| In this dissertation I analyze the representations of India found in post-World War II Italian cinema and literature. My starting point is the contemporary debate on postcolonial theory (i.e. Said, Bhabha, Pratt). In the first phase of my research, I examine the correspondences between the representation of "the other," the physically and culturally different, in Italian films and fictions of the Twentieth century, and the current theoretical debate on the "imperial eye," as elaborated by Pratt. I focus in particular on two different aspects. First, I study how certain artists of the 60's and early 70's came to see India as a laboratory to analyze cultural changes resulting from the process of modernization. Often India becomes, in the work of these travelers, writers, and filmmakers, a metaphor of the Italian situation, during and immediately following the post-war "economic boom." Second, I analyzed from a theoretical perspective how the ontology of the media (written and visual) and the different genres (documentary, travelogue, and fiction) affect the representation the other. My dissertation aims at establishing links between different authors, various texts and media, all caught in their historical and cultural contexts. My analysis, the first one of this kind in Italian studies, aims at locating their work in a broader genealogy of representations of otherness in Italian literature and cinema, and at analyzing the repercussions of their work on the post-war debate on modernity. This theoretical grounding guides my analysis of works by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini, and Michelangelo Antonioni. |
