Equivocal Subjects: Between Italy and Africa -- Constructions of Racial and National Identity in the Italian Cinema

(Paperback)

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Analysing the depiction of African Italian mixed-race subjects from the historical epics of the Italian silent "golden" era to the contemporary period, Equivocal Subjects engages the history of Italian nationalism and colonialism through theories of subject formation, ideologies of race, and postcolonial theory. Greene's approach also provides a novel interpretation of recent developments surrounding Italy's status as a major passage for immigrants seeking to enter the European Union. This book provides an original theoretical approach to the Italian cinema that speaks to the nation's current political and social climate.

Reviews

Equivocal Subjects is an important and innovative piece of scholarship. It offers new and much needed insight into Italian cinema and its histories of race. Equally challenging perhaps is its insistence on 'Italy as a site of African diasporic identity formation.' Greene's focus on the mixed-race subject revises the history of Italian cinema, and suggestively re-routes the contours of overly familiar geographies of racial difference. * Derek Duncan, Professor of Italian Cultural Studies, University of Bristol, UK *
Greene's illuminating book draws on an impressive range of sources to explore the intersecting constructions of race and nation in Italian cinema over the course of a century. Combining historical analysis with close readings of landmark films, this persuasively argued account makes a pathbreaking contribution to Italian film studies.--ine O'Healy, Professor of Italian and Director of the Humanities Program, Loyola Marymount University, USA
Highlighting Italy's own internal racialisation of the Italian South and Italians' ascribed racial in-betweenness, Greene brilliantly highlights the contextual and precarious nature of racial identities and categorisation. She makes a compelling argument about how 'mixed-race' is a particularly unique lens through which to investigate ideologies of race and nation in Italy. -- Jacqueline Andall, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies, University of Bath
Equivocal Subjects offers many starting points of discussion to better understand Italian and mixed-Italian identities and creates a global and exhaustive overview of their depiction in visual communication. Well-written, fluid and never boring, the book underscores the authors passion and her strong emotional involvement with mixed-race issues. -- Stefano Ancilli, La Sapienza Universit di Roma * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
Greenes text assumes that scholars of both Italian studies and film studies will accept the heuristics of reading Italian culture and its postcolonial inheritance through the lens and in the context of film, rather than exploring the possible problematics in such an approach. While some scholars may disagree with that assumption on the theoretical level, Greenes study nonetheless provides either school with valuable facts and analyses and is a solid groundwork for either discipline. -- Marie Orton, Truman State University * Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies *

Author Bio

Shelleen Greene is Associate Professor, Department of Art and Design, at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.