italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Dear Italian-Studies
Subscribers,
I hope the following will be of interest to
you:
The Passeggiata and
Popular Culture in an Italian Town
Folklore and the Performance of
Modernity
Giovanna P. Del Negro
An
immigrant daughter who returned to her mother's home town, Giovanna Del Negro
spent a year doing intensive fieldwork in the homes and public spaces of Sasso.
She reveals the diverse reactions that Sassani have to industrialization,
changing gender roles, immigration, and the proliferation of the global media.
Unlike accounts that focus exclusively on large-scale social forces or universal
theories of historical change, this study, set against the backdrop of Italy's
mid-1990s corruption scandals, centres on the experiences of ordinary people and
the culturally specific ways that modernity reveals itself in a particular
place.
Del Negro focuses on the passeggiata, and her evocative
descriptions of dressing, walking, courting, and socializing in the piazza paint
a vivid picture of this event. Sassani pride themselves on their urbane
sophistication, only half jokingly referring to their town as "our little
Paris." Del Negro shows how different segments of Sassani society (older women
and teenage girls, motorbike boys and established professionals) use passeggiata
performances to depict themselves as modern, stake their place in the town's
collective self-image, and debate the meaning of modernity. Examining everything
from Sassani interpretations of tabloid television and soap operas to community
games and postcards, Del Negro casts her net wide to illuminate the local
culture. Richly sophisticated yet highly accessible, this innovative study
speaks to contemporary debates about modernity and globalization.
Giovanna P. Del Negro is assistant professor of English at Texas A&M
University.
£16.95 Paper
0-7735-2739-7
August 2005
200 pages
36 Black& white photographs
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