Introduzione

Abstract

Nonostante il recente interesse della storiografia verso lo statuto teorico della biografia e le conoscenze sempre più estese dell’influsso della cultura classica nella civiltà rinascimentale europea, lo studio delle vite femminili tra Umanesimo e Rinascimento è tema di ricerca poco esplorato. La mancanza di un’espressione letteraria compiuta e autonoma di biografia femminile, prima di giungere alla grande Elisabetta d’Inghilterra, ha distolto gli storici della letteratura dall’indagine in questo settore, e non ha incuriosito gli storici della cultura e della storiografia. Tema specifico del Colloquio organizzato a Firenze nel 1999 nell’ambito della Convenzione tra l’École française de Rome e il Dipartimento di studi storici e geografici era quello della origine della biografia laica femminile, che nella prima età moderna si propone e impone in forme proprie all’interno della più diffusa e ben codificata scrittura agiografica ; il problema posto era quello di verificare in termini comparativi se e in quali contesti la proposizione prevalentemente pedagogica delle vite delle «donne illustri » stimola la riflessione sui rapporti di genere e sviluppa un interesse per le biografie femminili ; se altre fonti letterarie o documentarie concorrono nel medesimo periodo a sviluppare una tipologia della rappresentazione biografica femminile che si differenzi anche per status vitae e ceti sociali.

Hip-hop, identity, and conflict: Practices and transformations of a metropolitan culture

“…Hip-hop presents itself as a strong antagonist philosophy developed in the ghettos of U.S metropolis (Barile, 2019 , p. IX). From the beginning, we have seen that the leading force of rap music represented the distinguishing mark of this culture, whose set of languages includes, besides Rap (or Mc'ing), Writing, Dj'ing (or Turntablism), and break dance.…”

“…With the break dancing phenomenon, exploded in the Eighties and Nineties, the B-boys (or Fly-Girl) acquire a visibility (also in the media), mostly identifying in a process of stylistic creation, or in the rearrangement and re-contextualization of objects and communicating “new meanings, inside a system of values which already includes connotations sedimented from the origin and connected to those objects” (Clarke, 2003 , p. 205). By expropriating and re-appropriating in this way cultural meanings (Clarke et al, 2003 , p. 76), the B-boys were used to wear “suits, sport shoes, caps, chains, and ornaments [like rappers]: a clear sign of fetishist re-appropriation of an item which used to be read as an expression of the cultural subordination of the ‘black nation’ since colonialism” (Barile, 2019 , p. IX).…”

“…Thinking the coexistence of safety policies in metropolis, clearly visible in the technical rationalization of the physical space, with socialization processes explicated by consumption, is considered a precondition to the production of a feasible plan of analysis for the study of youth cultures. It is starting from the acceptance of this new definition of relations and interactions within the social system, that we want to stress the individualistic impulse of new generations, and the commercial co-optation of street style, as a consequence of the “increasing collusion with the brand system” (Barile, 2019 , p. IX). “Both of all are dynamics which cross the rap arena (and mostly trap) characterizing representations, lyrics, and professional choices of its main actors in a more or less explicit way” (Cuzzocrea and Benasso, 2020 , p. 343):…”

“…From the Eighties and Nineties, the classic concepts of subculture and street style enter into crisis because of “two simultaneous processes: on the one hand, the increasing value of communication, which rapidly circulates the signs of various ‘stylistic isles’, fostering hybridization and crossover phenomena in two different ways of style surfing and of sampling'n'mixing ” (Barile, 2019 , p. IX); on the other hand, the commercialization of a young lifestyle is always more sensationalized by marketing requirements. All these aspects have in some way also influenced hip-hop.…”

“…), a popular history started and still today, after more than 40 years, holds together in a global but binary dimension, thousands of territorial realities. In fact, whereas at the beginning of the Seventies, the militant soul of hip-hop was prevailing and then, during the Eighties, a certain balance between the strong political connotation and the playful soul was reached, and finally, during the Nineties, 3 the commercial aspect became the predominant one (Barile, 2019 , p. IX).…”