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In terms of migration, Italy is often thought of as a source country - a place from which people came rather than one to which people go. However, in the past few decades, Italy has indeed become a destination for many people from poor or war-torn countries seeking a better life in a stable environment. Graziella Parati's Migration Italy examines immigration to Italy in the past twenty years, and explores the processes of cultural hybridization that have occurred.

Working from a cultural studies viewpoint, Parati constructs a theoretical framework for discussing Italy as a country of immigration. She gives special attention to immigrant literature, positing that it functions as an act of resistance, a means to talk back to the laws that regulate the lives of migrants. Parati also examines Italian cinema, demonstrating how native and non-native filmmakers alike create parallels between old and new migrations, complicating the definitions of sameness and difference.

These definitions and the complexities inherent in the different cultural, legal, and political positions of Italy's people are at the heart of Migration Italy, a unique work of immense importance for understanding society in both modern-day Italy and, indeed, the entire European continent.

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This innovative text offers a completely fresh approach to Italian politics by placing it in its historical, institutional, social and international contexts. Students will get to grips with the theories and concepts of comparative politics and how they apply specifically to Italy, while gaining real insight into more controversial topics such as the Mafia, corruption and the striking success of Berlusconi. The textbook uses clear and simple language to critically analyze Italy's institutions, its political culture, parties and interest groups, public policy, and its place in the international system.Often regarded as an anomaly, Italy is frequently described in terms of 'crisis', 'instability' and 'alienation'. Sceptical of these conventional accounts, Newell argues that, if understood in its own terms, the Italian political system is just as effective as other established democracies. With features including text boxes and further reading suggestions, this is an unbeatable introduction to the politics of Italy. ... Read more

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Emphasizing the peculiar, the perverse, the clandestine and the scandalous, this volume opens up a critical discourse on sexuality and visual culture in early modern Italy. Contributors consider not just painted (conventional) representations of sexual activities and eroticized bodies, but also images from print media, drawings, sculpted objects and painted ceramic jars. In this way, the volume presents an entirely new picture of Renaissance sexuality, stripping away layers of misconceptions and manipulations to reveal an often-misunderstood world. 'Sex acts' is interpreted broadly, from the acting out, or performing, of one's (or another's) sex to sexual activity, including what might be considered, now or then, peculiar practices and preferences and a variety of possibly scandalous scenarios. While the contributors come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, this collection foregrounds the visual culture of early modern sexuality, from representations of sex and sexualized bodies to material objects associated with sexual activities. The picture presented here nuances our understanding of Renaissance sexuality as well as our own. ... Read more

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This proceedings volume contains presentations, group discussions and reports on terrorism-related issues, such as: motivations; tools and countermeasures; worldwide stability; risk analysis. ... Read more

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This was the first of a number of seminars dealing with one of the most complex of the new challenges in the 21st century, which call for the participation of a broad range of experts. Eminent economists, decision-makers, defence specialists, political analysts and sociologists presented their views and participated in the debates. In the wake of the dramatic event of 11 September 2001, the Afghanistan war and the resurgence of terrorist acts on all the continents, a host of issues were reconsidered and the role of science and technology was reassessed. The 27th Session was primarily oriented toward the definition of the new types of confrontation, and the identification of various factors and issues that gave rise to them and global trends. ... Read more

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This book contains the proceedings of the 31st International Seminar on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies convened in Erice, Italy, on May 7–12, 2004. World leaders in their fields of Science, directors of National Laboratories, advisors to Presidents, Defence Secretaries and high-level diplomats converged at the event. Together, they offer different schools of thought to the widely-debated subject of Cultural Emergency and Terrorism. The subjects treated in this volume include societal and global approach to terrorism; responses to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, as well as challenges to emergency/risk management, media information and communication. ... Read more

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The Erice International Seminars are multidisciplinary seminars attended by over 100 eminent participants from all fields of science. Each year, a few scientific issues are selected and experts are invited to present contrasting views during the plenary multidisciplinary sessions of the seminar, followed by general debates. These sessions offer a unique opportunity for specialists to enlarge their vision of their related fields by being confronted with ideas and suggestions from high-level scientists in complementary domains of science. Associated workshops allow the experts to further refine and process the ideas evoked during the seminar.This year's topics are all actual. For instance, on climate issues we have focused on the management of a global warming and on new theoretical alternatives to climate modeling. On global monitoring of the planet, we have focused on the US missile defence shield, the energy externalities and waste disposal and the historical dive by Dr Chilingarov on the North Pole shelf. On the medical side, we have investigated the Alzheimer epidemics and the role of infectious agents in cancer. ... Read more

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(Full Title: AIDS and Infectious Diseases - Medication or Vaccination for Developing Countries; Missile Proliferation and Defense; Tchernobyl - Mathematics and Democracy; Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy; Floods and Extreme Weather Events - Coastal Zone Problems; Science and Technology for Developing Countries; Water - Transboundary Water Conflicts; Climatic Changes - Global Monitoring of the Planet; Information Security; Pollution in the Caspian Sea; Permanent Monitoring Panels Reports; Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Workshop; AIDS and Infectious Diseases Workshop; Pollution Workshop) ... Read more

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The Erice International Seminars are multidisciplinary seminars attended by over 100 eminent participants from all fields of science. Each year, a few scientific issues are selected and experts are invited to present contrasting views during the plenary multidisciplinary sessions of the seminar, followed by general debates. These sessions offer a unique opportunity for specialists to enlarge their fields of vision by being confronted with ideas and suggestions from high-level scientists in complementary domains of science. Associated workshops allow the experts to further refine and process the ideas evoked during the seminar.This year's topics are all currently of high relevance. For example, on energy issues, we have focused on the future of global nuclear power. On global monitoring of the planet, we have focused on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the Nuclear-Proliferation Treaty. On climatology, we have investigated the role of aerosols on global warming and their satellite detection. On pollution, the role of plastic contaminants in water was revealed through a series of disquieting reports. ... Read more

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A Familiar View of an Unfamiliar Locale
Given that much of the lives of us relatively wealthy people is devoted to finding things to buy and then buying them, it is fun to find out how people of different ages and places arranged financial transactions to keep their lives going.It's no surprise that they did a lot differently in Italy five hundred years ago, and not much of a surprise that much is the same.In _Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400 - 1600_, Evelyn Welch has drawn on letters, legal records, paintings, price lists, inventories, architectural plans, and a wide range of other sources to make this basic human activity visible.A problem is that it remains largely invisible; those Italians didn't shop mindlessly, but almost instinctively as we do, with the intricacies of social values involved well below the level of consciousness.Shopping can be opened up, Welch shows, to show the society's thinking and its emphasis on themes like artisanship, labor, honest dealing, and social strata.

In Renaissance Italy, shopping was fraught with possibilities of sin.One Lenten sermon reminded hearers that shopping involved misuse of the time God had sacredly granted us, and involved usury.Merchants would habitually do such things as claim their goods were better than they actually were, perhaps even swearing oaths in verification, or they would use false measures.They might even dress misleadingly; in Venice, for instance, it was illegal for a merchant to dress as a peasant to fool buyers that the offered produce was home grown, and those who were re-selling goods on behalf of others were to wear a red "R" on their clothing for _revenditrice_.Dressing wrong was an offense to God: "O merchant," ran one sermon, "if you wish to appear as a merchant, then wear the garment that is made for you."Governments and churches supported efforts to have true weights and measures.This was often difficult, as even within one market merchants would use different measuring systems, and measurements and coinage varied from city to city.It was important for such transactions to be visible, so that both sides would have reason to keep honest, but also would keep to their places.The standard shop was open but had a counter in the front of it; the counter might directly face the street.There was no door or other barrier to prevent a customer from going behind the counter, but it just wasn't done.The customer had to ask to see the goods on display in the shop behind, and the vendor would bring them to the counter, starting the transaction.

Who did the shopping?Decent women did not, at least usually.They sent courtiers out to do it, and the courtiers were generally men.The Marchioness of Mantua wrote to her servant Zigliolo in 1491, "These are the kind of things that I wish to have - engraved amethysts, rosaries of black, amber and gold, blue cloth for a camora, black cloth for a mantle, such as shall be without a rival in the world."The household accounts and expenditures were the work of the men, too.A review of account books in Florence shows that only men kept the books, except for widows that no longer had a man to do it for them.Wives, after a few years of marriage, were allowed to make small-scale decisions about buying day-to-day items, but they still did not interact with the sellers; of course, women of lower status had to do such face-to-face negotiations and did not risk dishonor.Welch's book is a detailed academic work, but given the topic, there is liveliness here, emphasized by the many gorgeous illustrations of sellers and buyers in action, and the goods which made it all happen.
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From Latin humanists to popular writers, Italian Renaissance culture spawned a lively debate on vocational choice and the nature of profession. In The Culture of Profession in Late Renaissance Italy, George W. McClure examines the turn this debate took in the second half of the Renaissance, when the learned 'praise and rebuke' of profession began to be complemented with more popular forms of discourse, and when less learned vocations made their voice heard.

Focusing primarily on sources assembled and published in the sixteenth century, McClure's study explores professional themes in comic, festive, and popular print culture. A pivotal figure is Tomaso Garzoni, a monk whose popular encyclopedia, Universal Piazza of all the Professions of the World, was published in 1585.A funnel for earlier traditions and an influence on later ones, this massive compendium treated over 150 categories of profession ? juxtaposing the world of philosophers and poets, lawyers and physicians, merchants and artisans, teachers and printers, cooks and chimneysweeps, prostitutes and procurers. If the conventional view is that Italian Renaissance society generally grew more aristocratic in the later period, this and other sources reveal a professional ethos more democratic in nature and bespeak the full cultural discovery of the middling and lowly professions in the late Renaissance.

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Throughly researched with extensive notes
The Culture Of Profession In Late Renaissance Italyby George W. McClure (Associate Professor, Department of History, Universityof Alabama) is a close study of themes concerning profession and livelihood in Renaissance Italian culture and society. Especially scrutinizing "Universal Piazza of All the Professions of the World", published in 1585 by the monk Tomaso Garzoni, The Culture Of Profession In Late Renaissance Italy explores how various different vocations made their voice heard, and the genesis of an intense debate concerning occupational choices and tha nature of different tasks. Throughly researched with extensive notes, The Culture Of Profession In Late Renaissance Italy is a fascinating and scholarly contribution to history, literature, and especially Renaissance studies shelves.
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Queer Italy is the first multi-methodological inquiry into the historical, political and representational contexts behind the current plea for civil unions that queers advocate in Italy. Concerned with the links between identity, subjectivity and sexuality in Italy, this book opens Italian studies to previously neglected discussion of queer and migrant subjectivities. The author applies Lacanian film analysis and auto-ethnographic passages to question the uses of queer politics in Italy. Accessible and comprehensive, this is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses on Italian culture, cultural studies and film studies. ... Read more

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In recent years, the Anglo-Italian sphere of artistic exchange in relation to painting has been an increasingly productive area of research. Here, contributors shift the focus onto the two countries’ equally significant sculpture trade. This volume of selected essays by economic and social historians and historians of material culture and art investigates the varied roles and functions of sculpture and the ways in which this particular cultural exchange was manifested. Issues of business and the markets for sculpture are highlighted, both in the context of producers of “high” art and in the wider market for religious, garden, and decorative sculpture. ... Read more

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Analyzing convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy through the medium of three unpublished nuns' chronicles, this study examines the nuns' intellectual and imaginative achievements to determine how they preserved individual and convent identities by writing chronicles. The chronicles reveal many examples of the nuns' achievements, especially with regard to cultural creativity, and demonstrate that convent traditions ultimately determined the cultural priorities that dictated convent ceremonial life. ... Read more

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Living Memory investigates the complex question of language and its place at the heart of Bergamasco culture in northern Italy.

• Integrates extensive participant observation with sociolinguistic data collection
• Reveals the political and social dynamics of a national language (Italian) and a local dialect (Bergamasco) struggling for survival
• Introduces the original concept of the “social aesthetics of language”: the interweaving of culturally-shaped and emotionally felt dimensions of language-choice
• Written to be accessible to students and specialists alike ... Read more

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Linguistics for every one
Jillian Cavanaugh's book allows the reader to explore how language can reveal the social aesthetics of a place. It happens to be a beatiful and interesting place, worthy of the exploration. For some one with limited knowledge of linguistics, it affords an opportunity to learn the basics in a charming narrative, which makes you feel the place and understand how language can be used an analytical tool. ... Read more