Finding Feminist Affect in Italian Literature: From Sibilla Aleramo to Rossana Campo, 1906-2012 By Soledad Donata Anatrone A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Barbara Spackman, Chair Professor Mia Fuller Professor Nadia Ellis Spring 2015 Abstract Finding Feminist Affect in Italian Literature: From Sibilla Aleramo to Rossana Campo, 1906-2012 By Soledad Donata Anatrone Doctor of Philosophy in Italian Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Barbara Spackman, Chair The project of nation-building is an affective one; it depends on shared sites of emotional investment and collective memory in order to produce a language that speaks to and for the subjects of that nation. In Italy this task has been at the heart of public debate since the turn of the century, coloring the content and form of literary narratives as well as political activism. Finding Feminist Affect in Italian Literature: From Sibilla Aleramo to Rossana Campo, 1906-2012, identifies parallels between political activism and narrative at different moments in the history of the Italian women’s movement; I begin with the suffragists and consider narratives of individual achievement and struggle, like Sibilla Aleramo’s (1906) Una donna, that echo the philosophical impulses and political efforts of that moment. Following this interplay of textual expression and feminist thought, I move from the turn of the century to the present day with each chapter focusing on a discrete period in modern Italian history. The second chapter explores connections between collaboratively authored manuscripts and practices of collective identification and group politics beginning in the 1970s. This is followed by an analysis of the academic turn among Italian feminists in the 1980s and 1990s, and its effects on both the style and content of the texts they authored. In the final chapter I ask how the current women’s movement is defining itself as Italian, and how those criteria have changed in light of the expansion of the European Union, increased immigration and demographic diversity, the rise of nationalist sentiment, and public displays of racism. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS: Acknowledgements ii Introduction iii Chapter One: Waking Women 1 Text and Politics 6 Shared Borders 18 Conclusion 36 Chapter Two: Collective Awakening 37 Una donna sola 42 “Ci tenevamo compagnia, si parlava” 47 Più donne che uomini 55 Baby boomers 69 Chapter Three: E intanto le donne 80 Why History? 86 E intanto le donne 88 A History of One’s Own 97 A Dark Future 106 Truth and Contradiction 108 Twisted Tales 109 Conclusion 117 Chapter Four: Il colore delle donne 119 “Almeno non hai un nome da negra” 125 Disciplining Narratives and Damaged Identities 136 “Non ero anche io italiana come lei?” 149 Bibliography 163 i Acknowledgements This dissertation is the product of many years of study and would not have been possible without the support of many people. Foremost among them is my wonderful dissertation committee, chaired by Professor Spackman who has been a steady and encouraging mentor through all the challenges of graduate school and whose work continues to inspire me. Thank you also to Professor Ellis, who reminds me to be both assertive and honest in my work, and to keep my scholarship meaningful. To Professor Fuller for her support and counsel, as well as her scholarship and teaching which have given me courage to advocate for the interdisciplinary nature of my work. Thank you to Professor Ascoli who has repeatedly helped me navigate the hurdles of graduate school and from whom I learned to enjoy the poems and comedies of the Renaissance. I also want to thank Professor Botterill for working with me on my exams and allowing me to teach with him; his grace in the lecture hall and attentive relationship with students are skills to which I aspire. The tireless staff of the Italian Department, Sandy Jones, Elizabeth LaVarge-Baptista and Kathi Brosnan, have my deepest gratitude for the invaluable support they have offered me in my roles as both student and teacher. A special thank you to Moriah Van Vleet, whom I feel lucky to count as a friend, for holding everything together and for sharing her delicious inventions! The Centro Documentazione delle Donne in Bologna, and Daniela Finocchi of the Concorso Lingua Madre in Turin, helped make this dissertation possible by for sharing their time, resources and dedication to Italian women’s writing and history. To Professor Bellisia, of Smith College, my first academic mentor and role model, for her passion for Italian women’s literature. Over the course of this graduate career I have been fortunate to make a number of dear friends for whom I am very grateful. Thank you most especially to Kate Noson, for her friendship, inspiring intellect and her tireless work as my faithful editor. Thank you also to Chris Atwood for nourishing me with food, thought and friendship. Thank you to my grad school guides, Anthony Martire, Jonathon Combs-Schilling and Scott Millspaugh, and Leslie Elwell, all brilliant scholars and fantastic friends. There are very many people outside of Italian Studies who have been important in getting me to this point and I am grateful to all of them. Thank you especially to Abra Levenson, for a lifetime of friendship and for knowing exactly what I am feeling. To Eve Letendre, for reading my work and spending hours in cafes writing with me; to The Secret Alley for giving me a treehouse hideaway, and for taking longer to finish than this dissertation; and to Sharon and Zetta Dovas, my most enthusiastic and adorable cheerleaders. Finally, thank you to my family for being so patient and encouraging. I am particularly grateful to my mother and father for their love and support. They have both, in different ways, been sources of inspiration for the work contained in this dissertation. And to Videl, my champion. Thank you for keeping me grounded and sticking by me through the many ups and downs, and reminding me that there still exists a world beyond the dissertation. I am ready to explore that world now! ii INTRODUCTION In October 2009 one of Italy’s leading news sources, La Repubblica, published an open letter in its online edition that went viral almost immediately. “Appello alla dignità delle donne,” (“Appeal to the dignity of women”), collaboratively authored by Michela Marzano, Barbara Spinelli and Nadia Urbinati, appeared as a response to a nationally televised incident in which the then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi publicly insulted senator Rosy Bindi by disparaging her gender.1 In the “Appello” Marzano, Spinelli and Urbinati do not refer directly to the Berlusconi-Bindi incident, instead they call on Italian women to come together and denounce this pattern of misogynist behavior. “È ormai evidente,” they begin, “che il corpo delle donne è diventato un’arma politica di capitale importanza, nella mano del Presidente del Consiglio.”2 They explain that the Prime Minister uses women’s bodies as a political tool by reducing them to symbols of submission to his power: “La donna come lui la vede e l’anela è avvenenza giovanile, seduzione fisica, ma in primissimo luogo è completa sottomissione al volere del capo.”3 This condemnation of Berlusconi’s misogynist behavior is presented not simply as an affront to women, but also as a threat to the practice of democracy in Italy. To emphasize this point, the subheading of the “Appello” reads: “Quest’uomo offende noi donne e la democrazia: Fermiamolo.”4 This same statement is repeated, word for word, in the last line of the “Appello,” stressing the connection between women’s dignity and democracy. Through this rhetorical move, the “Appello” participates in a contemporary trend of equating women’s rights with democracy, drawing on the widely held notion that the realization of each can be measured in the success of the other. In other words, the “Appello” argues that Italian democracy is threatened when women’s dignity is undermined. Marzano, Spinelli and Urbinati argue that the act of objectifying and denigrating the female body is used as a weapon, “contro la libera discussione, l’esercizio di critica, l’autonomia del pensiero.”5 Implicit in this equation is the idea that democracy and freedom of expression are universally shared ideals and will, therefore, be motivators for people to rally in their defense.6 While democracy implies a degree of equality among 1 Michela Marzano, Barbara Spinelli and Nadia Urbinati, “Appello alla dignità delle donne,” La Repubblica. October 9th, 2009. All translations are my own. 2 “By now it is clear that woman’s body has become a political weapon of utmost importance to the President.” 3 Woman, as he sees and represents her, is youthful beauty and physical seduction, but, first and foremost, she represents complete submission to the will of the leader.” 4 “This man offends us women and democracy: let’s stop him.” 5 “against free speech, critical dissent, and autonomous thought.” 6 This is a logic that began to emerge in the Eighties, with the rise of neoliberalism, and one that has gained global currency with recent campaigns to export a brand of Western democracy embodied in the image of the liberated woman. A very important essay by Chandra Mohanty, titled “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse,” exposes the ethnocentrism and objectification of the oppressed-other that inform this line of reasoning. Unlike the women’s movements of the Sixties and Seventies that drew heavily on leftist ideas of socialism and communist utopias, the logic that drives this formula comes out of the Nineties when Western democracy was repackaged as the only true expression of modern freedom.