Creative Interventions: The Role of Intellectuals in Contemporary Italy
Editor: Eugenio Bolongaro, Mark Epstein, and Rita Gagliano
Date Of Publication: Nov 2009
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-1353-2
Isbn: 1-4438-1353-2
Who are “intellectuals”? What do they think their role and function in contemporary society is? Are they on the endangered-species list? Is equating conservatism with conservation becoming their dominant survival strategy?

This book is a collection of essays that examines some of the changes in the activities, role, function and self-perception of Italian intellectuals since World War II (two major divides are considered to be the crisis of 1956–7 and the fall of the Berlin Wall). The first section examines some of the most influential figures in the early decades, the second the activities of contemporary intellectuals, a third gives voice to some contemporary writers, a fourth contains some comparative essays about the role of intellectuals in influential contemporary Western cultures and a final section is devoted to some cross-disciplinary forays and reflections on the relevance and possible future directions of these inquiries.

Eugenio Bolongaro is associate professor in the Department of Italian Studies at McGill University. His main interests are contemporary Italian prose fiction, Italian film, and literary theory. His book Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature was published by University of Toronto Press in 2003. He has published several articles on Italian literature and cinema in British, American and Italian journals. His current research focuses on the Italian “young cannibals” and ethics in literary criticism, as well as on the representation of homosexual desire in Luchino Visconti's films. He is an active member of the Modern Languages Association, the North Eastern Modern Languages Association, the American Society for Italian Studies and the Canadian Society for Italian Studies.

Mark Epstein has taught at Princeton University, College of New Jersey and Rider University, as well as various New Jersey Adult Schools. He worked for several years as an Assistant Examiner on several Italian tests for ETS. Recently he has been most active as a translator. He has published a number of articles on Italian culture, criticism, literature, cinema and testing in Italian and North American journals. Currently he is working on Pasolini, Nigro and several authors of the Scapigliatura lombarda. He is an active member of the North Eastern Modern Language Association and the American Association for Italian Studies.

Rita Gagliano is an independent scholar who has previously taught Italian language, literature and cinema at the University of Oregon and at Temple University. Her main interests are contemporary Italian narrative, prose, film, and literary theory. Her publications have focused on developing trends in contemporary literature, and have included articles on Italo Calvino, Group 63, Tiziano Scarpa, Aldo Nove, and Isabella Santacroce. Working at present on a number of creative projects, she is currently editing Rooms Without a View: Stories from The Corporate Academy, a collection of creative writings exploring the experience of working on contract in today's for-profit universities.

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