Authors

Nunzio Ruggiero¹;  ¹ Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples (UniSOB), Italy

Discussion

Representations of the North-Eastern border in Italian literature of the twentieth century This talk aims to analyze the relationship between political disruption and literary representation on the north-eastern border of Italy after the First World War, when nationalist movements get radicalized for the crisis and fall of the Habsburg empire. The history of Italian and European literature of the twentieth century receives a decisive contribution from the most important writers of the North-Eastern border of Italy: from Saba to Slataper, from Svevo to Michelstedter, from Svevo to Joyce. In this context a new literary tradition of the Balkan countries also develops which are involved in a complex relationship of exchange and conflict with Italian culture. The political disruption is particularly evident in the works of Umberto Saba, the poet who felt the crisis of the XXth Century as a dramatic catastrophy of the European culture. Through the literary filter of Saba’s remembrance, the aim is to analyse the relationship between the conception of the work and the post-war political situation - from 1921 to 1945 - marked by the recurring twentieth-century topos of Finis Europae in terms of geo-semiotics of the eastern border.

Nunzio Ruggiero is currently Full Professor in Contemporary Italian Literature within the Humanities Department of the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples (UniSOB). He teaches Italian Literature an Literary Criticism, in the Degree Courses in Languages, Cultural Heritage and Archaeology. His main area of research is the study of the Neapolitan cultural life in the XIX and XX centuries, within an international perspective which underlines the role of Naples as European capital. A parallel area of interest is the history of Italian literary culture between the two world wars, and in particular the history of the reception and translation of foreign writers, comparative literature and the relationship between literature and politics during Fascism. He has a long standing collaboration with the Fondazione Biblioteca Benedetto Croce and the Istituto Italiano di Studi Storici di Napoli, and is a member of the Scientific Committee and Editorial Board of "Napoli Nobilissima. Rivista di Arti, Filologia e Storia" and "Quaderni dell'Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli". He has a number of international contacts and collaborations within Europe (Athens, Aix-Marseille, Strasbourg, Banja Luka, Ljubljana, Rieka) and beyond (Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg, Kyoto, Tokio, Cairo, Baku, Quito, Cotonou). He has been invited to give a number of international lectures and seminars, and has organised numerous national and international conferences and seminars.