[PART I Introduction]

Italian ghetto stories: Toward a transnational literary history

“…Because Jewish Literary Studies has been shaped more by German and English studies than Italian, these Italian ghetto stories are also not ones that necessarily belong to the primary narratives of Jewish literary history. Focusing on Italian ghetto fiction reveals the connections and continuities of the concept “ghetto” and its stories, from 1516 Venice, to 1830s Galicia or Florence, to 1900 London or Trieste, to 1943 Warsaw and Ferrara, to 1960s New York City or Rome, to 2011 Nairobi or Bologna, to 2020s Venice (see for instance Bassi, 2021; Camarda et al, 2022). 31 This transnational perspective points to the tensions embedded in narratives of progress, especially ones based on nationhood, while also underscoring the continual significance of Jewishness for Italian identity.…”