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Pubblico e privato nella cultura statunitense
Numero 21
Estate-Autunno 2001 - Anno VII
Atti del convegno “Pubblico e privato nella cultura statunitense del Novecento”
Dopo l'11 settembre
Intervista con Fredric Jameson
"In cammino" di James Clifford
Lavorare: poesie di Soto, Boe, Pietri, Gaberman, McGrath
Editoriale
Terrorismo e guerra - p. 5
Pubblico e privato nella cultura statunitense del Novecento
Introduzione - p. 9
Emozionalità, democrazia e genere: virilità vittoriana, patriottismo democratico e cittadinanza nei “discorsi al caminetto” di Franklin D. Roosevelt - p. 11
This essay aims at analyzing the effort performed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression to build support for the measures of the New Deal and American democratic institutions through the prism of the public-private point of view. The economic slump had discredited both the traditional political élite and national patriotism. As a reconstructive device the President projected unto the citizenry through his radio addresses called “the fireside chats” the image of a public virility rooted in familial affections and impersonated in the masculine models of the “Victorian patriarch” and the “Christian gentleman.” Thus the President tried to build a democratic political emotionalism rooted in the rejuvenation under different political, social and communicative conditions of the sense of moral and emotional commitment that was central to the myth of the Victorian family.
Pubblico/privato, misoginia e “male bonding” nelle narrazioni della guerra del Vietnam - p. 22
Rosso claims that the early period of the American military presence in Viet Nam was characterized by an opposition between the public and the private, followed, after 1965, by the renegotiation and rediscussion of that dichotomy. In some respects the Viet Nam War accelerated this process while also complicating and putting a brake on the renegotiation. Rightly enough some feminist critics have elaborated on the strong misogynistic “remasculinization” of the American culture as a consequence of the defeat in Viet Nam. Rosso rather concentrates on a few texts (by Tim O’Brien, Robert Olen Butler and Stephen King) which show a resistance to conceive the relationship between private and public in such a misogynistic and homophobic perspective and which tend to reject the “male bonding”, a recurrent aspect in most of the war narratives.
Famiglia, grande impresa, sfera pubblica: le relazioni pubbliche alla Du Pont nel periodo fra le due guerre - p. 35
The recent, renewed attention towards the history of public relations in the United States demonstrates that the elaboration of a promotional and self-justifying corporate discourse, intended to defend or construct a corporate image rather than simply to sell a specific product, is an especially fertile ground for the exploration of the dynamics among private economic interests, collective discussion within civil society, and public institutions of authority. The twenty years between the two world wars, crucial to the emergence of modern mass society, are especially important for this investigation. This essay follows the firm of Du Pont over the course of these years, charting the complex and tortuous process through which in the 1930s DuPont came to face head-on one of the most serious image crises in USA corporate history and, in the process, developed a “new vocabulary”, comprising the mytho-symbolic, mass-communications element, expressed in forms tending to “dramatization” and entertainment, as an explicit and indispensable component of doing business.
“Different Kinda Fences”. Spazio familiare e spazio sociale in The Grapes of Wrath di John Steinbeck - p. 47
The family plays a crucial role in The Grapes of Wrath. As its inner structures seem to be “falling apart”, the family must come to terms with a difficult social and physical environment; the family functions both as an extension of individual egotism (my family) and as an unselfish involvement with others, the world, society. In these terms, the family also mediates between natural ties and social structure. Key words like huddle or fence designate in the text the process of creating, shifting, removing internal and external barrier between public and private spaces both in physical and social terms.
Un dualismo insuperabile? Pubblico e privato nella riflessione di una feminist pragmatist: Jessie Taft - p. 59
The article focuses on one of the first doctoral dissertations on women movement: namely, ‘The Woman Movement As Part of a Larger Social Situation’, defended by Jessie Taft, a pupil of George H. Mead, at the University of Chicago in 1913. In this work, Taft stated that any analysis of the condition of women had to see it as an integral part of a broader social transformation. It was women, according to her opinion, who experienced in the most profound way possible the contradictions inherent in such process. This was due to their collocation on the borderline between tradition and modernity, between pre-industrial society and advanced industrial society, between the private sphere (the home) and the public or semi-public sphere (the state, the community).
L’emergere della dimensione privata nella poesia di Alma Villanueva - p. 70
Chicano literature is basically considered a cultural context dominated by an extremely politicized and activist artistic output oriented toward themes of collective importance. This point of view, that certainly captures the spirit of the literature produced in the early Seventies under the influence of the Movimiento Chicano, tends nonetheless to overlook other artistic experiences that are, like Alma Villanueva’s poetry, characterized by a new aesthetic sensitivity which draws in a significant way upon the private dimension and the personal memory of the author. But Villanueva’s work cannot be regarded as a withdrawal from political or social commitment; it is rather (and also) an attempt to give public importance to the sphere of female identity in Chicano society, with all the political consequences this involves.
Il salotto e la strada (per non dire della gallina). Spazi pubblici e spazi privati nell’esperienza del Lower East Side di New York - p. 87
The essay argues that, in New York’s Lower East Side (a veritable laboratory within the larger, modernist city laboratory), a reinvention of spaces and language took place, which overturned Victorian attitudes and implied a new perception of such categories as private and public. Witness to this are both the (autobiographical as well as fictional) literary texts written by immigrants and the daily use-reuse and creation of such places as stoops, fire-escapes, rooftops. This reinvention (which played a key-role in the birth and development of modernism) is very much alive today as well, in the Lower East Side and other immigrant quarters, as is shown by murales, neighborhood gardens, casitas, and more generically by a thriving (although constantly menaced) street life and culture.
Testo a fronte
Lavorare - p. 102
Intervista
Il laboratorio americano e i compiti della teoria marxista: un’intervista con Fredric Jameson - p. 106
Intervista a Dorothy Bryant - p. 112
Saggi
James Clifford cammino - p. 118
La rappresentanza proporzionale negli Stati Uniti - p. 125
The possibility of using an electoral system other than the traditional plurality system, appears to have always been totally alien to the American political debate. In reality, in different moments of US history, the issue of minority and proportional representation had been endorsed in different ways. The activity of the American Proportional Representation League epitomized a peculiar aspect of this discourse. However, the dynamics and the connections of the national movement have not been systematically studied. This article is a first contribution.
Melville e Londra: rifrazioni ai margini dell’abisso - p. 140
This essay focuses on the representation and significance of London in the novels and short stories of Herman Melville, from Redburn to Israel Potter. In Melville’s writing, London constantly interacts with the United States: the city becomes a point of reference that de-stabilizes the pretended “otherness” of the New World. London functions first as a mirror, reflecting the prejudices and hypocrisy of the young Redburn; then, in the short stories and in Israel Potter, it also becomes the urban space where the American exile can find “places of resistance”: microcosms where it is possible to perpetuate or at least preserve the American ideals.