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This multidisciplinary volume analyses key themes and topics related to the cultural encounters between Italy and its former colonies in the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia). The multi-faceted relations between the Horn of Africa and Italy were initiated during the colonial period but have also been shaped more recently through migration. In eleven chapters by experts in comparative literature, cultural studies, history, migration studies, political philosophy and postcolonial theory, the volume highlights how the legacy of colonialism permeates Italian society as well as influencing the construction of national identities in the Horn of Africa. The analysis of this transnational encounter opens up new possibilities for comparative research and critical synergies in Italian studies, African studies and beyond.
List of contents
CONTENTS: Olindo De Napoli: Law: The Myth of Progress and Differentialism in the Liberal Age - Wu Ming 2: Landscape: Somalia as Seen in Italian Colonial Literature - Lee Cassanelli: History: Italian Fascist Visions of Somalia's Past and Future - Shimelis Bonsa Gulema: Urbanism: History, Legacy, and Memory of the Italian Occupation in Addis Ababa (1936-1941) - Sara Marzagora: Nationalism: The Italian Occupation in Amharic Literature and Political Thought - Antonio Maria Morone: Racism: Meticci on the Eve of Colonial Downfall -Daniele Comberiati: Decolonization: Representing the Trusteeship Administration of Somalia - Lorenzo Mari: Heroes: A Transnational Reconsideration of Mohammed Abdulle Hassan and Omar al-Mukhtar in Literature and Film - Milena Belloni: Diaspora: A «Postcolonial» Migration? An Analysis of Eritrean Mobility Trajectories - Simone Brioni: Sport: Leisure, Representation, and Politics of Exclusion and Inclusion - Emma Bond: Photography: Memorial Intertexts in New Writing by Maaza Mengiste, Nadifa Mohamed, and Igiaba Scego.
About the author
Simone Brioni is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on migration studies and postcolonial theory with a particular emphasis on contemporary Italian culture.
Shimelis Bonsa Gulema is Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University.
Report
«This collection can be particularly useful for Italian Studies scholars who might not be as familiar with the African perspective on and response to Italian colonialism as they are with the Italian. Furthermore, its call for the colonial legacy to be placed in a transnational framework gestures toward a promising new direction for studies on Italian colonialism and postcolonialism.» (Jessica L. Harris, Quaderni d'Italianistica, 39.1)
«The merit of this book is the attempt [...] to retrace colonial and postcolonial cultural relations between the Horn of Africa and Italy, paying attention to the racial dimension which shaped them and to the interplay of other elements, with all their ambivalence, complexities and nuances.» (Nicola Camilleri, Modern Italy, 2020)
