Trieste a souvent été considérée comme un non-lieu et sa littérature comme une anti-littérature. En contournant les impératifs territoriaux de la tradition nationale italienne – comme il est illustré par le cas de Italo Svevo – l’écriture triestine a été ultérieurement incluse dans les paramètres littéraires et culturels de la Mitteleuropa, où son expression a été imaginée comme un microcosme de la pluralité supranationale de l’ancien Empire des Habsbourg. Toutefois, le macrocosme projeté de Trieste n’est pas une image unifiée, comme le serait un globe; mais il est plutôt une nébuleuse planétaire – selon l’image de Svevo – où aucune idéalisation universalisante ne peut se réaliser. Cette étude interroge l’image de la ville comme un microcosme et comme un non-lieu, comme cela se rapporte au macrocosme des atopies de la mondialisation, afin de démontrer que l’écriture de Trieste est la littérature globalisée avant la lettre. La dialectique non résolue entre faire et défaire la langue littéraire et l’identité à travers l’écriture anime la culture littéraire de Trieste, et son dynamisme contribue aux débats sur la mondialisation et les questions de la culture en découlant. Cette étude de l’écriture triestine offre des perspectives critiques sur l’état des littératures canoniques dans un monde où les frontières disparaissent et les non-lieux se multiplient. L’image de la nébuleuse planétaire devient possiblement celle d’un archétype pour le monde globalisé d’aujourd’hui. / The present study brings the fragmented traditions of Triestine literary culture to bear on contemporary preoccupations with world literature at a time when globalization is widely perceived as the predominant historical paradigm that informs modernity. What I am calling “global literature” refers to the refashioning of Weltliteratur – envisioned by Goethe and translated as “world literature” or “littérature universelle” – by discourses on global culture and post-nationalism. However, when literary studies take on questions of global literature they are faced with a problem, navigating the universal idea of Goethe’s paradigm between the Scylla of a relativist, occidental internationalism and the Charybdis of a dehumanized, atopian globalism. Proponents of world literature who lean towards the former position gain an institutional foothold by working with the implicit hypothesis that nations are based in language, which underwrites the relationship between world literature and national literatures. The universality of this implicit hypothesis is what Triestine writing disproves. In this study, I argue that Triestine writing in the first decades of the twentieth century acts as a precursor to thinking about global literary culture for the twenty-first century. It has its own economy of sense, whereby it doesn’t fit into literary nationalisms, but it doesn’t fall into atopian globalism either. It is not emphatically opposed to national literature; rather it does not admit national traditions to take root. Triestine writers expressed a desire for a sense of unity and belonging, as well as a critical conscience that undoes that desire. It resists the idealization of its particularities, and never successfully coalesces into a unified literary tradition. Consequently, Trieste has often been thought of as a non-place and its literature as antiliterature. In bypassing the territorial imperatives of the Italian national tradition – as the case of Italo Svevo illustrates – Triestine writing was later caught up in the literary-cultural parameters of Mitteleuropa, where its literary expression was imagined as a microcosm of the former Habsburg Empire’s supranational plurality. However, the projected macrocosm of Trieste is not a unified image, like a globe; but instead it is a nebula – as Svevo had imagined it – where no universal idealizations could gain a foothold. This study interrogates the image of the city as a microcosm and as a nowhere and how that relates to the macrocosm of the atopias of globalization, in order to demonstrate that Triestine writing is global literature ante litteram. The unresolved dialectics of doing and undoing literary language and identity through the act of writing that animates Triestine literary culture plays out in globalization debates and the questions of culture that arise from it. Triestine writing offers critical perspectives on the status of canonic literatures in a world of disappearing borders and placeless places, where the nebula is a master image for today’s world.

This report examines the ways in which Cesare Pavese and Italo Calvino use images of the foreign woman as other. Specifically, both authors inscribe foreign territories onto the bodies of their female characters in order to confront complex cultural differences. Italy is the site of this gendered inscription in Pavese’s Il carcere, while various real and imagined foreign lands are made female in Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore and Le città invisibili. In Pavese’s novella, the satyr-like Concia and the overly maternal Elena are embodiments of Southern and Northern Italy, respectively, and the failure of the protagonist to form a relationship with either woman represents his failure to assimilate into the mezzogiorno and his simultaneous rejection of northern society. In Calvino’s two works, female characters and attributes are consciously used to embody various foreign countries so that the protagonists may grasp the unknown, both physically and psychologically. By linking woman and terrain, Pavese and Calvino attempt to dominate distant lands, which are otherwise enigmatic and incomprehensible, in the typical Orientalist fashion. / text

In Italy, the period directly following World War II was marked by confusion and turbulence as the people struggled to reconstruct both the ideological and physical infrastructure of the nation. While much study has been dedicated to the evolution of femininity and the figure of the woman in this particular period, comparatively little has been written on the refashioning of masculinity in the texts produced in the period between 1940 and 1955. After the fall of the Fascist Regime, Italian masculinity undergoes a drastic transformation as the generation of young men born and raised under the tutelage of Mussolini’s reign attempt to separate themselves from the now-tainted codes of conduct governing male behavior. This report analyzes the renegotiation of Italian masculinity in G. Silvano Spinetti’s non-fictional account Difesa di una generazione (scritti e appunti), Italo Calvino’s Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, Beppe Fenoglio’s short story “Gli inizi del partigiano Raoul” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Ragazzi di vita. These works, written and published in the postwar period, manipulate the vi marginality and privation experienced by the Italian population during the war and postwar period into a liminal state brimming with revolutionary potentiality. The protagonists of these texts (both fictional and non-fictional), isolated from the larger social context and deprived of individual identity, property and privilege, circumvent their polluted patriarchal lines in favor of an alternative ideological patriarchy. While Spinetti, Calvino and Fenoglio’s works advance their liminal narratives as a means of creating an emblematic Italian man capable of rejoining the generative discourse, Pasolini’s text renounces such a progressive view. In Ragazzi di vita, the only possibility for a masculine identity free of Fascism resides in a maintaining a perennial liminality. / text