Gundle
Biographic Data
| ID | 1606 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gundle |
| FAMILY NAME | Gundle |
| SIGNATURE | GUNDLE |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2088-2998 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Paul Ginsborg (1945-2022)
Paul Ginsborg was the most influential British historian of Italy of his generation. He was well known not only to fellow historians but to general readers of history. Greatly admired by his many undergraduate and postgraduate students in the UK and Italy, he influenced numerous others who learned about the history of modern and contemporary Italy from his books. For several generations of researchers, he was a model historian: an immensely knowl…
Paul Ginsborg, 1945–2022
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Mussolini between Hero Worship and Demystification
Mussolini is considered in this article as a figure around whom narratives have been developed for a century or more. Several biographies were published shortly after he came to power and many others have appeared in the decades since his death in 1945. This article explores the place of anecdotes in the construction of a legendary Mussolini in the 1920s and in the demystification that marked the period after World War Two. It is shown that early…
Practices and Contexts of the Italian Film Industry
This themed issue of the journal includes the results of some of the research that was conducted in the course of a large AHRC-sponsored research project on ‘Producers and Production Practices in t
Art, entertainment and politics
This article explores the role of Alessandro Blasetti in arguing for, and promoting, the development of the Italian film industry before and after the Second World War. Though a prominent film director for more than thirty years, Blasetti was never considered an auteur: he had no distinct authorial style and not did he specialise in any particular genre. Unlike some postwar directors, he never positioned himself in opposition to producers but, on…
We Have Everything to Learn from the Americans
The relationship between film promotion and the wider economy has scarcely been studied in Italy. This article explores the influence of American exploitation techniques in the peninsula in the years following World War Two and the responses of the Italian film industry. It is shown that, though many advocated imitating American practices in the fields of advertising and promotion, over time the industry learned not only to appropriate successful…
The Force of History
The 2016 ASMI conference on The Force of History: Critical Perspectives on the Historiography of Modern Italy was held almost exactly one year after the untimely death of Christopher Duggan, who had been closely involved with the Association almost since its founding in 1982. Christopher had served a term as secretary, been a member of the executive committee for many years, and was elected Chair in 2015. It was not just the suddenness of his pas…
Christopher Duggan 1957-2015
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
How Berlusconi will be remembered
This article explores the ways in which Silvio Berlusconi might figure in collective memory. It approaches this from a number of angles. First, consideration is given to the way political figures of the past have resonated culturally and the role of institutions including the mass media in this. Second, Berlusconi's own efforts to situate himself in relation to a shared past are explored, with reference to the place of three nostalgic appeals tha…
Laughter Under Fascism
This article explores the place of permitted humour in Fascist Italy and considers its implications for the historiography of Fascism. It examines different strands of humour and discusses their role in a regime that was headed by a man with little or no sense of humour and in which oppositional humour was severely punished. After the suppression of anti-fascist satirical magazines, the variety performer Petrolini and some journalists, all of who…
Mussolini's Dream Factory
The intersection between film stardom and politics is an understudied phenomenon of Fascist Italy, despite the fact that the Mussolini regime deemed stardom important enough to warrant sustained attention and interference. Focused on the period from the start of sound cinema to the final end of Fascism in 1945, this book examines the development of an Italian star system and evaluates its place in film production and distribution. The performance…
Playing the dictator
This article explores the portrayal of Mussolini in film and television drama. It considers the contexts in which films and mini-series were made from the 1970s and the problems faced in bringing the Duce to the screen, mostly in dramas that stressed the final phase of his rule. Despite efforts to ensure authenticity in the reconstruction of locations, events and people, there was a notable emphasis on the private and personal dimensions of the d…
Special issue
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Material Nation
Histories of consumption can take a variety of forms. They can propose a broad view of the development of consumption in a specific period or national or regional context. They can focus on one or more sectors such as retail, advertising, foodstuffs or fashion. They can look at a range of material and intangible goods or concentrate on just one. The biggest single problem facing the historian, as Emanuela Scarpellini says in the preface to her in…
Alida Valli in Hollywood
Tom Behan 1957-2010
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Identity, place and culture
For six years between 1994 and 2000, Patrick McCarthy contributed occasional articles to the Bologna section of La Repubblica. These writings were intensely personal interventions on various themes that reflected their author's lifelong interest in literature, culture, politics and sport. Many of them addressed issues of civic life in a city that had once enjoyed a reputation as a showcase of Communist local administration in Italy, but which in …
The media in Italy
Stars and Stardom in the Study of Italian Cinema
Stars and Stardom in the Study of Italian Cinema
Before the 1980s, studying stars and stardom was not commonplace even within film studies, let alone Italian studies. The only discipline that had any record at all of seeking to grasp the mechanics of contemporary celebrity was sociology, which gave rise to a number of interesting works in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This fact reflected the organization of academic disciplines at that time. Modern languages, like English studies, were concer…
Venus on Earth
Lina Cavalieri (1875–1944) was hailed in her prime as 'the world's most beautiful woman'. A variety performer born in Trastevere, she became a star of the Folies Bergère before re-training and embarking on a new career as an opera singer. Taking mostly romantic roles, she sang in all the leading opera houses of Europe and the United States. Later she embarked on yet another career in early cinema. This article explores the context and implication…
Adriano Celentano and the origins of rock and roll in Italy
This article examines the way in which American rock and roll was translated into Italian culture. It argues that Italian versions of rock and roll were not just ‘watered down’ or ‘domesticated’ versions of the original. Rather, Italian rock emerged from a context that was different in musical, ethnic, political, linguistic and religious terms. By focussing on Adriano Celentano (the most prominent ‘Italian Elvis’ of the 1950s), it is shown that I…
Hollywood Glamour and Mass Consumption in Postwar Italy
Italian society after World War II was profoundly affected by the culture of “glamour” that encouraged mass consumption. This culture drew heavily on images and desires created by the American film industry, and it would not have arisen in the absence of American glamour. Over time, however, Italian glamour acquired some important indigenous features, which were economically beneficial for Italy in boosting exports and tourism. Through most of th…
Between Hollywood and Moscow
How has the Italian Communist party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) tried to defend and consolidate its position in Italy's ociety and politics, while Cold War dynamics and the an-ticommunism they entailed were pushing toward its inevitable marginalization? How has the largest Communist party of the Western bloc conciliated its anti-systemic nature with the necessity to use, and possibly exploit, the instruments of mass culture being developed …
Between Hollywood and Moscow. The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943-1991
Feminine Beauty, National Identity and Political Conflict in Postwar Italy, 1945–1954
After 1945 the Italian tradition of feminine beauty was redefined in a democratic context in which women, for the first time, became full citizens. Faced with a far-reaching challenge from Hollywood, traditional criteria of beauty were first strenuously defended and then modified and commercialised. Beauty contests proved to be a vital vehicle in this transition, since they acted both as a forum for the reassertion of Italian beauty and as a vehi…
We Have Everything to Learn from the Americans
The relationship between film promotion and the wider economy has scarcely been studied in Italy. This article explores the influence of American exploitation techniques in the peninsula in the years following World War Two and the responses of the Italian film industry. It is shown that, though many advocated imitating American practices in the fields of advertising and promotion, over time the industry learned not only to appropriate successful…
Adriano Celentano and the origins of rock and roll in Italy
This article examines the way in which American rock and roll was translated into Italian culture. It argues that Italian versions of rock and roll were not just ‘watered down’ or ‘domesticated’ versions of the original. Rather, Italian rock emerged from a context that was different in musical, ethnic, political, linguistic and religious terms. By focussing on Adriano Celentano (the most prominent ‘Italian Elvis’ of the 1950s), it is shown that I…
Sophia Loren, Italian Icon
Paul Ginsborg, 1945–2022
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Mussolini between Hero Worship and Demystification
Mussolini is considered in this article as a figure around whom narratives have been developed for a century or more. Several biographies were published shortly after he came to power and many others have appeared in the decades since his death in 1945. This article explores the place of anecdotes in the construction of a legendary Mussolini in the 1920s and in the demystification that marked the period after World War Two. It is shown that early…
Hollywood Glamour and Mass Consumption in Postwar Italy
Italian society after World War II was profoundly affected by the culture of “glamour” that encouraged mass consumption. This culture drew heavily on images and desires created by the American film industry, and it would not have arisen in the absence of American glamour. Over time, however, Italian glamour acquired some important indigenous features, which were economically beneficial for Italy in boosting exports and tourism. Through most of th…
The PCI and the Historic Compromise
Few on the left will disagree with the view that the turn taken by events in Italy in recent years is deeply depressing. Capitalism is unquestionably more stable today than at any time since the boom years of the late 1950s, and the social and cultural upheavals of
Italy
The Crisis of 1992–1994 and the Reform of Italian Public Broadcasting
Many Italian institutions deteriorated in the 1980s as the struggle to consolidate and extend party influence led to the spoils system ( lottizzazione ) becoming the norm throughout virtually the whole of the public sector. Yet perhaps none was more affected than the public broadcasting company RAI. Once an organization with a strong corporate identity and sense of mission, it lost its sense of purpose as it faced the unprecedented challenge of c…
Sophia Loren, Italian Icon
The death (and re-birth) of the hero
In the twentieth century Italy has witnessed an unusual variety of charismatic political figures. Given the tradition of the Risorgimento and in particular the influence of Garibaldi, several of these donned the mantle of heroism. However, in modern conditions this heroism was largely a matter of showmanship. With the rise of mass communications, political leaders were compelled to reinvent the nature and forms of their appeal to the people and a…
Feminine Beauty, National Identity and Political Conflict in Postwar Italy, 1945–1954
After 1945 the Italian tradition of feminine beauty was redefined in a democratic context in which women, for the first time, became full citizens. Faced with a far-reaching challenge from Hollywood, traditional criteria of beauty were first strenuously defended and then modified and commercialised. Beauty contests proved to be a vital vehicle in this transition, since they acted both as a forum for the reassertion of Italian beauty and as a vehi…
Between Hollywood and Moscow
The ‘civic religion’ of the Resistance in post-war Italy
The problem of the legitimacy or otherwise of the Resistance tradition in post-war Italy has been addressed in recent years mainly in terms of the role of the partisan struggle and its political legacy. This article aims to assess the tradition in terms of commemorative practices, rituals, artistic representations and monuments. It seeks to evaluate whether the Resistance gave rise to a civic religion that may be compared to those which existed i…
Hollywood Glamour and Mass Consumption in Postwar Italy
Italian society after World War II was profoundly affected by the culture of “glamour” that encouraged mass consumption. This culture drew heavily on images and desires created by the American film industry, and it would not have arisen in the absence of American glamour. Over time, however, Italian glamour acquired some important indigenous features, which were economically beneficial for Italy in boosting exports and tourism. Through most of th…
Between Hollywood and Moscow
How has the Italian Communist party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) tried to defend and consolidate its position in Italy's ociety and politics, while Cold War dynamics and the an-ticommunism they entailed were pushing toward its inevitable marginalization? How has the largest Communist party of the Western bloc conciliated its anti-systemic nature with the necessity to use, and possibly exploit, the instruments of mass culture being developed …
Between Hollywood and Moscow. The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943-1991
Adriano Celentano and the origins of rock and roll in Italy
This article examines the way in which American rock and roll was translated into Italian culture. It argues that Italian versions of rock and roll were not just ‘watered down’ or ‘domesticated’ versions of the original. Rather, Italian rock emerged from a context that was different in musical, ethnic, political, linguistic and religious terms. By focussing on Adriano Celentano (the most prominent ‘Italian Elvis’ of the 1950s), it is shown that I…
Venus on Earth
Lina Cavalieri (1875–1944) was hailed in her prime as 'the world's most beautiful woman'. A variety performer born in Trastevere, she became a star of the Folies Bergère before re-training and embarking on a new career as an opera singer. Taking mostly romantic roles, she sang in all the leading opera houses of Europe and the United States. Later she embarked on yet another career in early cinema. This article explores the context and implication…
Stars and Stardom in the Study of Italian Cinema
Stars and Stardom in the Study of Italian Cinema
Before the 1980s, studying stars and stardom was not commonplace even within film studies, let alone Italian studies. The only discipline that had any record at all of seeking to grasp the mechanics of contemporary celebrity was sociology, which gave rise to a number of interesting works in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This fact reflected the organization of academic disciplines at that time. Modern languages, like English studies, were concer…
Identity, place and culture
For six years between 1994 and 2000, Patrick McCarthy contributed occasional articles to the Bologna section of La Repubblica. These writings were intensely personal interventions on various themes that reflected their author's lifelong interest in literature, culture, politics and sport. Many of them addressed issues of civic life in a city that had once enjoyed a reputation as a showcase of Communist local administration in Italy, but which in …
The media in Italy
Tom Behan 1957-2010
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Alida Valli in Hollywood
Mussolini's Dream Factory
The intersection between film stardom and politics is an understudied phenomenon of Fascist Italy, despite the fact that the Mussolini regime deemed stardom important enough to warrant sustained attention and interference. Focused on the period from the start of sound cinema to the final end of Fascism in 1945, this book examines the development of an Italian star system and evaluates its place in film production and distribution. The performance…
Playing the dictator
This article explores the portrayal of Mussolini in film and television drama. It considers the contexts in which films and mini-series were made from the 1970s and the problems faced in bringing the Duce to the screen, mostly in dramas that stressed the final phase of his rule. Despite efforts to ensure authenticity in the reconstruction of locations, events and people, there was a notable emphasis on the private and personal dimensions of the d…
Special issue
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Material Nation
Histories of consumption can take a variety of forms. They can propose a broad view of the development of consumption in a specific period or national or regional context. They can focus on one or more sectors such as retail, advertising, foodstuffs or fashion. They can look at a range of material and intangible goods or concentrate on just one. The biggest single problem facing the historian, as Emanuela Scarpellini says in the preface to her in…
How Berlusconi will be remembered
This article explores the ways in which Silvio Berlusconi might figure in collective memory. It approaches this from a number of angles. First, consideration is given to the way political figures of the past have resonated culturally and the role of institutions including the mass media in this. Second, Berlusconi's own efforts to situate himself in relation to a shared past are explored, with reference to the place of three nostalgic appeals tha…
Laughter Under Fascism
This article explores the place of permitted humour in Fascist Italy and considers its implications for the historiography of Fascism. It examines different strands of humour and discusses their role in a regime that was headed by a man with little or no sense of humour and in which oppositional humour was severely punished. After the suppression of anti-fascist satirical magazines, the variety performer Petrolini and some journalists, all of who…
Italian Fascism and Post-war Society (26 works) · Art (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Law (16 works) · History (14 works) · Art history (13 works) · Aesthetics (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (11 works)