Robert Lumley – författare

This is an up-to-date, illustrated introduction to the study of modern Italian culture containing nineteen chapters by specialists in the field of language, politics, religious, ethnic, and gender identities, the mass media, cultural policy, and stars. Adopting a unique and accessible interdisciplinary focus, Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction presents a variety of new perspectives on modern Italian culture. Each of the four parts explore diverse aspects of culture in Italy. 'Geographies' questions received notions of the Italian nation, the family, the 'South' and corruption; it also looks at anthropological approaches to culture and at Italy's linguistic pluralism. 'Identities' examines gender, religion, politics, and ethnicity as a means with which people define themselves and others. 'Media' explores the press, literature, television, and cinema. 'Culture and Society' brings together historical analyses of cultural policy, stars and style, and popular music. Each part is followed by sample analyses of visual materials and includes guidance in further reading. A chronology of political and cultural events since 1900 is also provided.Drawing on the expertise of leading authorities Italian Cultural Studies will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern Italy and its culture.

An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco's essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed," "Mass Media and the Limits of Communication," "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures," and "In Search of Italian Genius," Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini's Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry.

An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco's essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed," "Mass Media and the Limits of Communication," "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures," and "In Search of Italian Genius," Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini's Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry.

The late and turbulent transition from a largely rural and peasant society to a modern urban state involved the crisis of rooted popular traditions and the emergence of mass cultural forms. As a result, Italy, once the centre of a cultural world, has increasingly found itself on the periphery of an American media empire and serious questions of cultural identity have been raised. The Italian case is further significant on account of the theoretical and political problems it has posed. As well as dealing with these and related topics, the book examines current tendencies, such as the rapid multiplication of sub-cultures and the crisis of 'mass' forms. Each chapter is written by a specialist in the field. Although the essays normally deal with specific problems, they also highlight both the historical context and more general considerations within their sphere of interest.

A provocative contribution to the current debate on museums, this collection of essays contains contributions from France, Britain, Australia, the USA and Canada.

This collection of essays brings together the work of a new generation of revisionist historians who argue that the true history of Southern Italy has been reduced to that of a 'Southern problem' viewed through a Northern prism. These scholars suggest that the South was not a 'backward' region, but a combination of regions in which different social and economic patterns had evolved in response to the prevailing conditions within the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.The book employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine not only the concrete history of the South, but also the discourses and images in which it has been framed. It is the first publication in English devoted to the new history of Southern Italy, and brings together many of the leading figures in the revisionist movement, as well as some of their critics.

This book examines the transformation of the Italian city from the 1950s to the present with particular attention to questions of identity, migration and changes in urban culture. It focuses on two phases of that transformation: the years of accelerated industrialisation in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the period of de-industrialisation and postmodernity beginning in the 1980s.     It shows how major demographic movements and cultural shifts threw into relief new conceptions of the city in which old boundaries had become problematic. Design, fine art, literature, youth culture, film and social history all provide focal points. The contributions bring specialist expertise to each area while the extensive illustrations give a vivid picture of the contemporary visual culture for which Italian cities are famed.     This is a genuinely interdisciplinary approach by Italian and English-speaking historians and scholars of urban studies, literature, architecture and design which introduces new debates and research to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Extensive illustrations provide a vivid picture of contemporary Italian visual culture.

The student protests of 1968, followed by the Hot Autumn factory strikes of 1969, shook the foundations of the Italian Republic. They also prepared the way for a whole decade of intense and widespread social conflict-a decade in which militant social movements arose with new aspirations, centered on protagonists such as women, young people and the unemployed. States of Emergency provides a vivid reconstruction of the events and movements of that period-from the students of 1968 to the Autonomists of 1977.The book's title evokes both the emergence of new social subjects and the crises they provoked in the social order. But Lumley also looks at the paradoxes and contradictions of the movements, their creative potential and ultimate failure. The political debates which they initiated soon became part of the agenda of the Left internationally.Drawing on the work of theorists such as Umberto Eco, Alberto Melucci, Norberto Bobbio and Antonio Negri, States of Emergency is a vital contribution not only to Italy's social history but to contemporary political discussion.

A provocative contribution to the current debate on museums, this collection of essays contains contributions from France, Britain, Australia, the USA and Canada.

Entering the Frame is the first complete study of the cinema of Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, pioneers of archival and found-footage films that testify to war, genocide and colonialism in the twentieth century. It explores their early performance-based «scented films» of the 1970s, before focusing on the historical films, such as From the Pole to the Equator, for which they are best known. The book analyses how Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi manipulate rare footage through re-photographing, hand-tinting and altering film speeds, to produce work of an other-worldly quality.Retrospectives of the films of Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (2006) and at MoMA in New York (2009) have signalled international recognition at the highest level, as have appraisals by leading scholars of cinema such as Scott MacDonald and Raymond Bellour. Their work is unusual in attracting different audiences, and in relating art practices to wider ethical, historical and political issues. Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi have transformed old documentary footage into works that resonate in debates about postcolonialism as well as about the documentary form, the corporeality of the viewing experience and the metamorphoses of cinema.The volume includes a preface by the cultural historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Professor of Italian and History at New York University.