CFP for edited anthology / Requiem for a Nation: religion, politics and visual cultures in post-war Italy, 1945-1975

full name / name of organization: 
Roberto Cavallini

Requiem for a Nation: religion, politics and visual cultures in post-war Italy (1945-1975)

The main objective of this edited collection is to examine the ways in which religion, culture and politics converge in configuring the contradictions of a post-war Italy's cultural history.

Starting from the assumption that to conduct a critical reflection on Italian post-war visual culture one must investigate the inevitable impact of Catholic religion on everyday life and its social, political and cultural dimensions, I choose the vantage point of cinema and visual culture to propose a critique and exploration of religion's influence on the Italian cultural and political landscape.

Italian Cinema after WWII has been studied from very different perspectives, however a comprehensive study of religion as the principal motif of investigation is still lacking in the academic literature in the context of visual culture and cultural studies. The edited anthology thus seeks to fill this gap and to examine how religion is lived, performed, criticized and represented not only in the film productions but also in the wider context of visual cultures in Italy (television, comics, fotoromanzi etc) during the post-war period from 1945-1975.

This edited collection is currently under contract with Mimesis International (http://mimesisinternational.com/). Abstracts for possible contributions to this collection are being accepted (but not confined to) the following thematic concerns in the field of Visual Cultures, Film and Cultural Studies, Film-philosophy:

- Religion and popular culture in Italian Cinema
- Auteur perspectives (Rossellini, Pasolini, Fellini, Petri, Germi, Bene, Bertolucci etc…)
- Religion, faith and death
- Capitalism, Marxism, Catholicism
- Confession/penance, marriage/divorce, fidelity/betrayal, guilt/transgression
- Violence, identity and religion
- Representations of everyday life and superstition
- Deconstruction of religion (Derrida, Nancy, Stiegler)
- Gender, sexuality and religion
- Religious practices in documentary cinema
- Religion and censorship

Please send a short abstract (300 words) and a short bio (150 words) with a brief chapter outline to Roberto Cavallini (roberto.cavallini@yasar.edu.tr) by 23 March 2015.

Final essays should be approximately 5,000 words in length, including all notes and bibliography.

Timeline
CFP - abstracts deadline: 23 March 2015
Selection of abstracts: mid-April 2015
Full essay final submission: early August 2015

Biographical note

Roberto Cavallini is Assistant Professor in the department of Radio, TV and Cinema, Faculty of Communication, at Yaşar University (Izmir, Turkey). After graduating in Art History and Aesthetics at Cà Foscari University of Venice (Italy), he received a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London (2010), where he also co-founded InC - Research Group in Continental Philosophy. His teaching and research interests lie at the intersection between visual cultures, film studies and contemporary philosophy with a focus on documentary practices and storytelling, Italian and European cinema and culture, the politics of memory in cinema and media studies.