Copyright by Matthew Ryan Rabatin 2016
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Copyright by Matthew Ryan Rabatin 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Matthew Ryan Rabatin Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: O partigiano, portami via! Men, Sexuality, and the Italian Resistance Committee: Daniela Bini Carter, Co-Supervisor Paola Bonifazio, Co-Supervisor Guy Raffa Lina Insana Michael Johnson O, partigiano, portami via! Men, Sexuality, and the Italian Resistance by MATTHEW RYAN RABATIN, B.A., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN MAY 2016 Dedication To Benton, who inspires me to do better, always. Acknowledgements This laborious project would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation supervisors, Professor Daniela Bini Carter and Professor Paola Bonifazio, for their patience and for having taught me the benefits and rewards of rigorous scholarship. I would also like to thank the other members of my Ph.D. committee, including Professor Guy Raffa, Professor Lina Insana, and Professor Michael Johnson for their invaluable comments and contributions to my research. I owe a debt of gratitude to my former instructors, professors, and colleagues who have supported me throughout my graduate studies. I thank Professor Francesca Savoia, for her unwavering encouragement and advice. To Professor Lina Insana, thank you for your years of guidance and friendship. To Antonella Olson, thank you for the opportunity to rediscover Italy alongside you. I am grateful to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin for the Dissertation Fellowship Award that funded my research in the Carlo Coccioli Archives. I thank the Ransom Center’s research staff for their assistance with my research. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family. To Mom, Dad, Brennan, and Logan, thank you for your unconditional love and support. To Anna, thank you for always listening and for your sound advice. To Benton, Grace, and Charlotte, thank you for being my family and rock throughout this process. I could not have done this without you. v O, PARTIGIANO, PORTAMI VIA! MEN, SEXUALITY, AND THE ITALIAN RESISTANCE Matthew Ryan Rabatin, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisors: Daniela Bini Carter, Paola Bonifazio This dissertation examines the representations of sexuality in male-authored narratives, both cinematic and literary, inspired by the Italian Resistance of the Second World War. My theoretical framework builds on the assertion that such narratives question predominant modes of representing the male partisan figure as a heterosexual man to include gay and queer sexualities. I foreground my work through a close reading of Carlo Coccioli’s Il Migliore e l’ultimo, a novel written during Coccioli’s imprisonment that narrates his love for a fellow partisan named Alberto. I proceed to novels and films produced during the 21st century. I engage each work with postmodern theories of writing and filmmaking, which I discuss alongside queer theorists whose studies affirm postmodernism as a site of openness and productivity for queer and eccentric subjects. I demonstrate how these works respond avant la lettre to calls for the revision of Resistance historiography made by official organizations of former partisans, such as Italy’s National Association of Partisans of Italy (A.N.P.I.). The works I examine are the aforementioned Il Migliore e l’ultimo, Wu Ming’s Asce di guerra, Bert D’Arragon’s La libellula, and Ferzan Özpetek’s Magnifica presenza. vi Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Questions of Methodology ..............................................................................8 A Sense of Resistance History ......................................................................13 Homosexuality and Resistance Culture in Postwar Italy ..............................16 Toward a Queer Resistance ..........................................................................20 Chapter 1 Companions in Each Other’s Arms: The Italian Resistance and the Homoerotic Gaze in Coccioli’s Il Migliore e l’ultimo ...........................................25 Carlo Coccioli: Between Liminality and Eccentricity ..................................31 A Nebulous Resistance: September 8, Flight from Turin, and Defining the Partisan ..........................................................................................................41 “Quest’è la vita da partigiano”: Carlo’s homoerotic gaze and the Italian Resistance .....................................................................................................47 Conclusion ....................................................................................................67 Chapter 2 Echoes of Patriarchy: The New Italian Epic, Asce di guerra, and Performing the Partisan .................................................................................70 Identifying WuMing and the New Italian Epic.............................................76 Asce di guerra, Homosocial Spaces, and Resistance ....................................82 A Failed Performance .................................................................................100 Conclusion ..................................................................................................105 Chapter 3 Narrating a Gay Resistance in La libellula.........................................109 From Victim to Partisan, or Developing the “coscienza di ribelle” ...........134 Conclusion ..................................................................................................151 Chapter 4 A Contemporary Resistance: Nostalgia and Perversion in Ferzan Özpetek’s Magnifica presenza .............................................................................155 Reviewing the Resistance: Postmodernism, Nostalgia, and Intertextuality163 Forward to the Past: Rereading the fascist-perversion equation .................171 Conclusion, or Liberating the Past ..............................................................184 vii Conclusion ...........................................................................................................189 Bibliography ........................................................................................................195 Vita ......................................................................................................................203 viii Introduction In this dissertation, I examine the nexus of sexuality, gender, and male same-sex desire within narratives of the antifascist Italian Resistance of World War Two. Until quite recently, the relationship between these issues appeared to be of little interest to artists and contributors to Resistance culture alike. Within the past two decades, however, there has been a shift in the Italian cultural landscape, and with this shift has come the subtle yet sure appearance of texts that present issues of sexuality and same-sex desire in portrayals of partisans and against the backdrop of the Resistance. Although such narratives have emerged with more frequency in the past fifteen years, the phenomenon I discuss is not purely contemporary, but also observable in works published in the immediate postwar period. It is within an atmosphere of renewed willingness to consider the Resistance and its representations in light of homosexuality that I situate my study. I do not, however, claim that my work is purely historiographic in nature, nor do I claim that the literary and cinematic representations of Italy’s Resistance past examined herein are themselves real events. The first of its kind to specifically consider representations of homosexuality and desire between men within representations of the Italian Resistance, this study will contribute to further analyses of homosexuality and gay identity politics within twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italian cultural production. My aim is to flesh out trends within an ever-growing yet still nebulous corpus of texts that situate homosexuality and same-sex desire within their narratives of the Resistance and Italian partisans. When considered separately, on the one hand, the works I include in this study provide singular definitions of homosexuality and same-sex attraction between males within the historical and political context of the Resistance. 1 Together, on the other, these same works provide their reader with insight into the multiple and diverse representations of homosexuality and same-sex desire: as symptomatic of an essential hyper-masculinity, as a supposed indication of one’s own gender inversion, and as a singular aspect within a continuum of otherwise fluid sexualities and identities. Discourses of sexuality and gender animate the Resistance narratives I have chosen. Although issues regarding male sexuality – in particular homosexuality – lie at the heart of this project, one cannot exclude critical discussions of sexuality from those of gender. If applying such a methodology, one would run the risk of excluding female characters from analysis and thus create an entirely one-sided study, silencing female voices, and of placing considerations of men above those concerning the women such works include. For this reason, I will also discuss how, within the works I have chosen, female characters