The concept of feminicide (‘femminicidio’) has been recently introduced to the Italian socio-political context and since 2012 a prolific theoretical debate on the topic has begun, both on traditional media and on the Internet. This article aims at analysing the current online discussion on feminicide and, in particular, the synergy of dialogue and activism which has appeared within the domain of feminist blogs. Drawing from the theoretical and methodological framework of Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA), my objective is to investigate the bloggers’ ability to promote existing theories on sexist murders for a larger readership (popularization) and to redefine the notion of feminicide with new socially relevant meanings capable of extending the discursive perimeter of existing feminist theories on the phenomenon (politicization).
This paper investigates two contemporary Italian novels on the topic of femicide (femminicidio) -Undicesimo comandamento (2011) by Elena Mearini and Padreterno (2015) by Caterina Serra -drawing on feminist insights that consider practices of both revising and retrieving mythology as an opportunity to start a process of resymbolisation that could challenge patriarchal discrimination and violence. In particular, Mearini's decision to re-write the Christian myth of the cross in order to tell the story of a woman annihilated by her partner's violence and Serra's use of the Greek myth of Aristaeus to retrieve a story of femicide told by a male offender who undertakes a process of self-awareness will be considered as part of the same contemporary Italian tendency to tackle lethal gender violence against women by means of literary representations and storytelling.
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