Industrial Writing and Anticolonial Discourse in Italy, 1955-1965

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the intersections between industrial literature produced in Italy between 1955 and 1965 and the anticolonial discourse and debate which was circulating around Italy and Europe in those same years. Adopting a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, it shows how anticolonialism was far more vividly present as a discourse in Italian industrial intellectual milieux and in industrial literature than previously acknowledged, thanks to the mediation of key figures such as Giovanni Pirelli, Giovanni Giudici, and Franco Fortini, among others. It also traces a strong conceptual link that was established in those same milieux between colonial situations of occupation, exploitation and oppression, and industrialisation in Italy. Following an Introduction that provides essential contextual details and describes the aims, scope, and method of the dissertation, Part One looks at how colonial and anticolonial questions were addressed between 1955 and 1965 in a cluster of periodicals related in various ways to industry: from industrial company publications (for example, Il gatto selvatico), to militant anticapitalist journals (Quaderni piacentini and others), to literary reviews (such as Il menabò). What emerges is a sense of the awareness that Italian industrial intellectual milieux developed in relation to colonial dynamics and anticolonial movements in the contemporary world and also of the different interests that these milieux pursued in committing (or not committing) to anticolonialism. Part Two identifies and scrutinises a cluster of keywords and narrative tropes that the anticolonial and industrial discourses shared (such as ‘alienation’, ‘paternalism’, ‘race’) that allows us to trace key lines of affinity between the two spheres. An anticolonial reading of six Italian industrial novels by Ottiero Ottieri, Paolo Volponi, Goffredo Parise, and Giovanni Pirelli that deploy clusters of these keywords and tropes is then proposed, supported by the findings presented in previous chapters. It is argued that Italian industrial writers proved so receptive to anticolonial thought because they were obliged to tackle analogous sets of questions in industrial settings. The conclusion summarises the most significant findings of the dissertation and suggests future related lines of research.