Mapping Literary Space: Italian Intellectuals, Literary Journals, Publishing Firms 1940-1960
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Reading
Department Name: Modern Languages and European Studies
Abstract
The project aims to conduct research on the patterns of organization, cultural activity, and aesthetic programme of literary intellectual networks in Italy in a period of Italian history (1940-1960) characterised by radical historical, political, social and cultural changes. It will do so through a detailed study of a range of literary journals, differing widely in life-span, geographical location, political allegiance, and aesthetic interests.
This project builds on the hypothesis that literary journals have always serviced new writing, introduced readers to new artistic movements across continents, engendered debate, disseminated ideas, and more importantly sought to challenge settled aesthetic and cultural assumptions. This project, however, will not only look at the ways in which Italian intellectuals and writers traditionally verbalised cultural discourses and aesthetic concerns in journals in order to establish or counter forms of cultural hegemony; it will also assess and describe the ways in which intellectual networks used (a) literary journals to create sites for discussion and dissemination of their aesthetic, literary, and political concerns to national and transnational audiences, (b) how they sought to disseminate these ideas through strategic alliances with commercial and institutional outlets, such as emerging or established publishing houses of the day, and (c) how intellectuals and writers used literary journals to map their new public identity and define their own space for public intervention.
Existing scholarship has never fully addressed the interconnections between journals as a fruitful way of establishing their role as a collective, rather than a single, enterprise in shaping cultural, political and aesthetic expressions within Italian society. Furthermore, the strategic alliances that some journals forged with established or emerging publishing firms has been consistently neglected, despite substantial records showing evidence of the impact of journals' patronage of foreign and Italian authors on publishers' catalogues. Through the examination of the intellectual networks sustaining the single journals over time, we will provide an analysis of the patterns of dissemination of literary practices and the role played by publishing firms in this, and also account for any significant shifts in political affiliations of important editors and contributors in the period under consideration.
The research will highlight and describe the conditions, mechanisms and circumstances that allowed some intellectuals and cultural organizers, who had either a marginal or significant role in the cultural landscape of the fascist regime, to maintain a presence or achieve prominence in the transition from the regime to the republic and beyond, through strategic alliances with journals and publishing firms. As a result, our research will emphasise the adaptability of the literary journal as a form, and will also highlight the centrality of its role for assessing the social and commercial dimension of post-war Italian literary exchange. This project intends to address this consistently under-investigated dimension of literary communication in post-war Italy in a variety of ways: through rigorously researched academic outputs (one joint-authored monograph, an edited collection and three articles); a database linking data on the select journals and publishers' catalogues and commercial correspondence; dissemination events where experts in different fields can compare research and forge new avenues of thinking (2 workshops); and engagement with the wider community (2 exhibitions of rare printed material).
This project builds on the hypothesis that literary journals have always serviced new writing, introduced readers to new artistic movements across continents, engendered debate, disseminated ideas, and more importantly sought to challenge settled aesthetic and cultural assumptions. This project, however, will not only look at the ways in which Italian intellectuals and writers traditionally verbalised cultural discourses and aesthetic concerns in journals in order to establish or counter forms of cultural hegemony; it will also assess and describe the ways in which intellectual networks used (a) literary journals to create sites for discussion and dissemination of their aesthetic, literary, and political concerns to national and transnational audiences, (b) how they sought to disseminate these ideas through strategic alliances with commercial and institutional outlets, such as emerging or established publishing houses of the day, and (c) how intellectuals and writers used literary journals to map their new public identity and define their own space for public intervention.
Existing scholarship has never fully addressed the interconnections between journals as a fruitful way of establishing their role as a collective, rather than a single, enterprise in shaping cultural, political and aesthetic expressions within Italian society. Furthermore, the strategic alliances that some journals forged with established or emerging publishing firms has been consistently neglected, despite substantial records showing evidence of the impact of journals' patronage of foreign and Italian authors on publishers' catalogues. Through the examination of the intellectual networks sustaining the single journals over time, we will provide an analysis of the patterns of dissemination of literary practices and the role played by publishing firms in this, and also account for any significant shifts in political affiliations of important editors and contributors in the period under consideration.
The research will highlight and describe the conditions, mechanisms and circumstances that allowed some intellectuals and cultural organizers, who had either a marginal or significant role in the cultural landscape of the fascist regime, to maintain a presence or achieve prominence in the transition from the regime to the republic and beyond, through strategic alliances with journals and publishing firms. As a result, our research will emphasise the adaptability of the literary journal as a form, and will also highlight the centrality of its role for assessing the social and commercial dimension of post-war Italian literary exchange. This project intends to address this consistently under-investigated dimension of literary communication in post-war Italy in a variety of ways: through rigorously researched academic outputs (one joint-authored monograph, an edited collection and three articles); a database linking data on the select journals and publishers' catalogues and commercial correspondence; dissemination events where experts in different fields can compare research and forge new avenues of thinking (2 workshops); and engagement with the wider community (2 exhibitions of rare printed material).
Planned Impact
The impact of the project is threefold and it relates to (1) the database (2) the research publications (3) the workshops and exhibitions
(1) The aim of the database is to link two datasets where detailed information on the single journals and on the selected publishing houses is made available for the first time in this format. Existing databases only offer searchable data on journals, while disregarding their relationship to publishing firms. The two interlinked datasets will instead offer valuable data on this vital relationship. The database will enable the international community of researchers to access from their home institutions information hitherto only available to those visiting archives. The database will constitute a unique search tool for academics, students and members of the public with an interest in publishing history. It will set an example for innovation, offer scope for improvement and further research to other existing databases on literary magazines and journals.
(2) The listed research publications include a jointly authored monograph, an edited collection and three journal articles. The monograph will address a significant gap in periodical studies in Italy by charting for the first time the intellectual flows and commercial relationships between a number of literary journals and a series of established and niche publishers in Italy in a significant period of twentieth-century Italian history. The edited collection will address the transnational dimension of intellectual networks and establish fruitful connections across national boundaries between similar experiences of collective intellectual engagement. The collection will host significant contributions from high profile academics and therefore will constitute a valuable research tool on the topic. The three academic journal articles will further expand the dimension of the project by focussing on detailed and specific case studies. They will be placed in ERA A-rated journals in order to maximise the impact of the research on the academic community.
(3) The workshops are aimed at the listed academic beneficiaries but also at undergraduates in the disciplines of History, English and Modern Languages. The workshops will be hosted by two institutions with established and successful programmes for widening participation: the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading and the Rylands Library in Manchester. The two linked exhibitions will enhance the reach of the debates held in the workshops. They will illustrate with tangible historical documents the conflict between propaganda and foreign coverage and the role played by periodical publications during the war (Reading) and will contribute to the understanding of the role played by translators in the dissemination of foreign culture with the exhibition of documents relating to UK-based publishing houses dealing with Italian culture (Manchester).
Each workshop and exhibition will be widely advertised in the academic community and will have an immediate local impact also through established networks with secondary schools.
(1) The aim of the database is to link two datasets where detailed information on the single journals and on the selected publishing houses is made available for the first time in this format. Existing databases only offer searchable data on journals, while disregarding their relationship to publishing firms. The two interlinked datasets will instead offer valuable data on this vital relationship. The database will enable the international community of researchers to access from their home institutions information hitherto only available to those visiting archives. The database will constitute a unique search tool for academics, students and members of the public with an interest in publishing history. It will set an example for innovation, offer scope for improvement and further research to other existing databases on literary magazines and journals.
(2) The listed research publications include a jointly authored monograph, an edited collection and three journal articles. The monograph will address a significant gap in periodical studies in Italy by charting for the first time the intellectual flows and commercial relationships between a number of literary journals and a series of established and niche publishers in Italy in a significant period of twentieth-century Italian history. The edited collection will address the transnational dimension of intellectual networks and establish fruitful connections across national boundaries between similar experiences of collective intellectual engagement. The collection will host significant contributions from high profile academics and therefore will constitute a valuable research tool on the topic. The three academic journal articles will further expand the dimension of the project by focussing on detailed and specific case studies. They will be placed in ERA A-rated journals in order to maximise the impact of the research on the academic community.
(3) The workshops are aimed at the listed academic beneficiaries but also at undergraduates in the disciplines of History, English and Modern Languages. The workshops will be hosted by two institutions with established and successful programmes for widening participation: the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading and the Rylands Library in Manchester. The two linked exhibitions will enhance the reach of the debates held in the workshops. They will illustrate with tangible historical documents the conflict between propaganda and foreign coverage and the role played by periodical publications during the war (Reading) and will contribute to the understanding of the role played by translators in the dissemination of foreign culture with the exhibition of documents relating to UK-based publishing houses dealing with Italian culture (Manchester).
Each workshop and exhibition will be widely advertised in the academic community and will have an immediate local impact also through established networks with secondary schools.
Organisations
Publications
Billiani F
(2016)
Paragone : notes on hegemony and realism in the 1950s
in Journal of Modern Italian Studies
Billiani F
(2016)
Officina : experiments in engaging with the arts
in Modern Italy
Billiani F
(2016)
National dialogues and transnational exchanges across Italian periodical culture, 1940-1960
in Modern Italy
Billiani F
(2018)
Firenze 1937-1947, Letteratur a e l'indifferenza engagée
in Italian Studies
Daniela La Penna
(2020)
Translating Modernism: cultural geographies and mediating agents
in Letteratura e Letterature
La Penna D
(2018)
Habitus and Embeddedness in the Florentine Literary Field: The Case of Alberto Carocci (1926-1939)
in Italian Studies
La Penna D
(2016)
The rise and fall of Benedetto Croce. Intellectual positionings in the Italian cultural field, 1944-1947
in Modern Italy
La Penna D
(2016)
Mediating culture in the Italian literary field 1940s-50s
in Journal of Modern Italian Studies
La Penna D
(2016)
Mediating Culture in the Italian literary field 1940s-1950s
La Penna D
(2016)
Aretusa : continuity, rupture and space for intervention (1944-46)
in Journal of Modern Italian Studies
La Penna D
(2018)
Introduction
in Italian Studies
La Penna D
(2018)
Continuity and Rupture in the Italian Literary Field 1926-1960
Milani M
(2016)
From Risorgimento to Il Politecnico : impegno and intellectual networks in the Einaudi publishing house, 1945
in Journal of Modern Italian Studies
Milani M
(2016)
Impegno , national and transnational identities in Il Politecnico and Sud (1945-1947)
in Modern Italy
Milani M
(2018)
Carlo Salinari, the PCI, and Transnational Exchanges in Il Contemporaneo (1954-1955)
in Italian Studies
| Description | The Research team was composed by P-I D La Penna, Co-I F Billiani and RA Mila Milani. During the lifetime of the project we analysed the textual and para-textual data of 14 journals and the select catalogues and correspondences of seven publishing houses. We have provided a theoretically-informed evaluation of the intellectual networks sustaining those journals and mapped how the collective identity of the affiliations changed over time when individuals moved to or established other sites of exchange. In this way, we have gathered and rigorously analysed substantial evidence detailing the national and international networks of intellectuals and creative writers interacting with the select journals and publishing houses, and mapped their operational scope in Italy and in select urban areas (Turin, Milan, Florence, Rome and Naples). Our analysis has been taxonomic and evaluative (at the level of the single journal) as well as diachronic and comparative (at the level of their national and transnational impact). In order to give visibility to the outreach activities in which individual operators engaged over the chosen timeframe, we have systematically interrogate seven publishers' archives. This scrutiny has provided the first detailed account of how certain operators promoted the cultural legitimacy of some aesthetic configurations which only then achieved full institutionalisation. In particular, this project has succeeded in producing highly original research on a number of interconnected areas. For instance, research conducted by P-I and RA has highlighted the role played by agents in the intellectual field located in Naples in the cultural reconstruction of Italy in the immediate post-war period. Research conducted on the Neapolitan intellectual network has produced evidence highlighting the changing aggregative role of important intellectuals such as Benedetto Croce, and a significant aesthetic and political discrepancy of views and practices within a number of journals that revolved around Croce and the Liberal salons in Naples, Rome, Turin and Milan. In addition to the original research produced on Naples and Croce (P-I Daniela La Penna and RA Mila Milani), the evidence gathered in archival visits and by cross-referencing the textual data of the select journals with private correspondences in publishers' archives points in the direction of a re-evaluation of the role played by key women intellectuals in the cultural field. In this sense, original research produced by Co-I Francesca Billiani on Anna Banti (editor of Paragone letteratura) and Marguerite Caetani (editor of Botteghe oscure) and by P-I Daniela La Penna on Elena Croce (editor of Spettatore italiano) throws new light of the leadership role played by key women in the intellectual field, but also on the ways in which these women aligned themselves to sources of financial and symbolic power in order to foster programmes of aesthetic and political intervention through journals and bolster their presence in dynamic intellectual fields. This gendered dimension of the project has given much-needed recognition to important agents in the intellectual field. In addition to these aspects, the project has also thrown new light on the hitherto under-investigated commercial side of journals' engagement with publishing institutions. Because of the connections they actively sought with certain key editors and their supporting intellectual and creative networks, some firms increased their visibility and prominence on the market. Such vital interdependence has been analysed for the first time. Another important dimension emerging from our evidence gathering, critical evaluation, and analysis has been the role played by the Communist Party's cultural strategy in the immediate post-war period. Research to date has consistently focused on single journals such as Rinascita and Politecnico. Research produced by the research team has highlighted a much more diffuse attempt led by the PCI at organizing cultural hegemony on the intellectual field through the patronization of a host of diverse journals. For instance, RA Mila Milani has highlighted the strategic relationship between the little-studied Communist journal Risorgimento with Einaudi, the Turin-based publishing house. Milani has demonstrated through careful interrogation of archival evidence that the demise of Risorgimento was strategically linked to the rise of Politecnico. Research produced by P-I La Penna, demonstrates instead the complex strategy of saturation of the market segment through the patronization of different journals operated by the Communist Party in order to achieve hegemony over the intellectual field. In essence, the PCI orchestrated a number of recruiting campaigns aimed at polarizing talent, creative energies, and at linking these forces through a network of short-lived journals that saturated the publishing field thus detracting visibility from other journals aligned to other political formations (esp. the Liberal coterie revolving around Benedetto Croce). Co-I Billiani has instead focused on the relationship between non-aligned journals such as Botteghe oscure and Paragone and the PCI's cultural commission, demonstrating how the easthetic programmes of these journals reacted to the intellectual network revolving around the PCI but also tried to establish dialogues and strategies of cooption aimed at communist intellectuals. These findings have been disseminated through workshops and conference panels as well as through a host of highly rigorous forthcoming research publications as detailed below. The listed research publications in the original application included a jointly authored monograph, an edited collection and three journal articles. The research team is happy to report the following positive developments. 1) P-I's forthcoming monograph (2018) will address a significant gap in periodical studies in Italy by charting for the first time the intellectual flows and commercial relationships between a number of literary journals and a series of established and niche publishers in Italy in a significant period of twentieth-century Italian history. P-I will focus on three interconnected urban areas in Italy (Naples, Rome, and Florence) and detail the role played by journals and publishers in these important cultural-geographical fields. P-I and Co-I will jointly author a short monograph addressing thematic clusters and methodological issues linked to the cross-fertilization between periodical studies and publishing history in the Italian context. In particular, focus will be placed on the modelling role played by a number of foreign journals and their impact on Italian journals, on one side, and on the specific Italian interpretation of the journal as a privileged site for cultural aggregation and political contestation. 2) The two planned workshops were held respectively in February and June 2014 in Reading and Manchester. These addressed the national connections (Reading) and the transnational dimension of the intellectual flows in the select journals (Manchester). The research team and the international network of associates supporting the project agreed on the need to publish at least three special issues arising from the workshops. The research team edited three special issues of A-rated journals such as: Journal of Modern Italian Studies (21:1) and Modern Italy (21:2), which were published in March-May 2016; and Italian Studies (73:2), published in May 2018. Each issue contains 6 articles (one article penned by each research team member, plus three original contributions from top researchers in the field of cultural history, literary history and publishing history) and a co-authored introduction. 3) The two linked exhibitions at MERL, Reading (February-June 2014) and the Anthony Burgess foundation in Manchester (June 2014) have enhanced the reach of the debates held in the two workshops. They have illustrated with tangible historical documents the conflict between propaganda and foreign coverage and the role played by periodical publications during the war (Reading) and the understanding of the transnational reach of Italian periodicals in the period under consideration (Manchester). Each workshop and exhibition was widely advertised in the academic and local communities. Successful efforts were made to publicize the events to established networks with local secondary schools. 4) Through the publication of these special issues and of P-I's monograph in 2020, and the dissemination activities including several guest lectures, invited keynote lectures and 3 specialised panels at major conferences such as the AAIS in Zurich (2 panels, May 2014) and the CAIS conference in Sorrento (May 2015), we believe we have maximized the opportunities for the dissemination of our findings to an international academic audience. Dissemination activity has continued beyond the funded lifetime of the project: P-I has continued to deliver papers and keynote lectures showcasing findings emerged through this project in Oxford (September 2016); London (January 2017); Padua (May 2017), Valencia (February 2018), Zurich and Milan (respectively November and December 2018), Mainz and London (both June 2019). We hope that the innovative methodology we have fine-tuned and the published outputs showcasing our findings will have a significant and lasting impact on Italian publishing history and Italian periodical studies. Furthermore, we hope that our work will bolster the academic dialogue on the need to reconfigure twentieth-century Italian literary history to incorporate the role played by lesser-known agents and mediators. Our research outputs and dissemination activities have therefore contributed to consolidate a view of institutions and journals involved in the diffusion of literary production as primary agents in a socially interconnected endeavour, and privileged sites for a collective intellectual engagement. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings detailed above are likely to be discussed widely in a number of academic communities in the field of Italian cultural studies, publishing history, periodical studies in the post-war period. The findings highlight the need to shift the paradigm of literary inquiry from an author-based approach to a social-network approach to literary production and dissemination. In this sense, we hope that the research produced thanks to the AHRC support will enable a re-examination of the patterns of cultural aggregation, and recognize the role played by journals and publishing houses as primary sites of political and aesthetic dissemination in the intellectual field of post-war Italy. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy Education Electronics Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | FAHSS RETF Buyout Funding |
| Amount | £2,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Reading |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2015 |
| End | 05/2016 |
| Title | Mapping Literary Space |
| Description | Mapping Literaty space is a relational database whose aim is to link two datasets where detailed information on the single journals and on the selected publishing houses is made available for the first time in this format. Existing databases only offer searchable data on journals, while disregarding their relationship to publishing firms. The two interlinked datasets instead offer valuable data on this vital relationship, in order to contribute to the understanding of the social and commercial dimension of literary communication and dissemination in a crucial period of Italian history. In addition to this, the database provides information on the dissemination of foreign culture in translation. The database therefore offers the opportunity for searches aimed at measuring the impact of literary journals' patronage of foreign authors on the firms' catalogues. Through a series of combined search modalities, the user will be able to chart the trajectory of a single contributor or topic across the journals and publishing houses, thus identifying crucial data to understand the intellectual and cultural developments of key and marginal operators in twentieth-century Italy. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This database will be released in the public domain in June 2016. The search facilities will allow users to search the individual journals, or to search for topics or people. These searches will enable users to ascertain the extent of human capital flows across the journals in terms, the polarization of thematic clusters shared across journals, and the impact of journal's patronization of foreign and Italian authors on the select publishing houses' catalogues. |
| Description | Exhibition of Rare printed material @ Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester: Scripting the World (16-27 June 2014) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Great interest was generated in the editors' and contributors' letters exhibited. The aim of the exhibition was to show the international reach of the journals that form the corpus of the Mapping Literary Space Project Students and the general public visited the exhibition. It generated interest in the array of international contributors to Italian journals |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | International Workshop: Mapping Literary Space: Journals as Transnational Ateliers and Intellectuals (13 June 2014) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | We collectively reflected on methodologies to capture the transnational flows of literary journals. Interest was generated around our project and outcomes |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | International Workshop:Mapping Literary Space: National Connections: Realism and Impegno after WWII (21 February 2014) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This was the first of the two planned workshops for the AHRC-funded project Mapping Literary Space. We invited six speakers from Italy: Prof Edoardo Esposito (Milan), Anna Baldini (Siena), Michele Sisto (Rome), Raffaele Donnarumma (Pisa), Daniela Sasella (Milan), and together with PI, CI, RA and Dr Charles Leavitt (Reading), we dscussed the previously circulated papers together with an audience composed by PhD and MA students from the University of Reading. The conversation was very lively and stimulating. The proceedings of this workshop will be publoshed in 2016 in the Journal of Modern Italian Studies. This workshop was held on the 21 February 2014 in Reading. The methodological discussion was particularly stimulating as we discussed ways to enrich Bourdieu's sociology of culture with insights from the theory of narrative (Hayden Whyte) and the emerging network theory |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Italy at War: An exhibition of rare printed material at the MERL, University of Reading, 21 February-30 April |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an exhibition of rare printed material. It showcased the diaries and other printed works of Cecil and Sylvia Sprigge, two Manchester Guardian war correspondents who covered WW2 in Italy school children and A level students visited the exhibitions alongside UG and PG students and scholars using the Special Collections located in the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Organization of two AAIS panels on AHRC-funded project Mapping Literary Space: Intellectuals, Journals, Publishing Firms, Italu 1940-1960 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Research Team (PI: Daniela La Penna, CI: Francesca Billiani, RA; Mila Milani) organized two panels related to the Mapping Literary Space AHRC-funded project, at the 2014 AAIS Conference in Zurich. We hosted 6 papers in total (PI La Penna and RA Milani presented original papers). We had a total of 60 participants. The discussion was very rich and stimulating. Some scholars told us that our approach (network analysis) could potentially shed new light on the dynamics of the literary and political fields in Post-War Italy |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.rose.uzh.ch/forschung/kongresse/aais2014/program_en.html |