Intersectional Italy

A collection of generative and insightful essays mapping the complexities of anti-racist, decolonial feminist praxis confronting the racialized realities and normative whiteness in Italy. Examining literary, cultural, visual, and social media texts, Intersectional Italy archives the counterhegemonic, intersectional feminist epistemologies that we need to understand the colonial history and racialized gendered governance practices of the contemporary Italian State. A ground-breaking contribution to feminist postcolonial studies of Europe. Chandra Talpade Mohanty Distinguished Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Syracuse University, USA Author of Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity Intersectional Italy, a new collection of essays edited by Caterina Romeo and Giulia Fabbri, is a ground-breaking book. Bringing together essays by established and emerging critics of postcolonial Italy and interviews with prominent Black Italian feminists and writers, it offers a truly innovative intervention in the understanding of Blackness in Italy as both a racialized and sexualized experience. From reflections on inter-racial unions in the Italian colonies to contemporary anthologies featuring cis, trans, and biracial writers of colour, to discussions of Romani film-making, the volume showcases the rich cultural debates taking place in Italy around new notions of identity and citizenship. The collection also offers a much-needed re-orientation of critical theories around race and gender from a primarily US-based perspective to one that takes into account Italian approaches and perspectives. Altogether, a collection that is sure to shape the thinking of new generations of scholars in Italian postcolonial studies and beyond. Neelam Srivastava Professor of Postcolonial and World Literature, Newcastle University, UK Author of Italian Colonialism and Resistances to Empire, 1930-1970 In the spirit of the transfeminist and antiracist activists who threw pink and red paint on the statue of Indro Montanelli in Milan, this powerful book throws paint on the field of Italian studies. Drawing together insights from postcolonial studies and Black feminist theory, and grounding them in the specificities of Italian nation-building and colonialism, it articulates a roadmap for intersectional analysis within Italian studies. The field-building essays and interviews in this volume foreground the interconnected dynamics of coloniality, racism, and gender violence at the foundations of italianità; unearth radical counter-archives of subjugated knowledges; and center irrepressible movements for justice. Camilla Hawthorne Critical Human Geographer and Associate Professor of Sociology and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies, UC Santa Cruz, USA Author of Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean