Objects in Italian Life and Culture: Fiction, Migration, and Artificiality

by Paolo Bartoloni

Overview

This book makes visible the hidden relations between things and individuals through a discussion of creative processes and cultural practices. Italian life and culture are filled with objects that cross, accompany, facilitate or disrupt experience, desires, and dreams. Yet in spite of their ubiquity, theoretical engagement in the Italian context is still underdeveloped. Paolo Bartoloni investigates four typologies—the fictional, migrant, multicultural/transnational, and the artificial—to hypothesize that the ability to treat things as partners of emotional and creative expression creates a sense of identity predicated on inclusivity, openness, care, and attention.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349956630
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	06/09/2018
Series:	Italian and Italian American Studies
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2016
Pages:	203
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

Paolo Bartoloni is Established Professor of Italian at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is the author of Sapere di scrivere. Svevo e gli ordigni di La coscienza di Zeno (2015); On the Cultures of Exile, Translation and Writing (2008); and Interstitial Writing: Calvino, Caproni, Sereni and Svevo (2003).

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Meaningful Places.- Fictional Objects.- Migrant Objects.- Multicultural and Transcultural Objects.- Objects as Props.- Conclusion.- Bibliography.-

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Bartoloni’s book is an inventive and far-reaching exploration of the place of objects in Italian life, culture, and thought. It engages with a fascinating range of both fictional and actual things, both as irreducible material presences and in the multiple modalities of their symbolic uses. A compelling interdisciplinary object in itself, this book makes strong intellectual claims for the contribution of the Italian perspective to the cultural and theoretical study of things.” (Laura Rascaroli, Professor of Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, Ireland)

“This book is a tour de force reading of modern and contemporary Italian artworks, artifacts, and social practices, as well as a brilliantly original and fascinating contribution to the literature on object-oriented ontology. Combining phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, Bartoloni reorients our perception of the world around us, exhorting us to give objects their due. A must-read for anyone interested in the cultural life of objects.” (Robert Doran, Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of Rochester, USA)

Editorial Reviews

Bartolini demonstrates a keen grasp of his subject, not only when he is exploring the scholarly landscape but also when considering broader themes and modalities, thus offering a balanced and discriminating analysis of the cultural life and value of objects in an Italian context. His typologies engage the reader and provide valuable theoretical and cultural insights for a more profound understanding of the life of objects and things.” (Diana Glenn, Italian American Review, Vol. 9 (1), 2019)

From the Publisher