148 research outputs found
The construction of Karen Karnak: The multi-author-function
No full textThis thesis is situated within the comparatively recent developments of Web 2.0 and the emergence of interactive WikiMedia, and explores the mode of authorship within a Read/Write culture compared to that of a Read/Only tradition. The hypothesis of this study is that the role of the audience has become merged with the author, and as such, represents new functions and attributes, distinct from a more conventional concept of authorship, in which the roles of audience and author are more separate. Read/Write and participatory culture, as defined by this study, is focused on collaboration, and includes the influences of D.I.Y. culture, Open-Source practices and the production of text by multiple authors. Multi-authorship presents a re-thinking of several concepts which support the notion of the individual author, since the focus of multi-authorship is not on attribution and ownership of a finished text, but on the continued malleability of a text. Modes of multi-authorship, demonstrated in the use of the pseudonyms Alan Smithee and Karen Eliot, represent declarative authors whose names signify multiple origins, whilst concurrently indicating a distinct body of work. The function of these names form an important context to this study, since primary research involves the construction of an experimental mode of multi-authorship utilising WikiMedia technology and the interaction of thirty nine participants, who are invited to create a body of work under the collective pseudonym Karen Karnak. The data generated by this experiment is analysed using aspects of Michel Foucault's author-function to identify and determine power structures inherent in the WikiMedia context. The interplay of power structures, including concepts such as identity, ownership and the body of work, affect the resulting mode of authorship and contribute to the construction of Karen Karnak, suggesting further areas of research into the emerging multi-author
Emilio Ghione and the Mask of Za La Mort
No full textThis study aims to examine the cultural impact of Emilio Ghione's Za La Mort films (1914-1924) on Italian culture. These films constitute a significant Italian combination of several early cinema genres and sub-genres, such as the apache film, the traces of which have almost entirely disappeared. More broadly, the changing interpretations of Za La Mort figure allow us to understand wider shifts in Italian and European popular culture.
The first chapter of the study considers the wealth of influences from European popular culture that Emilio Ghione merged into the apache films, such as the apache sub-culture in Paris. The second chapter of the study then reconstructs the Za La Mort filmography, most of which has now been lost, from film viewings and archival documents. The third chapter considers Emilio Ghione's Za La Mort novels and theatrical productions in the years 1922-1930, and Ghione's attempts to make Za La Mort a more Fascist and nationalistic figure. The fourth chapter considers the enduring figure of Za La Mort in Italian popular culture, especially in Raffaele Matarazzo's Fumeria D'Oppio and a 1940's fumetti series. The fifth chapter considers the audience reception of the Za La Mort films from the limited remaining evidence and, positioning the series between the Cinema of Attractions of the 1900s and the Classical Cinema of the mid-1920's, analyses how the Za La Mort films were constructed to please a predominantly working class audience that valued spectacular thrills and great acting performances over narrative consistency and stable characterisation.
This research re-establishes the importance of one of Italian cinema's most important film-makers of the silent period, and his enduring importance as a popular cultural figure in Italy
Interest Groups, Government Spending and Italian Industrial Growth (1876-1913)
No full textIn the last two decades of the XIX century the Italian model of economic growth shifted from agricultural to industrial. Historians maintain that this process was affected by the action of some interest groups that pursued both state protection from competition and specific public expenditure programs. Starting from the economic literature of interest groups, this paper attempts to empirically investigate the role of the interest groups in public expenditure decisions in Italy from 1876 to 1913. We argue that a proper indicator of the role of interest groups is their output. The analysis suggests that government spending was sensitive to the preferences of heavy industry rather then those of textile and cereal cultivators. We therefore highlight the role of the political process in setting economic policy at the early stages of the Italian development.industrialization; special interests groups; public expenditure, Italian economic history.
Exports,growth and causality. New evidence on Italy: 1863-2004
No full textThis paper investigates the causal relationship between real export and real GDP in Italy from 1863 to 2004 by using cointegration analysis and causality tests. The outcome suggests that in the period prior to WW1 the growth of the Italian economy led that of exports, while in the post-WW2 period the causal relationship was reversed with the expansion of exports that determined the growth of the Italian economy.Export led growth hypothesis; unit root tests; cointegration analysis; Granger – causality
Pietro Verri’s Contribution to the Economic Theory of the 18th Century: Commercial Society, Civil Society and Governance of the Economy
No full text'Count Pietro Verri (1728-97) - Schumpeter writes (History, p. 178) - - would have to be included in any list of the greatest economists'. Within the Milanese school, he certainly stands out, alongside with Cesare Beccaria, during one of the most interesting periods from a history of analysis point of view. Luigi Cossa's famous introduction to the study of political economy rates Pietro Verri to be inferior to Beccaria in ingenuity and scientific cultivation, but greatly to be ahead of him as an economist.1 This judgement by Cossa, in particular, seems to echo the relative position of the two men in the history of ideas, particularly after Beccaria's rise to fame with a book - On crimes and punishments - which had in fact been largely inspired by Verri himself and defended by him.2 It is proposed in the present paper to revisit some of the basic tenets of Pietro Verri's political economy, with more in view than dwell on specific intuitions and theorems: namely relate those to Verri's own - quite original - conception of the economy. The scholarly work of Pietro Verri - with a special reference to his Meditazioni sulla economia politica of 1771 - provides the first systematic contribution stemming from the quarters of Lombard enlightenment in the field of political economy, especially so if one considers that Cesare Beccaria's parallel work - namely his Elementi di economia pubblica, conceived and drafted at the same time as Verri's Meditazioni - would only be published posthumously several years later. From the vantage point afforded by Verri's political economy, we gain a considerably attractive view of the most significant elements and characteristic concepts of Lombard enlightenment during the latter half of the 18th century; Verri, moreover, as we shall see, builds on a number of them in a new and original way. This paper is aimed at discussing Verri's political economy mainly along two distinct, but related, lines. In the first place the conception of commercial society is considered such as it is treated by the author particularly in his Meditazioni. In this perspective the analysis of such issues as competition and the market or money and taxation occupy a central place. Secondly it will be necessary to emphasise that Verri's approach has little to do either with forms of pure economics on one side - largely yet to be born throughout the 18th century - or, on the other side, with such conceptions of the polis - contrariwise well alive among his own contemporaries - as are founded on a sovereign authority conceived to be situated above the law. What Verri's political economy ultimately amounts to is an economic conception of civil society. The latter has natural strong connections with his own fact-mindedness - emphasised by Schumpeter - as well as with his deep practical involvement in administrative affairs and in the reforming process taking place during the latter half of the 18th century in Milan. In our view, a thorough investigation along the mentioned lines is the precondition for an understanding of the intellectual stature and of the scholarly contribution of Pietro Verri. His main ground is distinctly analytical and only by appreciating his analysis is it possible to shed light on the meaning and intellectual significance also of his practical contributions. Moreover Verri's pronouncements on the criticism of despotic government, the relevance of intermediate powers or bodies and on multiple levels of governance will be examined in a new and original light, showing how close they are to the gist of his analysis.
Exports and Italy’s economic development: a long-run perspective (1863-2004)
No full textThis paper investigates the relationship between real export and real GDP in Italy from 1863 to 2004 by using cointegration analysis and causality tests. The outcome suggests that these variables comove in the long run but the direction of causality depends on the level of economic development: in the period prior to WW1 the growth of the Italian economy led that of exports, while in the post-WW2 period the causal relationship was reversed with the expansion of exports that determined the growth of the Italian economyExport led growth hypothesis, unit root tests, cointegration analysis, Granger – causality
Relations between the Aegean and Apulia in the Late Bronze Age: the evidence from an archaeometric study of the pottery at Roca (Lecce)
No full textGuglielmino has given a recent account of the pottery from Rocavecchia, highlighting its importance in understanding relations between the Aegean and southern Italy in the Late Bronze Age. Here we present the results of a complementary study looking at the same pottery but from an archaeometric viewpoint, focusing on issues of origin and technology
Measuring the Sustainability of Pension Systems through a Microsimulation Model: The Case of Italy. ENEPRI Research Report No. 66, 19 January 2009
No full textMany countries have recently enacted radical reforms to their pension systems to recover long-term financial sustainability. One measure has been to introduce an actuarially fair pension rule. A system that grants actuarially fair benefits is not only fair across individuals and generations, i.e. it grants equality of treatment, but is also sustainable in the long run. In this paper, we take Italy as a case study and use a microsimulation model – an instrument able to monitor actuarial fairness of the pension rules in a less conventional approach – to analyse the phasing-in of the reforms and their ability to recover the long-term sustainability of the system
Income distribution and the effect of the financial crisis on the Italian and Spanish labour markets
No full textThis paper aims at estimating the costs of the current crisis in terms of income distribution and poverty taking into account by means of microsimulation techniques - the change in employment status in Spain and Italy. We construct a micro simulation analysis on the impact of the crisis on unemployment, household income, and inequality using the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions Surveys, and Labour Force Surveys data for Italy and Spain with reference to different types of households. We consider the effect of joblessness on household income and well-being and the impact of different systems of unemployment benefit on unemployment sustainability. Our focus is not only on the pecuniary dimension of well-being, but also in terms of the costs of limited access to medical and dental treatment and analyses
- …
