'Il senso dell'intreccio': History, Totality, and Collective Agency in Romanzo criminale. (3rd May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Resmini, Mauro
• Is Part Of: Italianist. Volume 36:Number 2(2016)
• Page Start: 243
• Page End: 265
• Publication Date: 2016-05-03
• Subjects: New Italian Epic -- transmediality -- Wu Ming -- Giancarlo De Cataldo -- Michele Placido -- Stefano Sollima; Italian language -- Periodicals; Italian literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Italy -- Periodicals; 945.005
• DOI: 10.1080/02614340.2016.1176708
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-4340

Abstract

Abstract : The essay centres on the transmedia franchise of Romanzo criminale (novel, film and television series) to investigate its fundamental formal and political wager, which is twofold: to provide a mapping of recent Italian history and to imagine collective agency within it. By focusing on aspects of aesthetics, genre, and narrative, the analysis shows how the desire to map a totality (and its impossibility) takes on a different shape in each incarnation of Romanzo criminale . The underlying thesis is that form is symptomatic: by analyzing the various textual configurations of the desire to map, the essay unveils the tireless work of ideology in popular culture, and how it affects the representation of ideas of history, totality, and collective agency.