Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-12-27DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.54
Virgile Cirefice
{"title":"Public space at stake: competing forms of territorialisation and the construction of a democratic public space in the first years of the Italian Republic","authors":"Virgile Cirefice","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.54","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.54","url":null,"abstract":"The end of the civil war, the fall of the Italian Social Republic, the allied occupation and the gradual transition to the new Italian Republic not only set Italy on the path to democracy, but also gradually gave Italians access to a new public space. This article proposes to revisit the classic question of the legacy of Fascism by looking at the question of space and the difficult construction of a genuine democratic space. During the <jats:italic>ventennio</jats:italic>, opponents were largely denied access to common spaces, both symbolically and physically. The article raises the question of violence and the exclusive appropriation of space, showing that the representations and practices inherited from Fascism did not disappear overnight. But these practices of space were not always violent: by looking at aspects that are often neglected (graffiti, manifestos, noises and singing), the aim is to show that the transition took time and was sometimes complicated, despite the political leaders of the Italian Republic claiming to have opened up a completely new era.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142887422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-12-27DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.58
Sean Christian Wyer
{"title":"Signposting the Meschita: Palermo's medieval Jewish quarter as a site of memory","authors":"Sean Christian Wyer","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.58","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.58","url":null,"abstract":"Street signs in Italian, Hebrew and Arabic, installed in the twenty-first century, mark Palermo's former Jewish quarter, over half a millennium since Sicily last had a substantial Jewish population. They recall a medieval Jewish minority, but also symbolise what some consider to be Palermo's essentially pluralistic character. What motivates this inchoate revival of ‘Jewish space’, and what does it mean for contemporary Palermo? ‘Rebranding’ Palermo as a crossroads of civilisations encourages tourism, but this alone does not explain the re-evaluation of its multi-religious heritage. Palermo is an often-overlooked case study for the contemporary emergence of Jewish ‘sites of memory’. Using a micro-scale ethnographic study to analyse a narrative rooted in history, I show how the ‘rediscovery’ of Jewish history can have multiple catalysts. In Palermo, these include a Europe-wide interest in ‘things Jewish’, and Sicily's increasing religious diversity in the present.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142887423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-11-21DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.44
Anna Carola Freschi, Vittorio Mete
{"title":"Women candidates and mayors in Italy (1993–2021)","authors":"Anna Carola Freschi, Vittorio Mete","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.44","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.44","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article uses an original dataset to sketch a portrait of women mayoral candidates and women elected as mayors in Italy in the period 1993–2021. The analysis highlights several significant findings. Women must compensate for their political marginality by deploying other resources, such as higher levels of education. Nevertheless, women are penalised not only by the reluctance of parties to put them forward as candidates, but also by the elections themselves. More specifically, the electoral presence and strength of women decreases when the population size of the municipality grows, except for municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Moreover, women candidates are most disadvantaged in geographical areas where the socioeconomic condition of women is more marginal. However, women mayors running for a second mandate have the same chance of winning as men. Finally, it is the protest parties, rather than the left-wing parties, that are revealed as doing the most to promote women.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142678866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-11-14DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.37
Dario Tuorto, Vittorio Mete, Andrea Hajek
{"title":"A disaffected, right-wing, conflicted Italy: the general elections of 25 September 2022","authors":"Dario Tuorto, Vittorio Mete, Andrea Hajek","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.37","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.37","url":null,"abstract":"<p>You can never really get tired of Italian politics. Over the last 30 years, we have seen many turning points, the most memorable of which was undoubtedly Silvio Berlusconi's unexpected ‘descent into the field’ in 1994. Nor have we been deprived of colourful characters, such as Matteo Renzi or Matteo Salvini, who, as their careers took off, ended up burning their wings. And after many unsuccessful attempts, imagination has finally come to power (as they used to say in the 1960s), although the 1968 generation has nothing to do with it. Indeed, all the credit goes to the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), whose activists were seen carrying their leader Beppe Grillo – sitting in a dinghy – through the streets of Bologna during a procession of sorts. The general elections of 25 September 2022 added an important chapter to recent Italian political history, which has sometimes taken on a dramatic tone but more often that of a comedy or even a farce. All in all, nothing out of the ordinary; in the society of the spectacle, this is how the Darwinian struggle for political survival can also be played out.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142610729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-17DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.38
Rosario Forlenza
{"title":"Rethinking the end of Christian Democracy","authors":"Rosario Forlenza","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.38","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.38","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article is about the seminar held at Luiss University in Rome on 17 June 2024. The seminar focused on ‘The End of Christian Democracy: A New Direction for Research’ and was the first milestone and official launch of the PRIN research project ‘The End of Christian Democracy: The Collapse of a Political Dream – Voices from the Margins’, led by a consortium of four universities: Luiss, Roma Tre, Bologna and Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142444502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.20
Derek Duncan
{"title":"Shades of complicity: archives of the ‘implicated subject’","authors":"Derek Duncan","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.20","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Knowledge of the <span>Arandora Star</span> is no longer limited to members of the UK's historic Italian community but is shared by a much larger constituency thanks to the greater accessibility of historical documents relating to the sinking of the ship, and to the substantial volume of new creative work inspired by it. This article examines this expansion of historical memory by following two discrete but entangled strands. The first follows the construction of the <span>Arandora Star</span> archive, starting from the author's chance personal encounter with a photograph. The second involves a close reading of Francine Stock's <span>A Foreign Country</span> (1999) and Caterina Soffici's <span>Nessuno può fermarmi</span> (2017), two novels that explore how people outside the historic Italian community recognise their implication in the sinking and its aftermath. Both foreground the intergenerational and transnational transmission of difficult memory and the ways in which the <span>Arandora Star</span> functions as an unstable point of historical knowledge and ethical judgement.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.19
Alfonso Pacitti
{"title":"Arandora Star: analysis and ‘Embarkation Listing’ of Italians","authors":"Alfonso Pacitti","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.19","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper critically reviews and examines the available data concerning Italians embarked on the SS <span>Arandora Star</span> on 30 June 1940. It encompasses their fate on 2 July when the ship was sunk, their subsequent journeys and the sources used to verify the conclusions. The principal aim is to establish, as far as is possible, the precise number, correct names and other details of those who were embarked on the ship. A fully validated ‘Embarkation Listing’ is published here for the first time.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.28
Robert Rumble
{"title":"Hunters and hunted: the sinking of SS Arandora Star within the wider context of the Battle of the Atlantic 1939–1940","authors":"Robert Rumble","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.28","url":null,"abstract":"<p>On 2 July 1940, the ocean liner SS <span>Arandora Star</span> was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine <span>U-47</span>, with the loss of around 805 lives; over half of these were British-Italian civilian internees. This article approaches the event from the arena of Second World War military history, contextualising the sinking within the early Battle of the Atlantic. In so doing, it shifts the customary focus away from government internment policy and discussions of cultural legacy towards examining British and German naval strategies and realities. Tactical and logistical considerations of the conflict are investigated, the explication of which allows more detailed discussion of the sinking controversies and enables delivery of ‘answers’ to the persistent ‘questions’ of why <span>Arandora Star</span> was sailing unescorted and without Red Cross insignia. The broad perspective offered engages with transgression and culpability, and overall the article seeks to advance <span>Arandora Star</span> scholarship with its distinctive maritime focus.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.22
Simona Palladino
{"title":"Oral histories of Italians in the North-East of England: the sinking of the Arandora Star","authors":"Simona Palladino","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.22","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Within British-Italian history of the Second World War, there are several questions surrounding the sinking of the SS <span>Arandora Star</span>, on 2 July 1940, which still remain problematic. Nevertheless, this tragedy continues to play a prominent role in the heritage and memories of the Anglo-Italian communities in the UK. This article focuses on the experiences and memories of the <span>Arandora Star</span> from the perspective of members of the Italian community in the North-East of England. Oral histories of Italian civilian internees who were embarked onto the ocean liner were collected via qualitative interviews with descendants of victims and survivors. This article contributes to raising awareness of <span>Arandora</span> scholarship by articulating how memories were interpreted retrospectively and transmitted down generations. Informing the debate on the purpose of misremembering in oral history, this article sheds light on the events and their imaginary reconstruction.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.23
Rachel Pistol
{"title":"Enemy Aliens: internment and deportation policy in Great Britain, September 1939–June 1940","authors":"Rachel Pistol","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.23","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During the Second World War, Germans, Austrians and Italians living in Great Britain were designated as ‘enemy aliens’ and consequently interned. The worsening situation on the continent in May and June 1940 stirred up hysteria that spies and saboteurs could be amongst the Germans and Austrians. Mass arrests started in May 1940, and Italians were soon caught up in the detentions when Mussolini declared war on 10 June, thus filling internment camps to capacity. Canada and Australia agreed to take some of the ‘most dangerous characters’, facilitating the most controversial aspect of internment – deportation – which led to the ultimate tragedy when the SS <span>Arandora Star</span> was torpedoed and sunk on 2 July 1940. Building on previous scholarship that focuses on either German <span>or</span> Italian internment, this article examines both government policy towards and the internee experience of these two groups on an equal footing, thus furthering integration of the Italian narrative within internment historiography.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}