Futurist mediterraneità between Emporium and Imperium

The Mediterranean alternative

“…Inspired by a number of utopian thinkers and strongly influenced by the ideas of Saint---Simon (for a synthesis see Heffernan, 1999;also Temine, 2002), this tradition becomes first consolidated within the so---called 'Algiers school' (Talbayev, 2007), subsequently intersecting with the experience of the Cahiers du Sud (in particular those published in 1943), the journal founded by Jean Ballard and published in Marseilles between 1925and 1969(Freixe, 2002Paire, 1993). The conceptualisation of the Mediterranean suggested by this literature is explicitly opposed to understandings popularised in European totalitarian and authoritarian circles during the 1930s that specified the Mediterranean as the space of the latinità: a vision strongly supported by the Italian Fascist regime (Fogu, 2008;Nelis, 2007;Rodogno, 2003) but also many of its French sympathizers such as Louis Bertrand and Charles Maurras Lindenberg, 2000).…”

Comparatico(godparenthood) as an emblematic form of social capital among Australian families originating from rural Calabria living in Adelaide, South Australia

“…As has been noted in many discussions of the Southern Question (Fogu ; Piselli and Arrighi ; Petrusewicz ), Calabria was perceived as economically, politically and geographically distant from the wealthier regions of northern Italy, and hence far from the hegemonic official power structure of the rest of Italy, and rural Calabrians can thus be seen as a subaltern culture: for Gramsci (), this is a culture which conceives and interprets its lifeworld in opposition to the official hegemonic culture expressed by the dominant class.…”

Futurism, Territory and War in the Work of Fortunato Depero

“…As Jeffrey Schnapp has pointed out, for example, in Marinetti's writings there is a continuous 'alternation between a militant advocacy of internationalism and an imperial conception of culture and politics' (Schnapp, 1990: 62). The desire to colonize and occupy neighbouring countries including Libya, Albania, and Eritrea had been part of Italian nationalist ambitions since unification, and such ideas were assimilated under the geo-political rubric of the 'Mediterranean' which was gaining momentum in the country during the early 1920s (Fogu, 2008). When critics noted comparisons between Depero's work and, for example, artworks from Africa, it could represent part of a colonialist, expanded notion of Italy which would incorporate such countries including Libya and Eritrea as the subject of invasions and occupations by Italian forces in recent times.…”