Italian Science Fiction: The Other in Literature and Film PDF
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STUDIES IN GLOBAL SCIENCE FICTION Italian Science Fiction The Other in Literature and Film Simone Brioni · Daniele Comberiati Studies in Global Science Fiction Series Editors Anindita Banerjee Department of Comparative Literature Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA Rachel Haywood Ferreira Department of World Languages and Cultures Iowa State University Ames, IA, USA Mark Bould Department of Film and Literature University of the West of England Bristol, UK Studies in Global Science Fiction (edited by Anindita Banerjee, Rachel Haywood Ferreira, and Mark Bould) is a brand-new and first-of-its-kind series that opens up a space for Science Fiction scholars across the globe, inviting fresh and cutting-edge studies of both non-Anglo-American and Anglo-American SF literature. Books in this series will put SF in conversa- tion with postcolonial studies, critical race studies, comparative literature, transnational literary and cultural studies, among others, contributing to ongoing debates about the expanding global compass of the genre and the emergence of a more diverse, multinational, and multi-ethnic sense of SF’s past, present, and future. Topics may include comparative studies of selected (trans)national traditions, SF of the African or Hispanic Diasporas, Indigenous SF, issues of translation and distribution of non-Anglophone SF, SF of the global south, SF and geographic/cultural borderlands, and how neglected traditions have developed in dialogue and disputation with the traditional SF canon. Editors: Anindita Banerjee, Cornell University; Rachel Haywood Ferreira, Iowa State University; Mark Bould, University of the West of England. Advisory Board Members: Aimee Bahng, Dartmouth College; Ian Campbell, Georgia State University; Grace Dillon (Anishinaabe), Portland State University; Rob Latham, Independent Scholar; Andrew Milner, Monash University; Pablo Mukherjee, University of Warwick; Stephen Hong Sohn, University of California, Riverside; Mingwei Song, Wellesley College. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15335 Simone Brioni • Daniele Comberiati Italian Science Fiction The Other in Literature and Film Simone Brioni Daniele Comberiati Stony Brook University Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 Stony Brook, NY, USA Montpellier, France ISSN 2569-8826 ISSN 2569-8834 (electronic) Studies in Global Science Fiction ISBN 978-3-030-19325-6 ISBN 978-3-030-19326-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19326-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Alan Dyer/Stocktrek Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgments Thank you, Katherine, for your love, patience, and strength. Thanks to my parents, Lidia and Giuseppe, and to my sister, Cecilia, for their unwavering support and for being here, even from a distance. A sincere thanks also goes to my colleagues at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for their warm welcome to the Department of English. This book is dedicated to a little astronaut named Ella. Leave a little sparkle wherever you go. Seattle Simone Brioni 13 June 2018 Un ringraziamento speciale ad Alice, che fra tutti i viaggi degli ultimi anni non mi ha mai fatto mancare il suo amore. Un pensiero forte per Filippo, in ricordo della “scoperta” della fanta- scienza, a dodici anni. Senza la tua amicizia e le nostre discussioni, sem- plicemente questo libro non esisterebbe. A Luke/Simone e a Leia/Irene: questo libro è per tutti i viaggi che avete fatto e per quelli che farete. E per quello, bellissimo, che facciamo ogni giorno insieme… Barcelona Daniele Comberiati 27 August 2018 v n t ote on the ext This volume is the result of a collaborative effort, and both authors have reviewed and provided input on the text. However, Simone Brioni (SB) and Daniele Comberiati (DC) have written different sections of this vol- ume: Chap. 1 (SB, except “Book Structure” (SB and DC)), Chap. 2 (SB and DC, except the sections “‘Making’ the Italians Through SF Literature” and “Visualizing the ‘Other’: Giornale illustrato dei viaggi e delle avven- ture di terra e di mare (1878–1931)” (SB), and “Explorations and Early Italian SF Literature” (DC)), Chap. 3 (DC), Chap. 4 (SB and DC, except “An Ambiguous Postcolonial Status: Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow’s L’ultimo uomo della Terra (1964)” (SB)), Chap. 5 (SB), Chap. 6 (SB), Chap. 7 (DC), Chap. 8 (SB), Chap. 9 (SB), and Chap. 10 (SB). Daniele Comberiati’s texts were originally written in Italian, and Kate Willman has translated them into English. We would like to sincerely thank Jessica Lott for her careful linguistic revision of this monograph. Simone is grateful to Francesco Rombaldi for his help with the scan- ning of the illustrations from the Giornale illustrato dei viaggi e delle avventure di terra e di mare. He also would like to thank those who pro- vided feedback and contributed to the discussion that followed the pre- sentation of his section on L’ultimo uomo della Terra at the 2018 Modern Languages Association Annual Conference in New York, the 2017 Northeast Modern Languages Association in Baltimore, the Humanities Institute in Stony Brook (2017), and Sapienza University of Rome (2018). Parts of this project were presented in the panel “Transnational, Uchronic, Dystopic, or Intergalactic? Rethinking National Identity in Italian Science Fiction” at the conference “Transnational Italies: Mobility, Subjectivities, vii viii NOTE ON THE TEXT and Modern Italian Cultures” held at The British School at Rome in 2016. Simone and Daniele are grateful to those who offered insightful comments and encouragement about this project at the conference. A preliminary version of parts of Chap. 9, written by Simone Brioni, was previously published as “Fantahistorical vs. Fantafascist Epic: ‘Contemporary’ Alternative Italian Colonial Histories” in Science Fiction Studies 42.2 (2015): 305–321. Parts of Chap. 3 and Chap. 7 are devel- oped from two articles previously published in Italian: D. Comberiati, “Distopie identitarie/Antiutopie diasporiche. Immaginare il futuro all’interno della letteratura migrante,” in Fulvio Pezzarossa and Ilaria Rossini, ed., Leggere il testo e il mondo: Vent’anni di scritture della migrazione in Italia. Bologna: Clueb (2012): 85–99; and D. Comberiati, “I romanzi collettivi de ‘I Dieci’ negli anni Venti: Fra la fine dell’avanguardia futurista e l’anticipazione del postmoderno,” Les lettres romanes 65.3–4 (2012): 453–76. The authors are grateful to the editors and publishers for permissions to republish. Praise for Italian Science Fiction “This imaginative and ambitious work brilliantly insists on the relevance of Italy’s distinctive contribution to global science fiction. Brioni and Comberiati take us on an exciting journey, from nineteenth-century future histories to postmodern dys- topias, and skillfully trace the multiple intersecting rays cast by transnational generic conventions and local and regional hopes, fears and dreams. A remarkably original perspective on Italian literature and film, this book offers rich materials and nuanced critical reflections that will expand the ways we think about SF and cultural difference.” —Florian Mussgnug, Reader in Italian and Comparative Literature, University College of London, UK “By tracing a history of Italian science fiction literature and film on the representa- tion of the Other, this book is an ethical, critical study that focuses on histories and subjectivities that have been silenced and forgotten. A timely book that finally fills a gap, Italian Science Fiction is destined to become a standard reference for both established and new scholars interested in the history of science fiction and its development in Italian literature and cinema.” —Raffaella Baccolini, Professor of English and Gender Studies, University of Bologna, Forlì Campus, Italy “With Italian Science Fiction: The Other in Literature and Film, Brioni and Comberiati meaningfully engage the pertinent political and cultural issues of today regarding the presence of racism and the legacy of colonialism in Italy while placing a spotlight on gothic themes used to generate fear of the Other. Their chronologi- cal approach takes readers on an absorbing journey from the nineteenth century Italian colonization effort in Africa to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and beyond.” —Isiah Lavender III, Sterling-Goodman Professor of English, University of Georgia, USA ix c ontents 1 Introduction 1 2 Explorations and the Creation of a National Identity 31 3 Futurism and Science Fiction 65 Daniele Comberiati 4 After the Apocalypse: Repression and Resistance 83 5 The Internal Other: Representing Roma 109 Simone Brioni 6 Aliens in a Country of Immigration: Intersectional Perspectives 137 Simone Brioni 7 Dystopic Worlds and the Fear of Multiculturalism 163 Daniele Comberiati 8 The Questione Settentrionale: Reconfiguring Separatism 183 Simone Brioni xi
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