Transatlantic literary transfers in the Second Italian Renaissance: the circulation of Italian culture in the U.S. in the post-war era

^1.Research leading to this publication has been funded by the Italian Ministry of University Research (M.I.U.R.) under the program P.R.I.N. 2017 “Transatlantic Transfer: the Place of Italy in American Culture, 1949–1972”.

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the special issue “Transatlantic literary transfers in the Second Italian Renaissance: the circulation of Italian culture in the U.S. in the Post-war Era”, presenting new knowledge on the collaborative, transnational network that emerged between Italy and the U.S. in the post-war years and facilitated the circulation of Italian literary products in the U.S. By considering literary objects as a special class of products that participated to the establishment and consolidation of “Made in Italy”, and by showing how Italian literary cultures functioned as vectors of a “new” Italian modernity, the article claims that the success of “Made in Italy” was due in no small part to a storytelling strategy that emphasized: (1) the strong friendship between the two nations in the context of the new, globalized world; and (2) the mobilization of the trope of the Renaissance in the service of a projected continuity between Italian early and “new” modernity.

RIASSUNTO

Questo contributo introduce un numero speciale della rivista intitolato “Letteratura e scambi transatlantici nel secondo Rinascimento italiano: la circolazione della cultura italiana negli Stati Uniti nel secondo dopoguerra” e presenta nuove ricerche sulla rete di collaborazioni transnazionali che si svilupparono tra Italia e Stati Uniti negli anni del secondo dopoguerra, facilitando anche la circolazione oltreoceano di prodotti letterari italiani. Il saggio considera gli oggetti letterari come una classe speciale di prodotti, e guarda al modo in cui essi contribuirono all’affermarsi e al consolidarsi del “Made in Italy”. Mostrando come le culture letterarie italiane abbiano avuto il ruolo di vettori di una “nuova” modernità italiana, questa introduzione sostiene la tesi che al successo del “Made in Italy” abbia contribuito in modo significativo una strategia di storytelling volta a enfatizzare: (1) la forte amicizia tra le due nazioni nel contesto del nuovo mondo globalizzato; e (2) la mobilitazione del tropo del Rinascimento al servizio di una continuità più immaginaria che reale tra vecchia e nuova modernità italiana.

KEYWORDS:

• new Italian Renaissance
• Made in Italy
• literary cultures
• transatlantic transfer
• mediators
• modernity

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Nuovo Rinascimento Italiano
• Made in Italy
• Culture letterarie
• Scambi transatlantici
• Mediatori
• Modernità

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

^1. Research leading to this publication has been funded by the Italian Ministry of University Research (M.I.U.R.) under the program P.R.I.N. 2017 “Transatlantic Transfer: the Place of Italy in American Culture, 1949–1972”.

^2. I share Giuseppe Gatti’s conceptualization of the complexity theory derived nodes/network model for tracing the phenomenon of Transatlantic Transfer (Gatti 2023).

^3. Francesco de Feo and Luigi Barzini, Jr. wrote the script for the other two, longer, newsreel Settimana Incom dated 1957 and focused on Italian–U.S. relations: “Two Civilization Meet” and “Much more than a Simple Friendship”.

^4. Among the Italian artists involved in the special focus (which also celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the magazine), we should recall Vespignani, Martini, Miccoli: three artists repeatedly involved in the production of the magazine under the art direction of Leo Lionni.

^5. With the re-opening of borders and the repeal of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, emigration of Italians to the U.S. resumed in the high numbers, ranging from 10,000–15,000 immigrants per year to a peak of 40,000 in 1965. See Ruberto and Sciorra (2017).

^6. Several issues deal with Italian culture broadly. For instance: Vogue, (May 15, 1949; Apr 1, 1961; Jan 15, 1964; Aug 15, 1949; Apr 1, 1969), Life (Nov 24, 1947; Dec 19, 1947; April 12, 1948, pp. 29–35; Sept 15, 1952; Nov 23, 1953; July 7, 1947; June 11, 1951; Aug 30, 1954; Feb 4, 1966; July 21, 1972).

^7. On the familiarity of American readers with these artists see Camarda (2023).

^8. The Editorial Board also included Paolo Milano, Renato Poggioli and Charles S. Singleton and, later, Dante Della Terza, Thomas Bergin, Franco Fido. See Gibellini (2024).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) - PRIN 2017 “Transatlantic Transfers”.

Notes on contributors

Cristina Iuli

Cristina Iuli is Associate Professor of American Literature at Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy. Her essays are published in Modernism/Modernity, Arizona Quarterly, Simploke, Flusser Studies, Aut-Aut, Letterature D’America, RSA-Journal and others. She has published the following books: Effetti Teorici: critica culturale e nuova storiografia letteraria Americana (Torino, Otto Editore, 2002); Giusto il tempo di esplodere: il romanzo pop di Nathanael West (Bergamo University Press, 2004), Spell it Modern: Modernity and the Question of Literature (Vercelli, Mercurio, 2009), Nathathanel West: Miss Lonelyhearts (Marsilio, Venezia, 2017). With Paola Loreto she edited La letteratura degli Stati Uniti: dal Rinascimento Americano ai nostri giorni (Roma, Carocci, 2017), and with Pilar Martinez Benedi she has edited the special issue of RSA-Journal #34 entitled, Posthumanism and Environmental Poetics in American Literature. She has completed a monograph entitled “Postumanesimo e avanguardia: informazione, comunicazione e coscienza nella narrativa americana del secondo novecento (Milano, Mimesis, 2023); with Stefano Morello, she has edited the forthcoming collection Trame Transatlantiche: relazioni letterarie tra Italia e Stati Uniti, 1949–1972 (Milano, Mimesis, forthcoming March 2024), and with Simone Cinotto she has edited the forthcoming special issue of the Italian American Review entitled “Transatlantic Modern Consumerisms: Italian Goods and Commercial Cultures in Postwar America, 1949–1972. (forthcoming 14 [1], winter 2024). For Mimesis Press she directs the series Transatlantic Transfers. Studi e ricerche interdisciplinari. Iuli is Research Unit Coordinator of the National Interest Research Project “Transatlantic Transfers: The Italian Presence in Postwar America” and was Fulbright Distinguished Professor at Northwestern University, Department of French and Italian in 2019.

Simone Cinotto

Simone Cinotto is Professor of Modern History at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. He is the author of Gastrofascism and Empire: Food in Italian East Africa, 1935–1941 (forthcoming 2024), The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City (2013), and Soft Soil Black Grapes: The Birth of Italian Winemaking in California (2012) and the editor of Food Mobilities: Making World Cuisines (2023), Global Jewish Foodways: A History (2018), and Making Italian America: Consumer Culture and the Production of Ethnic Identities (2014). With Cristina Iuli he has edited the forthcoming special issue of the Italian American Review entitled “Transatlantic Modern Consumerisms: Italian Goods and Commercial Cultures in Postwar America, 1949–1972. (forthcoming 14 [1], winter 2024). Cinotto is Research Unit Coordinator of the National Interest Research Project “Transatlantic Transfers: The Italian Presence in Postwar America”, and taught Italian and Italian American Studies at several international universities, including Indiana University and New York University.