- Cultural Theory, Gender and Sexuality, Queer Theory, Cyborg Feminism, Travel Writing, Victorian Literature, and 66 moreQueer Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Richard Francis Burton, Charles Dickens, Edward Morgan Forster, Victorian Studies, Victorian Art, Victorian poetry, Victorian Masculinity, Victorian periodicals, Victorian cultural studies, Victorian studies (Literature), Victorian Women Writers, Gothic Studies, Discourse Analysis, English Literature, Gender Studies, Postmodernism, Postmodern Literature, Theory of the Novel, Contemporary Fiction, Postmodern Fiction, Queer spaces, Jeanette Winterson, Contemporary British Fiction, Erotic Bodies: Gender and Sexuality, British Postmodern Literature, Bodily Transformation, Art & Lies, Crossing Boundaries, Margaret Atwood, Feminism, Antosa, Porn Studies, Bodies, Beatriz Preciado, Post pornography, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Nineteenth Century Studies, Victorian fiction, Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Nineteenth Century British History and Culture, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Aestheticism, Gothic Literature, Gothic Fiction, Sarah Waters, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Elizabeth Grosz, Literature and Trauma, Trauma Studies, Memory Studies, Neo-Victorian studies, Twenty-first Century Literature, British Literature, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), 20th Century British Literature, Modernism (Literature), Victorian Literature and Culture, Transgender, Translation Studies, and Translation theoryedit
- SILVIA ANTOSA è Professoressa Associata di Inglese presso l’Università per Stranieri di Siena e Direttrice del Centro... moreSILVIA ANTOSA è Professoressa Associata di Inglese presso l’Università per Stranieri di Siena e Direttrice del Centro per le Lingue Straniere - CLASS. Co-dirige la Collana di Studi di Letteratura e cultura inglese 'AngloSophia' per Mimesis. E' stata membro del Direttivo dell'Associazione Italiana di Anglistica (AIA) e co-editor del fascicolo di Cultura della rivista di fascia A "Textus: English Studies in Italy" (Carocci) dal 2017 al 2023. Ha pubblicato numerosi saggi ed articoli sulla narrativa, la poesia e la scrittura di viaggio dell’Ottocento inglese (Jane Austen, Richard F. Burton, George Eliot, Frances Elliot e Dante Gabriel Rossetti) e sul romanzo contemporaneo (Martin Amis, Jeffrey Eugenides, Stephen King, Eimear McBride, Will Self, Ali Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Jackie Kay, Sarah Waters, Rebecca Tamàs, Emma Donoghue ed altr*). E’ autrice di diversi studi monografici, tra cui: "Frances Elliot and Italy. Writing Travel, Writing the Self" (Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2018), di un volume sul viaggiatore e traduttore vittoriano Richard Francis Burton (Richard Francis Burton: Victorian Explorer and Translator, Bern, Oxford and New York, Peter Lang 2012) e di una monografia sulla scrittrice inglese contemporanea Jeanette Winterson (Crossing Boundaries: Bodily Paradigms in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction 1985-2000, Roma, Aracne 2008). Ha curato diversi volumi interdisciplinari sulle teorie e pratiche queer. Essi includono: Queer Crossings: Theories, Bodies, Texts (Milano-Udine, Mimesis 2012); Gender and Sexuality: Rights, Language and Performativity, (Roma, Aracne 2012) e Omosapiens II: Spazi e identità queer (Roma, Carocci 2007). Ha recentemente co-curato il fascicolo monografico della rivista De Genere “Soggetti transnazionali e identità interculturali: il viaggio e il Sud Globale” con Elisabetta Marino (2021). Attualmente sta lavorando con Charlotte Ross (University of Birmingham) ad un Progetto finanziato dalla British Academy e dal Leverhulme Trust su “Cultural Discourses on Desire between Women: A Queer Comparative Analysis”.
SILVIA ANTOSA is Associate Professor of English at the University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy, and the Director of the Centre for Foreign Languages - CLASS. She is the co-editor of the Series AngloSophia: Studies in English Literature and Culture (Mimesis). She has been a member of the Board of the Italian Association of English Studies (AIA) and a member of the editorial board of Textus. English Studies in Italy (Carocci) from 2017 to 2023. She has published extensively on Victorian fiction, nineteenth-century travel accounts and translations (Jane Austen, Richard F. Burton, George Eliot, Frances Elliot e Dante Gabriel Rossetti) and contemporary British novelists (Martin Amis, Jeffrey Eugenides, Stephen King, Eimear McBride, Will Self, Ali Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Jackie Kay, Sarah Waters, Rebecca Tamàs, Emma Donoghue and more). She is the author of the following monographs: Frances Elliot and Italy: Writing Travel, Writing the Self (Mimesis 2018); Richard Francis Burton: Victorian Explorer and Translator (Peter Lang, 2012) and Crossing Boundaries: Bodily Paradigms in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction 1985-2000 (Aracne 2008). Antosa has edited several inter- and transdisciplinary volumes on queer theories and practices, which include: Queer Crossings: Theories, Bodies, Texts (Mimesis 2012); Gender and Sexuality: Rights, Language and Performativity (Aracne 2012) and Omosapiens II: Spazi e identità queer (Carocci 2007). Antosa is a member of several international networks of Gender and Sexuality Studies. She has recently co-edited with E. Marino a special issue of the journal de genere on ‘Transnational Subjects and Intercultural Identities: the Global South’ (2021). She is currently working with Charlotte Ross (University of Birmingham) on a project funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust on “Cultural Discourses on Desire between Women: A Queer Comparative Analysis”.edit
Drawing together established and emerging scholars, this collection seeks to address some of the most recent developments in the fields of food studies and Victorian culture. Contributors explore national and inter/intranational... more
Drawing together established and emerging scholars, this collection seeks to address some of the most recent developments in the fields of food studies and Victorian culture. Contributors explore national and inter/intranational representations of food, by examining multiple texts ranging from “canonical” literature to popular culture and marginal sub-cultures. Focusing on the underside of Victorian society’s optimistic belief in progress, this volume suggests that the nineteenth century was not only marked by the dining etiquette and the culinary innovations promoted by manuals such as Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management. It was also a century of deviant food practices which gave voice to multifarious anxieties about ingestion and consumption. In line with the latest publications of the field, this collection investigates the transgressive facets of food in the representation of racial and gendered identities, in questions of taste and commodification, and more broadly, in the political, social and economic arena of the Victorian era.
Chapters by Silvia Antosa, Ilaria Berti, Claudia Capancioni, Maria Teresa Chialant, Silvana Colella, Emanuela Ettorre, William Greenslade, Pam Lock, Jude V. Nixon, Francesca Orestano, Oriana Palusci, Maria Parrino, Kim Salmons, Marilena Saracino, Eleonora Sasso, Luisa Villa.
Chapters by Silvia Antosa, Ilaria Berti, Claudia Capancioni, Maria Teresa Chialant, Silvana Colella, Emanuela Ettorre, William Greenslade, Pam Lock, Jude V. Nixon, Francesca Orestano, Oriana Palusci, Maria Parrino, Kim Salmons, Marilena Saracino, Eleonora Sasso, Luisa Villa.
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Frances Elliot was a British Victorian writer and traveller. She spent most of her life in Italy to which she dedicated much of her work: travelogues, social histories and various critical articles. This book identifies and critically... more
Frances Elliot was a British Victorian writer and traveller. She spent most of her life in Italy to which she dedicated much of her work: travelogues, social histories and various critical articles. This book identifies and critically analyses the strategies that she uses in her texts to construct an image of the Italian peninsula for her British contemporaries.
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I saggi che compongono questo volume indagano i campi teorici e tematici delle sex(t)ualities, ovvero le costruzioni e raffigurazioni testuali delle sessualità, con l’intento di decostruirne gli assiomi essenzialisti che in passato ne... more
I saggi che compongono questo volume indagano i campi teorici e tematici delle
sex(t)ualities, ovvero le costruzioni e raffigurazioni testuali delle sessualità, con l’intento di decostruirne gli assiomi essenzialisti che in passato ne hanno caratterizzato l’elaborazione e la categorizzazione. Pertanto, l’analisi delle sex(t)ualities attinge a piene mani dalle ossessioni culturali verso le raffigurazioni delle sessualità che attraversano il contesto contemporaneo. A
tal fine, i saggi che qui vengono presentati dispiegano una stimolante prospettiva multidisciplinare, dai cinema e film studies alla letteratura comparata e agli studi culturali, con cui rintracciare in testi filmici, televisivi, in narrazioni letterarie, nel mercato di massa del porno così nelle sue sottoculture e negli
emergenti immaginari tecnologici, le molteplici morfologie che il corpo sessualizzato assume nelle sue rappresentazioni e nelle sue costruzioni come entità politica.
sex(t)ualities, ovvero le costruzioni e raffigurazioni testuali delle sessualità, con l’intento di decostruirne gli assiomi essenzialisti che in passato ne hanno caratterizzato l’elaborazione e la categorizzazione. Pertanto, l’analisi delle sex(t)ualities attinge a piene mani dalle ossessioni culturali verso le raffigurazioni delle sessualità che attraversano il contesto contemporaneo. A
tal fine, i saggi che qui vengono presentati dispiegano una stimolante prospettiva multidisciplinare, dai cinema e film studies alla letteratura comparata e agli studi culturali, con cui rintracciare in testi filmici, televisivi, in narrazioni letterarie, nel mercato di massa del porno così nelle sue sottoculture e negli
emergenti immaginari tecnologici, le molteplici morfologie che il corpo sessualizzato assume nelle sue rappresentazioni e nelle sue costruzioni come entità politica.
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Nel 2016, l’Università di Enna «Kore» ha voluto partecipare ai festeggiamenti per il quarto centenario della morte dei due capisaldi della letteratura moderna europea e mondiale con un convegno interdisciplinare organizzato da Silvia... more
Nel 2016, l’Università di Enna «Kore» ha voluto partecipare ai festeggiamenti per il quarto centenario della morte dei due capisaldi della letteratura moderna
europea e mondiale con un convegno interdisciplinare organizzato da Silvia Antosa e Antonietta T. Messina Fajardo. Gli atti di tale iniziativa congressuale sono raccolti in questo volume, che esplora in una pluralità di direzioni e punti di vista differenziati l’attenzione su entrambi gli autori e soprattutto mette in luce come i capolavori dei due autori continuino a influenzare le scelte degli scrittori contemporanei non solo in Inghilterra e in Spagna ma a livello transnazionale.
europea e mondiale con un convegno interdisciplinare organizzato da Silvia Antosa e Antonietta T. Messina Fajardo. Gli atti di tale iniziativa congressuale sono raccolti in questo volume, che esplora in una pluralità di direzioni e punti di vista differenziati l’attenzione su entrambi gli autori e soprattutto mette in luce come i capolavori dei due autori continuino a influenzare le scelte degli scrittori contemporanei non solo in Inghilterra e in Spagna ma a livello transnazionale.
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This volume offers a critical insight into the life and work of the controversial Victorian explorer and translator Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890). Analysis focuses on his travel accounts and erotic translations, which both... more
This volume offers a critical insight into the life and work of the controversial Victorian explorer and translator Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890). Analysis focuses on his travel accounts and erotic translations, which both re-elaborated and challenged dominant Victorian discourses on race, gender and sexuality, generating controversies in the fields of anthropology, sexology and medicine. The premise of the study is that Burton entertained an ambiguous relationship with the colonial institutions: on the one hand, he pursued the colonial project, while on the other, he was an irreverent outsider who clashed with the imperial authorities. As this investigation reveals, he defied British sociocultural norms by appropriating and importing the rituals and languages of the colonial subjects. The volume examines Burton’s ‘impersonations’ of multiple masculine identities in the countries that he visited, which involved elaborate processes of
both identification and dis-identification. The author argues that these impersonations enabled a series of queer encounters which broke down the barriers between imperial Self and colonised Other, and led Burton to embody several self-conscious, performative constructions of masculinity. Burton’s life and works are analysed in light of recent critical and theoretical debates
both identification and dis-identification. The author argues that these impersonations enabled a series of queer encounters which broke down the barriers between imperial Self and colonised Other, and led Burton to embody several self-conscious, performative constructions of masculinity. Burton’s life and works are analysed in light of recent critical and theoretical debates
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"The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of writings on queer theories and practices.Drawing together established and emerging scholars in the field, this volume offers a broad, trans-disciplinary and international approach to queer... more
"The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of writings on queer theories and practices.Drawing together established and emerging scholars in the field, this volume offers a broad, trans-disciplinary and international approach to queer studies. In the light of recent critical perspectives, it proposes a number of theoretical developments concerning three key thematic fields: theories, bodies and texts. The first section of the volume considers the embodied, sexed and gendered self and its problematic relation with queer theories, animal studies as well as with the representation of non-human and intersex identities. The second section explores a variety of modes of representation, – and/or misrepresentation – of queer embodied subjectivities, ranging from literature to media and performance. In analysing a variety of classic and contemporary texts, the contributors call into question
and reconceptualise key issues such as queer subjectivity, homophobia, gender performativity, masquerade and cross-dressing."
and reconceptualise key issues such as queer subjectivity, homophobia, gender performativity, masquerade and cross-dressing."
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The book engages critically with two main aspects of the socio-cultural construction of gender and sexuality. The first section of the volume, Sexual Rights, is socio-political, and includes both the problem of the recognition of rights... more
The book engages critically with two main aspects of the socio-cultural construction of gender and sexuality. The first section of the volume, Sexual Rights, is socio-political, and includes both the problem of the recognition of rights for all individuals, especially LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer and intersexual) subjects, and the struggle to combat discrimination, that entails an analysis of and an opposition to homophobic discourses and actions. The second section of the volume, Media, Literature and Performativity, involves a theoretical elaboration of discursive and literary strategies that relate or can be applied to gendered and sexed identities. These two spheres of investigation have been addressed by the contributors to this volume using a variety of analytical approaches that are informed by and engage with recent developments in the field of gender and sexuality studies.
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Since the publication of her first novel, Jeanette Winterson has been acclaimed as one of the most promising writers on the English postmodern literary scene. This study takes into consideration seven works, from Oranges Are Not the Only... more
Since the publication of her first novel, Jeanette Winterson has been acclaimed as one of the most promising writers on the English postmodern literary scene. This study takes into consideration seven works, from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) to The PowerBook (2000) in which Winterson codifies bodies as culturally constructed signs which can be re-signified and transformed. The strategies she adopts to remodel the body reveal a narrative itinerary that goes from the assertion of the lesbian body of the protagonist in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit to the virtual bodies of the interactive world in The PowerBook. Crossing Boundaries investigates the way in which Winterson works out new bodily paradigms to subvert the effects of social power mechanisms and to dismantle the constructedness of sexual categories and gender differences. In re-mapping bodily boundaries, she also proves that there are almost unlimited possibilities to (de)construct patterns of identity and to remould reality as complex and many-sided.
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La collana Omosapiens: studi e ricerche sugli orientamenti sessuali nasce con il sostegno dell’Associazione culturale Di’Gay Project (DGP) di Roma ed è coordinata da Domenico Rizzo. Il secondo volume della collana, Spazi e identità queer... more
La collana Omosapiens: studi e ricerche sugli orientamenti sessuali nasce con il sostegno dell’Associazione culturale Di’Gay Project (DGP) di Roma ed è coordinata da Domenico Rizzo. Il secondo volume della collana, Spazi e identità queer si propone di esaminare a livello interdisciplinare il dibattito politico e ideologico incentrato sulla complessa relazione tra sessualità, identità di genere e spazio. Nella prima sezione sono raccolti contributi che discutono il ruolo che alcuni spazi sociali, istituzionali e non — la scuola, la famiglia, la società, la Chiesa, e gli stessi gruppi gay, lesbici, bisessuali, transessuali e queer (GLBTQ) — hanno nel processo di formazione identitaria. La seconda parte del volume è dedicata al problema dei confini, identitari e spaziali. In gioco sono infatti la sottile demarcazione tra identità nazionale eteronormativa e alterità (omo)sessuale, tra spazio pubblico e vita privata, tra spazi della narrazione e spazi di vita vissuta. L’ultima sezione raccoglie interventi sugli spazi transgender, ognuno dei quali riferisce di luoghi in cui sono inscritte traiettorie esperienziali diverse: Porto, Palermo e San Francisco. Completano il volume una rassegna bibliografica su spazi e identità queer, un quadro critico sui recenti studi GLBTQ in Polonia e area dell’ex-Jugoslavia, e una aggiornata bibliografia finale. Omosapiens.2include saggi a firma di studiosi provenienti dal mondo accademico italiano ed internazionale, e vede la partecipazione dei vincitori del premio tesi di laurea e di dottorato "Maria Baiocchi", organizzato da DGP.
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This article analyses the representation of the British National Health Service (NHS) in Government communication and news media in Britain as a crucial discursive figure of British national identity both during the months preceding the... more
This article analyses the representation of the British National Health
Service (NHS) in Government communication and news media in Britain
as a crucial discursive figure of British national identity both during the
months preceding the Brexit referendum of June 2016 and in the early
months of the diffusion of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We focus
on a number of issues regarding the ways in which the NHS has been
portrayed in the public arena. Both during the Brexit campaign and at the
onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the NHS was adopted as a powerful
unifying national symbol to be protected, thanks to a populist language
based on the adoption of quasi-religious tropes and mythical themes, war
metaphors, and praise for heroism. This populist language was charged
with rhetorical messages and slogans which turned the NHS into an image
of Britishness, as emerges especially from an analysis of the leading frontpage articles from the right-wing newspaper Daily Mail in the early phases of the pandemic.
Service (NHS) in Government communication and news media in Britain
as a crucial discursive figure of British national identity both during the
months preceding the Brexit referendum of June 2016 and in the early
months of the diffusion of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We focus
on a number of issues regarding the ways in which the NHS has been
portrayed in the public arena. Both during the Brexit campaign and at the
onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the NHS was adopted as a powerful
unifying national symbol to be protected, thanks to a populist language
based on the adoption of quasi-religious tropes and mythical themes, war
metaphors, and praise for heroism. This populist language was charged
with rhetorical messages and slogans which turned the NHS into an image
of Britishness, as emerges especially from an analysis of the leading frontpage articles from the right-wing newspaper Daily Mail in the early phases of the pandemic.
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Dossier Studi culturali in Italia
Numero speciale di Altre Modernità dedicato al delicato rapporto tra Studi culturali e università italiana
Numero speciale di Altre Modernità dedicato al delicato rapporto tra Studi culturali e università italiana
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This paper discusses the work of contemporary British poet and spoken word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of the author and/as... more
This paper discusses the work of contemporary British poet and spoken
word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the
triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of
the author and/as performer, and the traditional function of the (reading)
audience. It argues that her work questions in productive ways crucial
issues like authorship, ethical responsibility, inter- and transmedial textual
plurality, reception and oral narration. In Brand New Ancients (2013) in
particular, Tempest questions and deconstructs the form and the structure
of traditional epics by reversing a number of key features. Set in the
contemporary age, Tempest’s poem breaks down sociocultural boundaries
such as, for example, those between high and low, Gods or semi-divine
figures and lower-class, disenfranchised mortals and, in a metanarrative
move, between the figure of the poet and the readers/listeners, who are
transformed into potential members of an interactive postmodern dramatic
chorus. In this way, Tempest gives voice to a potentially endless spectrum of voiceless and marginalised subjectivities, whose subaltern status is erased in this new poetic hierarchy-free (inter)textual space where opposites can co-exist.
word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the
triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of
the author and/as performer, and the traditional function of the (reading)
audience. It argues that her work questions in productive ways crucial
issues like authorship, ethical responsibility, inter- and transmedial textual
plurality, reception and oral narration. In Brand New Ancients (2013) in
particular, Tempest questions and deconstructs the form and the structure
of traditional epics by reversing a number of key features. Set in the
contemporary age, Tempest’s poem breaks down sociocultural boundaries
such as, for example, those between high and low, Gods or semi-divine
figures and lower-class, disenfranchised mortals and, in a metanarrative
move, between the figure of the poet and the readers/listeners, who are
transformed into potential members of an interactive postmodern dramatic
chorus. In this way, Tempest gives voice to a potentially endless spectrum of voiceless and marginalised subjectivities, whose subaltern status is erased in this new poetic hierarchy-free (inter)textual space where opposites can co-exist.
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Isabel Arundell Burton (1831-96), was a Victorian writer and traveller, married to the famous British explorer, translator, and Consul Richard Francis Burton (1821-90). This article focuses on her 1875 travel account, Inner Life of Syria,... more
Isabel Arundell Burton (1831-96), was a Victorian writer and traveller, married to the famous British explorer, translator, and Consul Richard Francis Burton (1821-90). This article focuses on her 1875 travel account, Inner Life of Syria, Palestine and the Holy Land, because it is her first, sustained attempt to shape her public persona and to construct a convincing role for herself as devout wife, while leading a life that was ultimately unconventional. As I argue, in her fictionalised account she creates an ambivalent narrative of her life and travel experiences, in which she reconciled two opposing models of female subjectivity: the conventional myth of the angel in the house and the "transgressive" woman traveller. This article focuses on the formal strategies that Isabel adopts to construct a narrative that was acceptable to the Victorian readership and editorial market, including her declared attempt to "domesticate" her own potentially subversive agency. The article analyses the gendered discourses embedded in her word, especially those regarding women's complicity with and resistance to colonial constructions of femininity. Isabel draws on the consolidated image of the "traveller's wife" to forge a potentially new paradigm, the "Travelling Angel in the House," which reinforced the values of domesticity and submission while also partially legitimising women's access to public, masculine spaces. Furthermore, with reference to work by Mary Louise Pratt, I discuss the textual strategies that Isabel adopts to claim that she has remained immune to the process of transculturation by reinforcing her national and social identity of upper-class English woman. Overall, I demonstrate that Isabel's "Travelling Angel in the House" is animated by dynamic and unstable tensions, which derive from her attempts to simultaneously conform to and transgress dominant norms of the period.
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This article examines how the notion of normative, nuclear family is questioned, dismantled and expanded in Michael Cunningham’s novel A Home at the End of the World (1990). Told in four different voices, the story focuses on two young... more
This article examines how the notion of normative, nuclear family is questioned, dismantled and expanded in Michael Cunningham’s novel A Home at the End of the World (1990). Told in four different voices, the story focuses on two young boys who grow up in Cleveland in the 1970s and who come from different social backgrounds. As I argue, in this novel Cunningham narrativizes the process of reconstructing or forging ‘alternative’ queer family and kinship bonds, and demonstrates that both blood, biological and affective, nonbiological ties are all transient and subject to change. Moreover, by drawing on trauma studies, I discuss the extent to which macro- and microtraumas affect the characters’ lives, as is clear from the different perspectives provided by the four narrators. Ultimately, what emerges from their narratives is the need to articulate and transform deep emotional traumas into a never-ending search for the self and love.
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In this essay, I explore how these issues are reworked and deconstructed by Stephen King in his 1992 novel Gerald’s Game. Significantly, in this text, King subverts the triangular structure villain-father-heroine by gradually... more
In this essay, I explore how these issues are reworked
and deconstructed by Stephen King in his 1992 novel
Gerald’s Game. Significantly, in this text, King subverts the
triangular structure villain-father-heroine by gradually reversing
the female character’s role, as she evolves from a
passive, vulnerable victim to an active protagonist of the
story. Such a change is possible only through her confronting
and overcoming the “buried, ominous secret”: a traumatic
event of sexual abuse which she experienced in her childhood. I demonstrate that the issues of vulnerability and trauma are central to a feminist reworking in a contemporary
key of traditional Gothic-horror tropes, themes and
characterisation.
and deconstructed by Stephen King in his 1992 novel
Gerald’s Game. Significantly, in this text, King subverts the
triangular structure villain-father-heroine by gradually reversing
the female character’s role, as she evolves from a
passive, vulnerable victim to an active protagonist of the
story. Such a change is possible only through her confronting
and overcoming the “buried, ominous secret”: a traumatic
event of sexual abuse which she experienced in her childhood. I demonstrate that the issues of vulnerability and trauma are central to a feminist reworking in a contemporary
key of traditional Gothic-horror tropes, themes and
characterisation.
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In this article I discuss the influence exercised by the Anthropological Society of London and the Cannibal Club in shaping and establishing coexisting discourses around male homosocial bonding, male-male desire and male homosexuality in... more
In this article I discuss the influence exercised by the Anthropological Society of London and the Cannibal Club in shaping and establishing coexisting discourses around male homosocial bonding, male-male desire and male homosexuality in mid- and late-Victorian London. Moreover, I argue that the queer, competing models of sexuality discussed within them were profoundly influenced by nineteenth-century discourses of race and by late-Victorian society’s interest in the pornographic, especially in the informal gatherings of the ‘Cannibals’. So far, only a few works have emphasised the mutual construction of race and homosexuality. Even fewer works have outlined the connection between pornography and the development of new understandings of sexuality. I show how the mutual construction of race and gender carried out in the official space of the Society paved the way for more transgressive (homo)sexual readings of pornography in the Cannibal Club.
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In this article I this article examines the complex relation between “hybridisation and appropriation” in Waters’s first novel, Tipping the Velvet, whose formal and thematic structure is marked by a tension between originality and... more
In this article I this article examines the complex relation between “hybridisation and appropriation” in Waters’s first novel, Tipping the Velvet, whose formal and thematic structure is marked by a tension between originality and adherence to tradition. My contention is that in this novel Waters ‘appropriates’ the Victorian literary (sub)genres of the Bildungsroman and the picaresque novel to subversively recast
the gender and sexual stereotypes on which those narrative forms are traditionally founded. Her novels show how notions of ‘deviance’13 were constructed at a sociocultural level; moreover, her works encourage audiences to analyse and resignify those acts and behaviours that were perceived to be deviant as bold, radical transgressions. In addition, I discuss the extent to which Waters’s adaptation of these Victorian narrative forms in Tipping the Velvet allows her to interrogate both the historical
novel as a ‘performative’ narrative and the hegemonic ideals regarding gender identities, sexuality and class issues through the notion of performativity.
the gender and sexual stereotypes on which those narrative forms are traditionally founded. Her novels show how notions of ‘deviance’13 were constructed at a sociocultural level; moreover, her works encourage audiences to analyse and resignify those acts and behaviours that were perceived to be deviant as bold, radical transgressions. In addition, I discuss the extent to which Waters’s adaptation of these Victorian narrative forms in Tipping the Velvet allows her to interrogate both the historical
novel as a ‘performative’ narrative and the hegemonic ideals regarding gender identities, sexuality and class issues through the notion of performativity.
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My article analyses the ways in which trauma governs the fictional world of Irish writer Eimear McBride’s debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, published in 2013. In telling the coming-of-age story of an unnamed, young girl in 1980s... more
My article analyses the ways in which trauma governs the fictional world of
Irish writer Eimear McBride’s debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing,
published in 2013. In telling the coming-of-age story of an unnamed, young
girl in 1980s Ireland from her birth to her twenties, McBride explores the
girl’s sexual awakening through several layers of trauma, ranging from verbal
and sexual abuse to Catholic taboos, class differences and the disability of
the protagonist’s brother. I examine how the tangled web of unresolved
tensions impact both her self-representation and McBride’s development
of a new form of narration. Drawing on recent trauma theories, I analyse
how the novel engages with the paradox of articulating the so-called
unspeakable core of trauma by fictionally re-enacting it through narration.
Moreover, I investigate the ways in which such an articulation is played
out: by adopting a highly experimental style, which is very much indebted
to the Modernist search for formal innovation, McBride develops new
ways of giving voice to traumatic experience.
Key-words: trauma, female sexuality, abjection, language.
Irish writer Eimear McBride’s debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing,
published in 2013. In telling the coming-of-age story of an unnamed, young
girl in 1980s Ireland from her birth to her twenties, McBride explores the
girl’s sexual awakening through several layers of trauma, ranging from verbal
and sexual abuse to Catholic taboos, class differences and the disability of
the protagonist’s brother. I examine how the tangled web of unresolved
tensions impact both her self-representation and McBride’s development
of a new form of narration. Drawing on recent trauma theories, I analyse
how the novel engages with the paradox of articulating the so-called
unspeakable core of trauma by fictionally re-enacting it through narration.
Moreover, I investigate the ways in which such an articulation is played
out: by adopting a highly experimental style, which is very much indebted
to the Modernist search for formal innovation, McBride develops new
ways of giving voice to traumatic experience.
Key-words: trauma, female sexuality, abjection, language.
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In "Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles" (2005), Jeanette Winterson reimagines the heroic stories of Atlas and Heracles by giving them new meanings and forms. The novel alternates between a third-person narrator, who tells Atlas' and... more
In "Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles" (2005), Jeanette Winterson reimagines the heroic stories of Atlas and Heracles by giving them new meanings and forms. The novel alternates between a third-person narrator, who tells Atlas' and Heracles' stories, and a first-person narrator who represents the writer herself, in turn interwoven with Atlas' first-person voice. I show how the novel is made up of multiple layers that subvert and transgress the borders of literary genres such as autobiography, epic tale, fantasy and historical fiction through the adoption of myth. I explore how the trio of narrative voices and the deconstruction of canonical literary genres allow Winterson to unveil the multi-directional process of identity-making and to reshape the identity of the narrating 'I' as a way of overcoming trauma. She alternates between identifying with/and differentiating herself from the two male mythic heroes, thus queering gender and sexual binaries. I investigate the symbolic meanings of the two mythic characters, and their influence on the construction of the narrator.
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Published in 2012 for the four-hundredth anniversary of the 1612 Trial of the Lancashire Witches, Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate is set in the early seventeenth century during the reign of James I, when all forms of heresy... more
Published in 2012 for the four-hundredth anniversary of the 1612 Trial of the Lancashire Witches, Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate is set in the early seventeenth century during the reign of James I, when all forms of heresy (Catholics, witches, and political dissidents) were condemned. In her novel, Winterson focuses on the persecution of women as witches and combines her interest in the historical oppression of marginalised female subjectivities with her exploration of the motif of the queer love triangle. This is accomplished through her adoption of the Gothic, which provides a space in which to challenge society’s hegemonic values. Winterson explores and articulates women’s abuse and exploitation, female same-sex relationships, as well as non-hegemonic forms of masculinity.
This article analyses the ways in which Winterson gives voice to those men and women who have been defined in oppositional terms to the symbolic order because they were perceived as threatening to the dominant discourses. As I demonstrate, in imaginatively rereading events through the perspective of one of the historical characters, Alice Nutter, Winterson rejects the official version of the trials and adopts the Gothic mode to re-assert the denied voice of its protagonists. In so doing, she creates a lesbo-feminist genealogy that gives representation to the lives of queer individuals, whose ‘haunting’ presences have not been taken into account by historiographical records. Moreover, I investigate how Winterson exploits a number of standard Gothic tropes in order to enhance their subversive and queer meanings. I argue that The Daylight Gate makes explicit the queerness inherent in the Gothic by tying it to a love triangle between two women and a man.
This article analyses the ways in which Winterson gives voice to those men and women who have been defined in oppositional terms to the symbolic order because they were perceived as threatening to the dominant discourses. As I demonstrate, in imaginatively rereading events through the perspective of one of the historical characters, Alice Nutter, Winterson rejects the official version of the trials and adopts the Gothic mode to re-assert the denied voice of its protagonists. In so doing, she creates a lesbo-feminist genealogy that gives representation to the lives of queer individuals, whose ‘haunting’ presences have not been taken into account by historiographical records. Moreover, I investigate how Winterson exploits a number of standard Gothic tropes in order to enhance their subversive and queer meanings. I argue that The Daylight Gate makes explicit the queerness inherent in the Gothic by tying it to a love triangle between two women and a man.
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Se storicamente la cultura italiana è stata segnata da una forte lesbofobia e le lesbiche sono state quasi interamente assenti, patologizzate e marginalizzate nella rappresentazione discorsiva pubblica, in tempi più recenti abbiamo... more
Se storicamente la cultura italiana è stata segnata da una forte lesbofobia e le lesbiche sono state quasi interamente assenti, patologizzate e marginalizzate nella rappresentazione discorsiva pubblica, in tempi più recenti abbiamo assistito ad una maggiore presenza delle lesbiche persino in TV e in riviste di larga diffusione come Vanity Fair. Negli ultimi dieci anni infatti sono usciti diversi romanzi e film italiani che includono rapporti tra donne, come ad esempio Acciaio di Silvia Avallone (2010), L’abbraccio di Silvia Cossu (2006), Riparo di Marco Simon Puccioni (2007), Il richiamo di Stefano Pasetto (2012). Tuttavia, tale maggiore visibilità non ha portato ad una maggiore dicibilità dell’identità lesbica: in tali rappresentazioni le relazioni tra donne continuano ad essere associate a comportamenti patologici, alla malattia e a diverse forme di abiezione; inoltre, le loro relazioni sono quasi sempre puntualmente destinate a fallire.
Allo stesso tempo, negli ultimi anni alcuni personaggi mediatici femminili che sono in una relazione con altre donne hanno finalmente iniziato a sviluppare un certo livello di apertura riguardo alla loro sessualità. Però in molti casi esse rifiutano di definirsi e di essere definite ‘lesbiche’. Questo accade perche siamo andati oltre le etichette identitarie? O si tratta di una forma di lesbofobia interiorizzata che si attualizza nella negazione linguistica che diventa a sua volta una forma di autonegazione identitaria? In ogni caso, si tratta di un fenomeno in costante crescita, che indica che il termine ‘lesbica’ porta con sè ancora un forte stigma socio-culturale, oltre che strettamente linguistico. In questo articolo esploriamo tali questioni in relazione all’evoluzione della figura della lesbica nel cinema, nella letteratura e nei media contemporanei italiani.
Allo stesso tempo, negli ultimi anni alcuni personaggi mediatici femminili che sono in una relazione con altre donne hanno finalmente iniziato a sviluppare un certo livello di apertura riguardo alla loro sessualità. Però in molti casi esse rifiutano di definirsi e di essere definite ‘lesbiche’. Questo accade perche siamo andati oltre le etichette identitarie? O si tratta di una forma di lesbofobia interiorizzata che si attualizza nella negazione linguistica che diventa a sua volta una forma di autonegazione identitaria? In ogni caso, si tratta di un fenomeno in costante crescita, che indica che il termine ‘lesbica’ porta con sè ancora un forte stigma socio-culturale, oltre che strettamente linguistico. In questo articolo esploriamo tali questioni in relazione all’evoluzione della figura della lesbica nel cinema, nella letteratura e nei media contemporanei italiani.
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Research Interests: Sexuality, Performativity, Jeanette Winterson, Bodies, Passion, and 3 moreQueer Theories, Texts, and Antosa
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This paper discusses the work of contemporary British poet and spoken word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of the author and/as... more
This paper discusses the work of contemporary British poet and spoken word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of the author and/as performer, and the traditional function of the (reading) audience. It argues that her work questions in productive ways crucial issues like authorship, ethical responsibility, inter- and transmedial textual plurality, reception and oral narration. In Brand New Ancients (2013) in particular, Tempest questions and deconstructs the form and the structure of traditional epics by reversing a number of key features. Set in the contemporary age, Tempest’s poem breaks down sociocultural boundaries such as, for example, those between high and low, Gods or semi-divine figures and lower-class, disenfranchised mortals and, in a metanarrative move, between the figure of the poet and the readers/listeners, who are transformed into potential members of an interactive postmodern dramatic chorus. In this way, Tempest gives voice to a potentially endless spectrum of voiceless and marginalised subjectivities, whose subaltern status is erased in this new poetic hierarchy-free (inter)textual space where opposites can co-exist.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Sexuality, Performativity, Jeanette Winterson, Bodies, and 4 morePassion, Queer Theories, Texts, and Antosa
This paper discusses the work of contemporary British poet and spoken word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of the author and/as... more
This paper discusses the work of contemporary British poet and spoken word performer Kate Tempest, whose postmodern poems challenge the triangular relationship between written and/or performed text, the role of the author and/as performer, and the traditional function of the (reading) audience. It argues that her work questions in productive ways crucial issues like authorship, ethical responsibility, inter- and transmedial textual plurality, reception and oral narration. In Brand New Ancients (2013) in particular, Tempest questions and deconstructs the form and the structure of traditional epics by reversing a number of key features. Set in the contemporary age, Tempest’s poem breaks down sociocultural boundaries such as, for example, those between high and low, Gods or semi-divine figures and lower-class, disenfranchised mortals and, in a metanarrative move, between the figure of the poet and the readers/listeners, who are transformed into potential members of an interactive postmodern dramatic chorus. In this way, Tempest gives voice to a potentially endless spectrum of voiceless and marginalised subjectivities, whose subaltern status is erased in this new poetic hierarchy-free (inter)textual space where opposites can co-exist.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Sexuality, Performativity, Jeanette Winterson, Bodies, and 4 morePassion, Queer Theories, Texts, and Antosa
Contents: Nation and Empire: Late Victorian Discourses on Race, Gender and Sexuality - Richard F. Burton's Travel Writings: Queer Performative Encounters and Male Homosociality - Burton's Oriental Translations: The Exotic and the... more
Contents: Nation and Empire: Late Victorian Discourses on Race, Gender and Sexuality - Richard F. Burton's Travel Writings: Queer Performative Encounters and Male Homosociality - Burton's Oriental Translations: The Exotic and the Erotic.
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Contents: Nation and Empire: Late Victorian Discourses on Race, Gender and Sexuality - Richard F. Burton's Travel Writings: Queer Performative Encounters and Male Homosociality - Burton's Oriental Translations: The Exotic and the... more
Contents: Nation and Empire: Late Victorian Discourses on Race, Gender and Sexuality - Richard F. Burton's Travel Writings: Queer Performative Encounters and Male Homosociality - Burton's Oriental Translations: The Exotic and the Erotic.
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Collana che nasce con lo scopo di tradurre in italiano e far conoscere testi teatrali che si interessano ai temi della migrazione e dell'integrazione
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The article evaluates the impact that the emerging scientific discourses had on the literary production of the second half of the nineteenth century in Englan
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This article analyses the representation of the British National Health Service (NHS) in Government communication and news media in Britain as a crucial discursive figure of British national identity both during the months preceding the... more
This article analyses the representation of the British National Health Service (NHS) in Government communication and news media in Britain as a crucial discursive figure of British national identity both during the months preceding the Brexit referendum of June 2016 and in the early months of the diffusion of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We focus on a number of issues regarding the ways in which the NHS has been portrayed in the public arena. Both during the Brexit campaign and at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the NHS was adopted as a powerful unifying national symbol to be protected, thanks to a populist language based on the adoption of quasi-religious tropes and mythical themes, war metaphors, and praise for heroism. This populist language was charged with rhetorical messages and slogans which turned the NHS into an image of Britishness, as emerges especially from an analysis of the leading front-page articles from the right-wing newspaper Daily Mail in the early phases of the pandemic. Keywords: NHS, Brexit, Britishness, Covid-19, nationalism, pandemic, Daily Mail.
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Since the publication of her first novel, Jeanette Winterson has been acclaimed as one of the most promising writers on the English postmodern literary scene. This study takes into consideration seven works, from Oranges Are Not the Only... more
Since the publication of her first novel, Jeanette Winterson has been acclaimed as one of the most promising writers on the English postmodern literary scene. This study takes into consideration seven works, from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) to The PowerBook (2000) in which Winterson codifies bodies as culturally constructed signs which can be re-signified and transformed. The strategies she adopts to remodel the body reveal a narrative itinerary that goes from the assertion of the lesbian body of the protagonist in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit to the virtual bodies of the interactive world in The PowerBook. Crossing Boundaries investigates the way in which Winterson works out new bodily paradigms to subvert the effects of social power mechanisms and to dismantle the constructedness of sexual categories and gender differences. In re-mapping bodily boundaries, she also proves that there are almost unlimited possibilities to (de)construct patterns of identity and to remould reality as complex and many-sided.
Research Interests: Art and Postmodernism
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Research Interests: Art and Queer Theory
Se storicamente la cultura italiana è stata segnata da una forte lesbofobia e le lesbiche sono state quasi interamente assenti, patologizzate e marginalizzate nella rappresentazione discorsiva pubblica, in tempi più recenti abbiamo... more
Se storicamente la cultura italiana è stata segnata da una forte lesbofobia e le lesbiche sono state quasi interamente assenti, patologizzate e marginalizzate nella rappresentazione discorsiva pubblica, in tempi più recenti abbiamo assistito ad una maggiore presenza delle lesbiche persino in TV e in riviste di larga diffusione come Vanity Fair. Negli ultimi dieci anni infatti sono usciti diversi romanzi e film italiani che includono rapporti tra donne, come ad esempio Acciaio di Silvia Avallone (2010), L’abbraccio di Silvia Cossu (2006), Riparo di Marco Simon Puccioni (2007), Il richiamo di Stefano Pasetto (2012). Tuttavia, tale maggiore visibilità non ha portato ad una maggiore dicibilità dell’identità lesbica: in tali rappresentazioni le relazioni tra donne continuano ad essere associate a comportamenti patologici, alla malattia e a diverse forme di abiezione; inoltre, le loro relazioni sono quasi sempre puntualmente destinate a fallire. Allo stesso tempo, negli ultimi anni alcuni personaggi mediatici femminili che sono in una relazione con altre donne hanno finalmente iniziato a sviluppare un certo livello di apertura riguardo alla loro sessualità. Però in molti casi esse rifiutano di definirsi e di essere definite ‘lesbiche’. Questo accade perche siamo andati oltre le etichette identitarie? O si tratta di una forma di lesbofobia interiorizzata che si attualizza nella negazione linguistica che diventa a sua volta una forma di autonegazione identitaria? In ogni caso, si tratta di un fenomeno in costante crescita, che indica che il termine ‘lesbica’ porta con sè ancora un forte stigma socio-culturale, oltre che strettamente linguistico. In questo articolo esploriamo tali questioni in relazione all’evoluzione della figura della lesbica nel cinema, nella letteratura e nei media contemporanei italiani.
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Franco Brioschi, Costanzo Di Girolamo, Massimo Fusillo, Introduzione alla letteratura. Nuova edizione, Roma, Carocci, 2013, pp. 319, ISBN 978-88-430-6941-5
The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of writings on queer theories and practices. Drawing together established and emerging scholars in the field, this volume offers a broad, transdisciplinary and international approach to queer... more
The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of writings on queer theories and practices. Drawing together established and emerging scholars in the field, this volume offers a broad, transdisciplinary and international approach to queer studies. In the light of recent critical perspectives, it proposes a number of theoretical developments concerning three key thematic fields: theories, bodies and texts. The first section of the volume considers the embodied, sexed and gendered self and its problematic relation with queer theories, animal studies as well as with the representation of non-human and intersex identities. The second section explores a variety of modes of representation, and/or misrepresentation, of queer embodied subjectivities, ranging from literature to media and performance. In analysing a variety of classic and contemporary texts, the contributors call into question and reconceptualise key issues such as queer subjectivity, homophobia, gender performativity, masquer...
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This article examines how the notion of normative, nuclear family is questioned, dismantled and expanded in Michael Cunningham’s novel A Home at the End of the World (1990). Told in four different voices, the story focuses on two young... more
This article examines how the notion of normative, nuclear family is questioned, dismantled and expanded in Michael Cunningham’s novel A Home at the End of the World (1990). Told in four different voices, the story focuses on two young boys who grow up in Cleveland in the 1970s and who come from different social backgrounds. As I argue, in this novel Cunningham narrativizes the process of reconstructing or forging ‘alternative’ queer family and kinship bonds, and demonstrates that both blood, biological and affective, nonbiological ties are all transient and subject to change. Moreover, by drawing on trauma studies, I discuss the extent to which macro- and microtraumas affect the characters’ lives, as is clear from the different perspectives provided by the four narrators. Ultimately, what emerges from their narratives is the need to articulate and transform deep emotional traumas into a never-ending search for the self and love.
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In her work, Jeanette Winterson consistently shows an interest in history and the way in which it has been transmitted through generations. In particular, she attempts to fill in the gaps of historical representation by shedding light on... more
In her work, Jeanette Winterson consistently shows an interest in history and the way in which it has been transmitted through generations. In particular, she attempts to fill in the gaps of historical representation by shedding light on those identities that were marginalised and made invisible because they ostensibly violated society’s norms, or because they were perceived as deviant and threatening for the social order. From her first novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) to her more recent works, Winterson reclaims a verbal and symbolic space for those subjects whom society has failed to recognise. Winterson narratively revisits history by adopting and combining several technical postmodern strategies, such as historiographic metafiction, parody, intertextuality, self-reflectivity and pastiche. In so doing, she aims to explore the cultural construction of sexual and gender identities as well as to challenge patriarchal and heterosexual hegemonic discourses.
Poster and program of the International Conference "Generi di confine: attraversamenti, scritture, culture" – "Bordering Genders/Genres/Genera: Crossings, Writings, Cultures" March 26, 2021: online (Microsoft Teams) Convened by Silvia... more
Poster and program of the International Conference "Generi di confine: attraversamenti, scritture, culture" – "Bordering Genders/Genres/Genera: Crossings, Writings, Cultures"
March 26, 2021: online (Microsoft Teams)
Convened by Silvia Antosa (“Kore” University of Enna), Mariaconcetta Costantini ("G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara) and Mara Mattoscio ("G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara)
March 26, 2021: online (Microsoft Teams)
Convened by Silvia Antosa (“Kore” University of Enna), Mariaconcetta Costantini ("G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara) and Mara Mattoscio ("G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara)