Browsing by Author "Ziolkowski, SE"

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    For a Jewish Italian Literary History: from Italo Svevo to Igiaba Scego
    (Italian Culture, 2022-01-01) Ziolkowski, SE
    This article argues that recognizing Jewishness as a crucial part of modern Italian literary history offers one path for discussing the current and historical diversity of Italian culture. The first section discusses key twentieth-century Italian authors — Giorgio Bassani, Natalia Ginzburg, Primo Levi, Elsa Morante, and Italo Svevo — not to assess how Jewish they are, but to illuminate the Jewishness of modern Italian literature, which prompts a reconsideration of the construction of Italian identity. The second section, “Jewish, Black, and Italian: The Archival Fictions of Helena Janeczeck, Claudio Magris, and Igiaba Scego,” scrutinizes how these three authors interrogate Italy’s role in the persecution of Jews, racial violence, and colonialism, drawing on historical documents that show the gaps in dominant discourses and asking readers to reflect on how historical narratives have been constructed. Being more cognizant of Jewish Italians, their backgrounds, and their representations in literature contributes to the growing analyses of Italy’s diversity, adding to examinations of Italian literature that focus on belonging, borders, migration, and colonialism.
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    Italian ghetto stories: Toward a transnational literary history
    (Forum Italicum, 2023-08-01) Ziolkowski, SE
    This article examines Italian ghetto stories, which are distinguished by confusions of time, continuities, tourism, reflections on collective identities, and movements in and out, in order to outline one potential literary history. In contrast to German-language and Anglophone literary ghettos, Italian ones are generally absent as a critical category from literary debates, though they appear in works by Leon Modena, Israel Zangwill, Rainer Maria Rilke, Umberto Saba, Giorgio Bassani, Elsa Morante, Caryl Phillips, and Igiaba Scego, among others. A transnational approach can bring together works that have not been considered collectively because of disciplinary formations. Italian ghetto fictions expose the disheartening continuities of prejudice and, relatedly, have generally not been considered together because of restrictive ideas about the nation as an organizing principle.
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    The ends of an empire: Pier antonio quarantotti gambini's il cavallo Tripoli and joseph roth's radetzkymarsch
    (Comparative Literature Studies, 2015-01-01) Ziolkowski, SE
    Copyright © 2015 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Italian Triestine literature tends to be seen as somewhat foreign to the Italian literary tradition and linguistically outside of Austrian (or Austro-Hungarian) literature. Instead of leaving it as "neither nor," viewing it as "both and" can help shape the critical view of the Italian literary landscape, as well as add to the picture of Austro-Hungarian literature. Joseph Roth's Radetzkymarsch (Radetzky March) and Pier Antonio Quarantotti Gambini's novel Il cavallo Tripoli (The Horse Tripoli) depict the experience of loss brought on by the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in similar ways, although they do so from different linguistic and national sides. However, the writings of the Italian author are generally categorized as representing a pro-Italian perspective and those of the Austrian as pro-Austro-Hungarian. This article argues that their novels provide a more nuanced portrayal of the world and identities than just their nationalities or political views do. Because of assumptions about the authors, the complexity of the novels' representations of layered linguistic and cultural interactions have often been missed, especially those of Il cavallo Tripoli. This comparison provides a case of how engaging Austro- Hungarian work can benefit the critical understanding of Italian literature.