This volume looks at the representation of 9/11 and the resulting wars in European literature. In the face of inner-European divisions the texts under consideration take the terror attacks as a starting point to negotiate European as well as national identity. While the volume shows that these identity formations are frequently based on the construction of two Others—the US nation and a cultural-ethnic idea of Muslim communities—it also analyses examples which undermine such constructions. This much more self-critical strand in European literature unveils the Eurocentrism of a supposedly general humanistic value system through the use of complex aesthetic strategies. These strategies are in itself characteristic of the European reception as the Anglo-Irish, British, Dutch, Flemish, French, German, Italian, and Polish perspectives collected in this volume perceive of the terror attacks through the lens of continental media and semiotic theory.

The Unmasking of Oriana Fallaci: Part II and Conclusion to Her Life Story brings to an end years of painstaking research. This biography highlights Fallaci¿s career as a journalist, interviewer, war reporter, essayist, and novelist. Its uniqueness consists less in a chronological listing of events but rather in emphasis on the core of Fallaci¿s psychological dynamism. This woman from Florence relentlessly placed her embellished persona in the public eye; she thirsted for stardom, allowing nothing to block her ascent to prominence; she essentially functioned as her own publicity agent. Aricò maintains that this same narcissism is present in all of her early Hollywood articles, celebrated interviews, book on NASA space travels, best-selling novels, and end-of-life trilogy against Islam. Indeed, Fallaci¿s posthumously published history of her ancestors not only takes on the structure of an epic saga but also of an in-depth autobiography. Her entire history of inserting herself onto center stage received reinforcement by the eye-catching portraits of her by world-famous photographers. Aricò bases The Unmasking on extensive investigation, meetings with people who knew her, and fourteen one-on-one recorded interviews at her homes in New York and Florence. His exposé stands as Fallaci¿s only definitive and authoritative biography in the English-speaking world.

"Critical interest in biography and autobiography has never been higher. However, while life-writing flourishes in the UK, in Italy it is a less prominent genre. The twelve essays collected here are written against this backdrop, and address issues in biographical and autobiographical writing in Italy from the later nineteenth century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the interplay between individual lives and life-writing and the wider social and political history of Italy. The majority of essays focus on well-known writers (D'Annunzio, Svevo, Bontempelli, Montale, Levi, Calvino, Eco and Fallaci), and their varying anxieties about autobiographical writing in their work. This picture is rounded out by a series of studies of similar themes in lesser known figures: the critic Enrico Nencioni, the Welsh-Italian painter Llewellyn Lloyd and Italian writers and journalists covering the Spanish Civil War. The contributors, all specialists in their fields, are Antonella Braida, Charles Burdett, Jane Everson, John Gatt Rutter, Robert Gordon, Gwyn Griffith, Peter Hainsworth, Martin McLaughlin, Gianni Oliva, Giuliana Pieri, and Jon Usher. The volume is dedicated to John Woodhouse, on his seventieth birthday, and concludes with a bibliography of his writings."

This book focuses on the politics of national identity in Italy. Only a unified country for just over 150 years, Italian national identity is perhaps more contingent than longer established nations such as France or the UK. The book investigates when, how and why the discussions about national identity and about immigration became entwined in public discourse within Italy. In particular it looks at the most influential voices in the debate on immigration and identity, namely Italian intellectuals, the Catholic Church, the Northern League and the Left. The methodological approach is based on a systematic discourse analysis of official documents, interviews, statements and speeches by representatives of the political actors involved. In the process, the author demonstrates that a 'normalisation' of intolerance towards foreigners has become institutionalised at the heart of the Italian state. This work will be of particular interest to students of Italian Politics, Nationalism and Comparative Politics.

Freedom of expression has long been cherished as a liberal ideal. But in the political climate of the new millennium free expression finds itself under assault. Muslims greeted the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad with outrage. The Pope was forced to issue an apology after Muslims denounced his remarks about a Byzantine emperor as anti-Islamic. Meanwhile in the UK, the play Behzti was cancelled after protests by Sikhs and Christian activists attempted to force the BBC not to screen Jerry Springer: the Opera. The political establishment, as well as religious activists, has also tried to gag free speech. Moves to ban inciting religious hatred and “glorifying” acts of terrorism, have stirred up political ferment. In several jurisdictions Holocaust denial is already outlawed. The advent of the internet, with its lack of regulation, has fuelled long-standing feminist concerns about pornography. Child pornography has become rampant on the web. This collection explores the new challenges to free expression posed by cultural and political conflict and by technological change. It asks whether classical and modern liberalism still carry conviction against challenges to liberal orthodoxy. The contributors ask how to weigh the claims of free expression against other fundamental rights such as group membership, personal privacy, and the protection of the public sphere both as a discursive realm, and as a cultural space. Together they tackle the key questions facing free expression today: What does free expression mean in an age of global communications? How, if at all, can it be traded against other goods? Can free speech survive, given the growing awareness of its costs?

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.

The untold story of how an unlikely anti-Islamic alliance of gay activists, feminists, fascists, evangelical Christians, populist politicians, and surfing rabbis from California fuelled the rise of the hard right across Europe and gave us President Donald J Trump.

This book compares the policies of Australia and Italy towards boat people who have arrived in the two countries since the early 1990s. While the regular and varied inflow of immigrants arriving at national airports, ferry terminals and train stations is seldom witnessed by the public, the arrival of boat people is often played out in the media and consequently attracts disproportionate political and public attention. Both Australia and Italy faced similar dilemmas, but the nature of political debate on the issue, the types of strategies introduced, and the effects that policy changes had on boat people diverged considerably. This book argues that contrasting migration path dependencies, disparate political values within the Left, and varying international obligations best explain the different approaches taken by the two countries to boat people.

Describes the latest events and trends in terrorism against the United States.

In The Militant Middle Ages Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri delves into common perceptions of the Middle Ages and how these views shape current political contexts, offering a new lens for scrutinizing contemporary society through its instrumentalization of the medieval past.