Eccentricity and Sameness: Discourses on Lesbianism and Desire Between Women in Italy, 1860s-1930s (Italian Modernities #22) (Paperback)
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Other Books in Series
This is book number 22 in the Italian Modernities series.
- #2: The Risorgimento of Federico de Roberto (Italian Modernities #2) (Paperback): $94.00
- #4: Postmodern Impegno - Impegno Postmoderno: Ethics and Commitment in Contemporary Italian Culture - Etica E Engagement Nella Cultura Italiana Contempora (Italian Modernities #4) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #28: Bruno Munari: The Lightness of Art (Italian Modernities #28) (Paperback): $76.10
- #34: Queer Ventennio: Italian Fascism, Homoerotic Art, and the Nonmodern in the Modern (Italian Modernities #34) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #35: Queer(ing) Gender in Italian Women's Writing: Maraini, Sapienza, Morante (Italian Modernities #35) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #37: Italian Chimeras: Narrating Italy Through the Writing of Sebastiano Vassalli (Italian Modernities #37) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #38: Italian Political Cinema: Public Life, Imaginary, and Identity in Contemporary Italian Film (Italian Modernities #38) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #39: Opera aperta; Italian Electronic Literature from the 1960s to the Present (Italian Modernities #39) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #41: Uno spazio narrativo immersivo; La XIII Triennale di Milano, 1964 (Italian Modernities #41) (Paperback): This item is not available.
- #42: The Distance to China; Twentieth-Century Italian Travel Narratives of Patriotism, Commitment and Disillusion (1898-1985) (Italian Modernities #42) (Paperback): This item is not available.
Description
Dispelling widespread views that female same-sex desire is virtually absent from Italian literature and cultural production in the modern era, this groundbreaking study demonstrates that narratives of lesbianism are significantly more numerous than has been previously asserted. Focusing on texts published between 1860 and 1939, the author traces and analyses the evolution of discourses on female same-sex desire in and across a wide variety of genres, whether popular bestsellers, texts with limited distribution and subject to censorship, or translations from other languages. All the works are considered in relation to broader socio-cultural contexts. The analysis uncovers a plurality of different sources for these narratives of lesbianism and desire between women, showing how different layers of discourse emerge from or are reworked in and across several genres. From scientists who condemned the immoral and degenerate nature of Sapphic desire, to erotic publications that revelled in the pleasures of female same-sex intimacy, to portrayals of homoerotic desire by female writers that call (more or less obliquely) for its legitimization, these texts open up important new perspectives on discourses of sexuality in modern Italy.
About the Author
Charlotte Ross is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Birmingham.