Gian Paolo Callegari’s prize-winning 1948 play, Cristo ha ucciso, marks an overlooked milestone in Italy’s response to the Holocaust. Among the earliest Italian creative works to confront the genocide of the European Jews, Callegari’s play challenged the legacies of anti-Semitism in European culture. Yet it also concealed the troubling histo…[Read more]

Taking a page from eighteenth century philosopher Gianbattista Vico, this is a brief reflection on how Italian Studies scholars might view their work differently in light of the digital turn.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Italian intellectuals participated in Italy’s reconstruction with an ideological commitment inspired by the African-American struggle for equal rights in the United States. Drawing on the work of authors including Italo Calvino, Giorgio Caproni, Cesare Pavese, and Elio Vittorini, this essay argues that p…[Read more]

Review of Catalan translation of Dino Buzzati

Reveiw of Spanish translation of Primo Levi, “Ad ora incerta”

The aim of this article is that of clarifying those issues of the analysis of the conditional structures in Italian which are more difficult to pin down. Once their «double nature»
(temporal and modal) is established, attention is switched to the most conflicting aspects shown by the conditional structures («mixed» hypothetical periods, rep…[Read more]

Review of Spanish translation of Canti Orfici by Dino Campana

In this interview, granted by Helga Schneider in November 2002, the ideas that predominante in all her novels are present, from the impossibility of forgiveness to the refusal of
hatred. Schneider shows the horrors of Nazism from within and interprets Evil from the viewpoint of its trivial daily expressions, illuminating the shady areas hidden by…[Read more]

Review of the Catalan translation of “L’umorismo”

A paper describing an undergraduate course on science and literature in the Italian cultural tradition.

From the volume’s introduction: “Il primo capitolo di Charles L. Leavitt IV introduce la sezione ricostruendo il contesto culturale del ‘neo-umanesimo’ esistenzialista che si diffuse nell’immediato dopoguerra e che influì profondamente sul modo di raccontare e comprendere lo sterminio nazista. Vedendo in Elio Vittorini un autore che si inserì nel…[Read more]

The Oulipo has claimed that foreign member, Italo Calvino, was a key proponent of the clinamen, a purposeful deviation from the strict constraints in which the group specializes. However, upon closer inspection, Calvino’s Oulipian production during his Paris period does not seem to advance a formalized definition of this tool of constrained w…[Read more]