In 1994, the Association for the Student of Modern Italy (ASMI) organised a conference around the theme of the ‘Italian crisis’. Silvio Berlusconi had just been elected as Prime Minister and the country was in dire economic straits. The political system was in tatters after the tangentopoli scandals. The crisis was analysed from a political, cultural, historical and social viewpoints in a conference that was extremely well attended and led to fascinating discussions after every paper.

The papers from the conference were then collected and published in the first issue of the journal Modern Italy.

Now, twenty years on, ASMI revisits the Italian crisis through a major two-day international conference which looks at the Italian crisis in terms of politics, economics, culture, the media, cinema and literature - with papers on Silvio Berlusconi, Matteo Renzi, Beppe Grillo and his movement, the Italian left, the crisis of masculinity, memory and fascism and many other areas.

Over forty speakers will give talks during the conference, which will be held in the beautiful surroundings of the Italian Institute in central London. This is an opportunity to discuss and debate themes linked to the ongoing idea of an Italian crisis, and to meet scholars and others interested in Italy and working on contemporary Italian themes. Major keynote papers will be given by the leading historian of contemporary Italy, Paul Ginsborg (who also spoke in the 1994 conference) and one of the leading Italian economists, Tito Boeri.

Everyone is welcome to attend - you can register at this site or on the day. http://asmi.org.uk/conferences/view/asmi-conference-2014

PAUL GINSBORG WILL BE SPEAKING AT 11AM ON FRIDAY 21 NOVEMBER, TITO BOERI AT 2:30PM ON THE SAME DAY.

The Italian Crisis: Twenty years on. 21-22 November 2014. The Italian Cultural Institute, 39 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8NX

Conference Organisers:

John Foot, University of Bristol, [email protected] Gianuca Fantoni, Nottingham Trent University, [email protected]

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Conference Programme

Friday 21 November

9:30 – 10:45 Registration

10:45 – 11.00 Welcome and opening remarks by John Foot and Caterina Cardona

11:00 – 12:00 Keynote speaker. Paul Ginsborg ‘Holding on: the Italian Republic, 1994- 2014’. Chair John Foot

12:00 – 1:00 Parallel Session I

Postcards from the Italian Crisis – Chair Martin J. Bull

Elena Borelli - City University of New York Crisi as decadence in Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza.

Paolo Carusi - Università degli Studi Roma Tre La crisi della “prima repubblica” nelle parole della canzone d’autore italiana. (IT)*

Of Money and Factories: The Roots of the Economic Crisis – Chair Stuart Oglethorpe Stefano Adamo – University of Banja Luka The crisis of the Italian textile industry in the literary works of Edoardo Nesi: a mix of nostalgia and self-complacency.

Andrea Guiso - Università La Sapienza di Roma La politica e il Sistema bancario tra Prima e Seconda Repubblica.

1:00 – 2:30 Lunch

2:30 – 3:30 Keynote speaker. Tito Boeri ‘The Big Chill: The Italian Economy and the Crisis’. Chair John Foot

3:30 – 4:00 Coffee Break

4:00 – 5:30 Parallel Session II

The Crisis of the Italian Political System (1) - Chair Stephen Gundle Michelangelo Vercesi - Leuphana University Lüneburg Twenty Years On: Failures and Successes of Party Institutionalisation.

Massimo Piermattei - Università della Tuscia The “EU factor” in the Italian crisis of 1994.

Bruno Anili - Cadence Partners. In Monti We Trust(ed). The (Undemocratic?) Appeal of Technocratic Neoliberalism in Italy.

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Narratives and Counternarratives in the Second Republic - Chair Gianluca Fantoni

Giulia Bassi – Università di Trieste – University of Reading Introiezione e ri-proiezione del paradigma della crisi. Alcune considerazioni sulla storiografia sul partito comunista italiano. (IT)*

Michelangela Di Giacomo and Novella di Nunzio - Università di Siena Trent'anni dopo: l'ultimo PCI tra azione e narrazione (IT)*

Fabrizio Coticchia - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa An alternative view: Counter-narratives, Italian public opinion and military operations abroad.

The Crisis of the Italian Left – Chair Philip Cooke Lilia Giugni – University of Cambridge The Italian left: an ideational crisis?

Nicola Degli Esposti – University of Leiden A Normal Country: Italian Post-Communists and the Challenge of Government.

Emanuel Rota - University of Illinois Between Berlusconi and Europe: the Crisis of the Italian Left at the end of the Cold War.

5:30 - 6:30 ASMI AGM meeting

7:30 Conference Dinner

Saturday 22

9:30 – 10:30 Registration

10:30 – 12:00 Parallel Session III

Leadership between old and new models - Chair Ruth Glynn

Massimo Cerulo - Università di Torino Uomini capaci di vibrare. Politica e lavoro emozionale in Berlusconi, Renzi e Grillo: tra costruzione della leadership e forme di antipolitica. (IT)*

Paolo Campolonghi – New York University ‘I Would Prefer Not To’: Beppe Grillo’s M5S against the Establishment.

Catherine O'Rawe - Bristol University Il corpo del capo: Berlusconi, Crisis, Masculinity.

Electoral defeats in national and local contexts – Chair Mark Donovan

Paolo Chiocchetti - King’s College London

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The radical left in the Italian crisis, 1991-2014.

Enrico Mannari - Fondazione Memorie Cooperative (Grosseto) Il caso Livorno: la "subcultura rossa" tra declino e trasformazione. (IT)*

Jacopo Perazzoli – Università degli Studi del Piemonte orientale Where it began, it starts to end: The Way-Out from «Berlusconism» through the 2011 Milan Local Elections.

Picturing and depicting the Crisis – Chair Penny Morris

Kate Willman - University of Warwick De Cataldo’s Nelle mani giuste and the New Italian Epic’s Approach to the Italian Crisis.

Francesco Chianese - Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale Scrittori senza padre, scrittori senza patria: l’evoluzione del commitment intellettuale dal Pasolini corsaro al Resistere non serve a niente di Walter Siti. (IT)*

Alessandro Valenzisi – University of Strathclyde Black Crows, Intellectuals and Dandies: the Italian Crisis through the Lens of Cinema. 12:00 – 1:00 Parallel Session IV Italian Curses: Corruption and the Mafia – Chair Christopher Duggan

Felia Allum – University of Bath Italy, politics and mafia twenty years after tangentopoli…

Giuseppe Serrantino – Middlesex University London Mapping the ‘Italian Crisis’ 1992-94: Corruption and Political system in Catania. Crisis, Resistance and Restoration.

Anti-Politics in Historical Perspective – Chair Mark Seymour

George Newth - University of Reading The rise of anti-politics and the evolution of regionalism in Piedmont and Padania: La Permanente, Il MARP and The Lega Nord.

Daniela R. Piccio - Leiden University Are political parties all the same? An analysis of the political finance law proposals (1948- 2014). 1:00 – 2:30 Lunch

2:30 – 3:30 Session V

The Crisis of the Italian Political System (2) Chair Stephen Gundle

Martin J. Bull - University of Salford The Crisis of Italian Institutions: Twenty Years On.

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Mark Donovan - Cardiff University The Second Republic: a new party system, now itself in crisis.

The burden of the Past. Memories and Reassessment. Chair Sofia Serenelli

Nick Carter - Australian Catholic University Sydney Presente! Fascist Art in Contemporary Italy.

Giacomo Lichtner - Victoria University of Wellington Memory Compromises and Compromised Memories: Rewriting WWII in Contemporary Italian Film.

3:30 – 4:00 Coffee Break

4:00 – 5:30 Parallel Session VI

Liminal identities and collectives fears - Chair John Foot

Gianni Silei – Università di Siena Italian fear: the roots of the Italian crisis Franco Baldasso - New York University A Mirror for Italy: Intellectuals in Trieste Facing the Collapse of Yugoslavia.

Louise Zamparutti - University of Wisconsin Italy's Giorno del ricordo: creating a counterpublic identity in the Second Republic.

Theatre and Television as mirrors of the Crisis – Chair Gianluca Fantoni

Armando Rotondi - Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale The ‘theatralization’ of the crisis in the dialectic between Dario Fo, Beppe Grillo and Gianroberto Casaleggio.

Vanessa Roghi – Università La Sapienza Roma Television iconography and clichés. Daniele Salerno – Università di Bologna The (Televised) Birth of ‘Grillismo’.

*(IT): The paper will be in Italian.

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