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Is There a Chronotope of the Short Story?
Full text linkThe present article suggests a means to reconceptualize the chronotope in order to widen its application and rethink its generic relations to the individual text. Bakhtin singles out an overarching chronotope for every novelistic genre and subgenre, considered as historic essences. However, he also identifies a horizontal and a vertical dimension of the chronotope which may coexist in a narrative. By focusing on these dimensions, we may analyze individual narratives taken from different genres. In particular, the article shows just how noteworthy are the affinities between the vertical dimension of the chronotope, as outlined by Bakhtin himself, and an extensive theorization of the short story beginning with the German Romantics. The methodological shift thus advocates a study of the specific genericity of an individual text rather than to the insertion of the text into a broadly categorized genre.The present article suggests a means to reconceptualize the chronotope in order to widen its application and rethink its generic relations to the individual text. Bakhtin singles out an overarching chronotope for every novelistic genre and subgenre, considered as historic essences. However, he also identifies a horizontal and a vertical dimension of the chronotope which may coexist in a narrative. By focusing on these dimensions, we may analyze individual narratives taken from different genres. In particular, the article shows how noteworthy are the affinities between the vertical dimension of the chronotope, as outlined by Bakhtin himself, and an extensive theorization of the short story beginning with the German Romantics. The methodological shift thus advocates a study of the specific genericity of an individual text rather than to the insertion of the text into a broadly categorized genre
The Spatiotemporal Cyclicality of the Circular Narrative of The Good Place
Full text linkThe paper aims to pay attention to the cyclicity of space and time representation of the afterlife in The Good Place. Here the protagonists are stuck in an infernal loop and every time they discover they are in a particularly elaborate infernal circle, their memory is erased and the narration restart. When the story starts over, the demonic narrative is always slightly different from the previous one. The cyclical nature of the narration at a space-time level would seem to perfect the storytelling: through the alteration of the narrative structure, traditional expectations relating to the afterlife are demolished and a dystopian afterlife is narrated
The Erasure of Historical Consciousness and the Hegemony of the Present in Time Travel Films
Full text linkThe paper discusses how the present became absolute and colonized the historical past in the mass culture of late capitalism, by examining the ideological premise of time travel films of the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on Fredric Jameson’s and David Lowenthal’s views of history and popular culture, the article suggests that the primacy of the present and the disappearance of historical consciousness becomes really striking in narratives that thematize the unnatural structures and causal logics of multiple, co-existing temporal planes. The course of history is presented as an evolution towards superior social structures, culminating in the liberal democracy of the United States, and any interference with this system is portrayed as a threat to social order. Its hegemonic aspirations are glorified in the narratives through the affirmative attitude of the fictionalized historical characters towards it
V ozhidanii nashego budushchego sotrudnichestva (Waiting for our future collaboration)
Full text linkIn memory of Peter Steiner. In memory of Peter Steiner
Man in the Cosmos: Italo Calvino’s Cosmic Ecology in The Cosmicomics
Full text linkItalo Calvino’s The Cosmicomics, despite its pluralistic openness to multiple critical interpretations by various theoretical and conceptual frameworks including post-humanism, science-fiction studies, postmodernism and many more, deals with the fundamental issue of the human’s physical and conceptual inseparability from Nature or the cosmos. The human’s inseparability from the non-humans (including animals, vegetation and inanimate matters) has profound ecological implications. What Calvino establishes in the mentioned text is the human’s inevitable and unconditional inclusion in Nature rather than his self-proclaimed, physical/conceptual exclusion from the same. This is vindicated by the fictional illustrations in the text in which the ‘human’ is posited as a mere member of the ecosystem, and not as its master. In this context, this article endeavours to explore and analyze the said ecological implications of the mentioned work in the light of some the established ecological theories and postulations.  
Recensione di Anna Baldini, A regola d’arte. Storia e geografia del campo letterario italiano (1902-1936) (Quodlibet, 2023)
Full text linkReview of Anna Baldini, A regola d’arte: Storia e geografia del campo letterario italiano (1902-1936) (Quodlibet, 2023). Recensione di Anna Baldini, A regola d’arte. Storia e geografia del campo letterario italiano (1902-1936) (Quodlibet, 2023). 
Diorama, Early Childhood, Writing in Durs Grünbein’s Works
Full text linkA partire dallo scritto poetico Infanzia nel diorama, il presente lavoro indaga il nesso tra fascinazione dello spettacolo, che presenta gli animali nel loro habitat ricostruito, e scrittura quale perno attivo intorno al quale ruota la poetica dell\u27infanzia di Grünbein rispetto al disincanto del mondo adulto. Alla luce dell\u27immedesimazione con l’animale del fanciullo non ancora alfabetizzato, si evidenziano paralleli tra il bambino e l’adulto disincantato – uno dei nonni aveva lavorato per anni al mattatoio di Dresda. La scoperta della scrittura, dovuta in parte al nonno paterno, porta il bambino a riscattare una idea del vero già espressa da Baudelaire: una rappresentazione dei vissuti interni del soggetto atta a riparare tutto quel dolore animale causato dall’uomo scrivendone e rivolgendosi al bambino nel lettore capace di compassione e identificazione verso quelle creature che non hanno e non ebbero voce. Starting from Childhood in the diorama, this paper investigates the connection between the fascination of dioramas presenting animals in their reconstructed habitat and writing as the active pivot around which Grünbein’s poetics of childhood revolves in relation to the disenchantment of the adult world. Parallels between the disillusioned grandparents – one of whom had worked at the Dresden slaughterhouse — and their not yet literate grandson are analysed in the light of the identification with the animal. Through poetic writing the child redeems an idea of truth and reality, already expressed by Baudelaire, as a representation of the internal experiences of the subject trying to repair all the senseless pain inflicted by man on animals. The way Grünbein addresses the child in the reader, capable of compassion and identification with those creatures, which had no voice and still have no voice, captures one of the most distinctive and structuring features of Grünbein\u27s poetics
Proust: Desire and Style, Theory and Criticism. About a Recent Book by Giovanni Bottiroli
Full text linkRecensione di Giovanni Bottiroli Marcel Proust. Il romanzo del desiderio (Feltrinelli, 2022).Review of Giovanni Bottiroli Marcel Proust. Il romanzo del desiderio (Feltrinelli, 2022)
Review of Daria Biagi, Prosaici e moderni. Teoria, traduzione e pratica del romanzo nell’Italia del primo Novecento. Quodlibet, 2022
Full text linkRecensione di Daria Biagi, Prosaici e moderni. Teoria, traduzione e pratica del romanzo nell’Italia del primo Novecento. Quodlibet, 2022.Review of Daria Biagi, Prosaici e moderni. Teoria, traduzione e pratica del romanzo nell’Italia del primo Novecento. Quodlibet, 2022
Tragedy without the Tragic: Why Conspirational Narrative Mirrors Our Society
Full text linkLa diffusione della comunicazione attraverso canali non convenzionali, in primo luogo i social network, sta alimentando una serie di preoccupazioni relative all’emersione della cosiddetta narrazione cospirativa. Il saggio cerca di comprendere la struttura di tale tipologia narrativa evidenziando come la società occidentale presenti i sintomi di quella che Girard chiamava «crisi sacrificale» (ricerca spasmodica di un capro espiatorio e spirito profetico diffuso). Tuttavia, lo storytelling emergente non riesce ad approdare a uno schema narrativo tragico, che potrebbe dischiudere la possibilità di una catarsi per i fruitori, ma resta intrappolato in una narrazione fortemente polarizzata. Questo tipo di struttura caratterizza sia le interpretazioni della realtà dette comunemente complottiste sia le contro-spiegazioni a difesa dell’establishment che si auto-definiscono scientifiche e demistificatorie. Questa narrazione riflette la nostra regressione immaginativa dovuta all’impossibilità di pensare un futuro al di fuori del sistema capitalista, i cui squilibri vengono percepiti come naturali e inevitabili.The diffusion of unconventional communication channels – mainly social networks – raises concerns about the manipulative and propagandistic opportunities connected with the power of storytelling in general and the emergence of the so-called conspirational narrative. In this essay, we try to understand its structure by pointing out how our society shows all the symptoms of what Girard called “the sacrificial crisis” (the frantic search for a scapegoat and widespread prophetic spirit). However, despite this crisis, the emerging storytelling often fails to meet a tragic narrative scheme that could open the possibility of a catharsis-healing for the recipient. Instead, it remains trapped in a strongly polarized narration that characterizes the commonly so-called conspirational interpretation of reality and the counter-arguments in defense of the establishment deemed demystifying and scientific. This narration mirrors our political and imaginative regression caused by our inability to think of a future outside of the capitalist system, of which imbalances are perceived as natural and unavoidable