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This paper considers the 1934 experimental radio work In Linea by Livio Castiglioni and Renato Castellani. A sound-collage characterized by an abstract approach to combining music and noise, In Linea nevertheless offered listeners a clear metaphor for fascist political education. The play’s three sections move from a dark, noisy chaos, within which arises an anxious, belligerent crowd that can be calmed only by a clear, authoritative voice offering a new path forward. At the heart of In Linea is a fervent belief in the power of the authoritative radiophonic voice. This paper examines the nature of this voice on the radio, asking what it meant to represent the most controversial and powerful radio voice of all – the voice of Mussolini himself. The stakes of such a representation cannot be overstated, given that radio broadcasts of the Duce’s speeches were the primary way that most Italians listened to and engaged with their heroic leader. This paper argues that the persistent focus on Mussolini’s image has led scholars to disregard the symbolic power held by the dictator’s voice, a voice that was both magnified and transformed through its transmission over the radio.

Launched in 2019 by Francesca Ceccarelli, Frisson. Oltre il piacere describes itself as a “feminist magazine” dedicated to sexuality, pleasure, rights and intersectionality. The magazine places special emphasis on its visual dimension through resolutely pop art graphic design and the choice of striking photographs. In the age of social networks, Frisson chooses to publish on paper, but also makes extensive use of the internet to disseminate its publications and discuss its ideas. This article shows how the magazine forms part of a double tradition, that of the feminist press and the women’s press, and at the same time subverts their codes by placing the question of the body and sexuality at the centre of its reflections. With its multimedia approach, Frisson is a modern quarterly in its aesthetics, is politically engaged, and showcases on its glossy paper a “fourth-wave” feminism, which is international, inclusive and intersectional.

“The revolution of a planet can only be seen from another” said the famous writer and biographer Emil Ludwig, who conversed with Mussolini in the famous Colloqui. By this, he meant that geographical distance made it easier to understand a phenomenon. In the case of interwar France and fascism, nothing is less certain. This paper aims to answer this question by shifting or clarifying the focus of analysis: by choosing a coherent corpus that facilitates methodological reflection: the French cultural journals, which were different from the press, more prone to the vertigo of the moment, and offered polished approaches, often from illustrious writers who took the time for deeper analysis. We also examine the figure of Mussolini, who took on three roles, three “characters”: the man, the leader – with the question of charisma and political seduction – and the very face of fascism, its quintessence, with whom he seemed to merge, source of much debate.This article discusses the effects of sources and editorial strategies in cultural journals. More than ever before, the Janus figure, so conventional and recurrent when it came to Mussolini, was unavoidable.

As the most recent historiography on Fascism has amply analysed, art and culture occupied an important place in the Fascist totalitarian project. Mussolini himself had a privileged relationship with writing, whether literary, poetic or journalistic. The aim of this paper is to analyse all the occurrences of ‘arte’ and ‘poesia’ (and their closest derivatives) and the contexts in which they are used throughout Benito Mussolini’s Opera omnia, in order to understand the meaning and political issues that these terms encompassed for him throughout his life and career. What emerges above all from this study is the fact that words such as ‘arte’ and ‘poesia’ are not used solely in the aesthetic sphere: Mussolini also used them to describe both his own politics and those of his opponents. During the socialist period, they were used to describe – and discredit – the discourse of his political opponents, but at the time of the Caporetto turning point, the lexical field of art was used in both a positive and metaphorical sense. On the one hand, Mussolini developed the metaphor of the political artist to define the political leader he intended to be for the Italians; on the other, he enhanced the idea of poetry as action while stripping the word of its literal meaning.

This article is part of a broader study which seeks to reconstruct a female political tradition in order to ascertain some of the enduring reasons for the discrepancy between women’s formal and real access to decision-making. The ultimate goal is to highlight the role and contribution of women—especially those who have faded into oblivion—in the establishment of a democratic and republican Italy since they first participated in the National Consultative Assembly. The archives of the Chamber of Deputies and the Sturzo Institute, along with journal articles from the time, were the primary research sources.The Consulta was inaugurated on 25 September 1945 and, in a country where free assembly and public debate had not been the norm for some time, this represented the first step toward the reconstruction of democratic institutions. Convened by Parri’s government, the Consulta was chaired by Carlo Sforza, and included 13 women among its 430 members. Angela Cingolani Guidi (1896-1991) and Laura Bianchini (1903-1983) took part in it, representing the Christian Democrats. For them, as for the other members of the Consulta, it was a “political baptism” in institutions. Through an examination of the acts of the National Consulta and the press from the period, the paper explores the contribution of the above-mentioned members of the Consulta to debate on the issue of the reconstruction of the country and the affirmation of the new role of women both within institutions and the Party.

The quarterly journal Lapis. Percorsi della riflessione femminile began life in Milan on 1 January 1987, and remained active until 1996, publishing a total of 32 issues. The editor-in-chief was Lea Melandri, a philosopher, essayist, and activist in the feminist movement in Italy. The publishing project was not driven by a clearly defined and permanent group of female writers. On the contrary, Lapis sought to create an open space for reflections, testimonies, and stories from the world of women, starting with individual experiences, beyond any temptation to symbolism and metaphysics. Our paper aims to highlight how Lapis engaged in the most innovative and potentially revolutionary feminist practices of the 1970s, particularly the analysis of suppressed themes—such as the connection between love and violence, the dynamics of emotional and sexual life, and the problems created by the dualist vision specific to the patriarchy—which silently influence the network of human relations in both private and public life.

This paper traces the history, main themes and goals of three important Italian feminist magazines DonnaWomanFemme (DWF) (1975 to present), Via Dogana (1991-2014) and Leggendaria (1997 to present). Each of these magazines is an essential document which explains the evolution of and changes in Italian feminism, the emergence and circulation of ideas, practices and feminist theories from the 1970s to the present day, and their cultural, social, and political impact, in a national and international perspective. The analysis of these publications is structured around five thematic axes: feminist politics; feminist archives, bookshops and libraries; work, insecurity, care; body, sexuality, gender; writing, literature, literary criticism, languages.

This paper analyses French and Italian exchanges on the subjects of feminism and gender in the light of French translations of books originally published by specialised publishing houses and collections in Italy. The focus on translation firstly provides a panoramic perspective on feminism, women and gender in Italy and also assesses how specialised publishing affects cultural exchanges through the transfer of these texts. Whilst the publication of a book in a specialised house provides a framework for interpreting it or reinforces its militant message, the transfer from one language to another does not always involve homologous structures. Nonetheless, through their translation, policies, specialised publishers helped to promote the transnational circulation of feminist thought, in languages other than English, through the export of various texts. The development of a new offer—previously unpublished, translated, or rediscovered, of local origin or from elsewhere—reflects the editorial rivalry generated by the opening up of a new market from the activist core, a market which was later populated by better positioned publishers.

The paper analyses transformations in higher education, and specifically in Italian universities, during and after the Covid-19 crisis. The main focus is on visual and digital media and on their role in reshaping the relationship between teachers and students: on the one hand, teachers have to act as technological performers, following a method in which teaching becomes a show and an event; on the other, students watch on the other side of the screen in a voyeuristic, consumerist way. As a result, education as a lived experience gives way to a mechanical transfer of standardised content, designed as products and commodities in a video platform market.