Florian Mussgnug | University College London (original) (raw)

Papers by Florian Mussgnug

Modern Humanities Research Association eBooks, Jun 16, 2024

Postmodern Impegno - Impegno postmoderno

Peter Lang eBooks, Sep 1, 2016

Italian Studies, 2000

Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe. Ed. by Tim Kirk and Anthony McEl... more Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe. Ed. by Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. x + 246 pp. £35. ISBN ° 521 48309 3· Fascism, it seems, is becoming less popular. Not only have a number of recent studies rightly stressed the limits to the political appeal of the extreme right in inter-war Europe, but the energies of historians seem finally to be moving away from yet more monographs on particular fascist movements towards more broadly based studies of the political, social, and, more especially, economic conditions which caused the extreme right to flourish in certain milieus while emphatically failing in others. This salutary trend away from 'fascist studies' is well exemplified and vindicated by this stimulating collection of essays. Readers should not be misled by the title: despite its origins in a History Workshop conference in 1992, there is little here about anti-fascism, traditionally defined. Its concern, as presented by the editors in the Introduction, is to locate resistance to the extreme right in the 'real communal solidarities beneath the level of the nation' (pp. 4-5). As such, it is concerned primarily not with the formal panoply of national, political, or ideological resistance to fascism but with the dynamics within communities which led particular social groups, urban neighbourhoods, or rural villages to reject implicitly or explicitly the oppressive forms of authority represented by fascism. This is a brave ambition, and it does not negate the value of the book that, taken as a whole, its component essays largely fail to engage with the issues which it raises. Part of the difficulty lies with the editors' opening manifesto, which through its use of the amorphous term 'community' as the location of what Kirk and McElligott nearly but don't quite call 'real resistance' to fascism presents unavoidable problems of definition. The difficulties of imposing a logic of resistance on diverse and often ambivalent acts of dissidence or disobedience has, of course, long been a commonplace in the historiography of Europe in the 1930S and 1940s; but, as the editors readily admit, community is also an 'elusive concept' (p. 4) which risks glossing over the fault-lines of internal division while presenting fascism as an alien force which emerged outside of the community. In reality, of course, things were rarely so simple. Communities tend to appear more real and more united in the retrospective vision of historians than they did to participants at the time, and support for fascism, just as much as rejection of it, was incubated within local communities. Above all, the notion, implicitly proposed by the editors, of a dialectic between fascism and community threatens to obscure the pivotal role played by the national and local institutions of the state which, as a number of the contributions to this volume clearly demonstrate, often influenced either positively or negatively a community's response to fascism. In truth, these conceptual problems matter much less than the quality of the essays contained within the volume. Its virtues are plural rather than single and at its best it provides an excellent means of approaching the new forms of historical writing which

Collection of theoretical essays on the short story in Twentieth Century Italian literature.

Between, Dec 16, 2014

Literature investigates, explores and lives reality. It is the place of our intelligibilty. This ... more Literature investigates, explores and lives reality. It is the place of our intelligibilty. This is the reason why contemporary literature is so important to everybody, regardless its aesthetic value. However, to give reason of the present is a hard and almost impossible work, as stated by Jean-Paul Sartre in his famous 1939 essay about William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury .

Cambridge Scholars Publishing eBooks, 2009

This book deals with a topic that is gaining increasing critical attention, theliterature of nons... more This book deals with a topic that is gaining increasing critical attention, theliterature of nonsense and absurdity.

Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014

Goldsmiths Research Online. Goldsmiths - University of London. ...

Modern Humanities Research Association eBooks, Jun 16, 2024

Postmodern Impegno - Impegno postmoderno

Peter Lang eBooks, Sep 1, 2016

Italian Studies, 2000

Collection of theoretical essays on the short story in Twentieth Century Italian literature.

Between, Dec 16, 2014

Cambridge Scholars Publishing eBooks, 2009

Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014

Goldsmiths Research Online. Goldsmiths - University of London. ...

The Hermes Consortium for Literary and Cultural Studies (https://hermes.au.dk) is a long-standing... more The Hermes Consortium for Literary and Cultural Studies (https://hermes.au.dk) is a long-standing collaboration of twelve doctoral schools in Belgium, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the USA, with a proven record of international excellence in the field of Comparative Literary Studies. The Consortium’s annual summer school, hosted in turn by each partner institution, brings together specialists, delegates from the partner universities and 24 PhD students (two per university). Intensive training workshops and work-in-progress presentations focus on shared methodologies and themes and lead to the publication of an annual edited volume, published by UCL Press.

The 2023 Summer School, hosted by the University of Siena, focuses on "Possible Worlds: Environment, Community, Heterotopia". My masterclass carries the title: "The Last Possible World? Anthropocene, Apocalypse, Affect".

On the occasion of the centenary of Pier Paolo Pasolini's birth, the Universities of Rome Sapienz... more On the occasion of the centenary of Pier Paolo Pasolini's birth, the Universities of Rome Sapienza, Roma Tre, and Rome Tor Vergata will jointly host a three day international conference, "Pasolini antesignano" which brings together a wealth of diverse perspectives on Pasolini's works, life, and thought. My contribution, "Scarti: L'Antropocene di Pasolini" ["Waste: Pasolini's Anthropocene"] will explore the author's growing attention to material ruination through the conceptual lens of Anthropocene Studies and, more specifically, Elizabeth A. Povinelli's exploration of geontologies and Marco Armiero's definition of the Wasteocone.

The Invisible Reconstruction conference, organised by University College London and Ritsumeikan U... more The Invisible Reconstruction conference, organised by
University College London and Ritsumeikan University, Japan, was
held on the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and on the anniversary of the 1923 Kanto earthquake. It focussed on approaches
to preparedness and prevention, and on the invisible, intangible
processes of societal mending required following
man-made, natural and biological disaster.

With the launch of the first "Invisible Reconstruction" book, Ritsumeikan University welcomes editors Dr Lucia Patrizio Gunning, and (via online link)
Prof. Paola Rizzi. Together with Prof. Florian Mussgnug and architect Barnaby Gunning, they will introduce the book and discuss its key
themes.

"Beyond Cosmopolitanism" took place at the University of Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway on Thur... more "Beyond Cosmopolitanism" took place at the University of Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway on Thursday, 27 October 2022 and Friday, 28 October 2022. This international conference explored the long-lasting phenomenon of cosmopolitanism in European culture and considered its historical development, global reach, and current perception. Speakers analysed practices and declinations of cosmopolitanism in the literary, artistic, and cultural history of modern Europe, from Humanism to the late Twentieth Century. A further debate was reserved to contemporary forms and critiques of cosmopolitanism and to its future perspectives.

My talk in this final part of the conference was entitled: "Anthropocene Cosmopolitanism: Catastrophe and the Future of Solidarity".

The two-day conference was organized by Luca Marcozzi, Professor of Italian Literature at Università Roma Tre and Rome Global Gateway Associate.

Chi si confronta con il dibattito pubblico del mondo occidentale, oggi, non può fare a meno di ch... more Chi si confronta con il dibattito pubblico del mondo occidentale, oggi, non può fare a meno di chiedersi cosa significhi “Antropocene”. A partire dai primi anni 2000 e via via con sempre maggior intensità, infatti, esso è divenuto un concetto passepartout, spesso usato semplicemente per indicare il presente attraverso un nome alla moda. Proprio a causa di tale pervasività, tuttavia, il significato di questo concetto è quanto mai vago e si è sviluppata una vera e propria battaglia in merito. Quali sono i presupposti dei diversi modi attraverso cui viene pensato l’”Antropocene”? Questo termine è inevitabilmente connesso a una prospettiva secondo cui l’essere umano è destinato a essere il padrone del mondo naturale? O è forse possibile utilizzare criticamente l’”Antropocene”, al fine di mostrare la necessità di una trasformazione dello stato di cose presente e delle nostre società? Rispondendo a tali domande il presente volume si propone di delineare i contorni di una teoria critica dell’Antropocene.

Ne discutono Paolo Missiroli e Florian Mussgnug venerdì 25 marzo 2022 alle ore 17.

Sustainability as Cultural Practice

"Sustainability as Cultural Practice: Verbal and Visual Art, History and the Environmental Humani... more "Sustainability as Cultural Practice: Verbal and Visual Art, History and the Environmental Humanities" is a series of four roundtable events, organised by the UCL Cities Partnerships Programme, in collaboration with the British School at Rome (BSR) and the British Embassy in Italy.

The series is part of the All4Climate – Italy 2021 Pre-COP26 Programme, a programme of events promoting 2021 as a landmark year for climate ambition, launched by the Italian Ministry for the Ecological Transition.

The roundtables bring together scholars from UCL Anthropocene, SELCS, Slade School of Fine Art, Institute of Global Health and Faculty of Arts and Humanities, as well as from UCL's partners including New York University, Princeton University, Oxford University, Kings College London and University of Nottingham, among others.

Invisible Reconstruction: Cross disciplinary responses to disaster and approaches to sustainable ... more Invisible Reconstruction: Cross disciplinary responses to disaster and approaches to sustainable resilience
International Conference, Kyoto, Japan,
1 September 2021

This interdisciplinary conference on the topic of mourning at Roma Tre University brought togethe... more This interdisciplinary conference on the topic of mourning at Roma Tre University brought together academics from the Modern Languages, English, political theory and global health studies, as well as writers, visual artists, musicologists and musicians.

The conference investigated the relationship between mourning and different genres: poetry, autobiography, the novel, the essay and diaries. It looked beyond literature to consider the role of photography, the visual arts and music as expressions of mourning. It was also attentive to historical precedents and aimed especially to bring the medieval and the modern into an unusual and productive dialogue.

This two-day conference (23-24 April 2018) brought together perspectives from a variety of discip... more This two-day conference (23-24 April 2018) brought together perspectives from a variety of disciplines and fields, including genetics, reproductive healthcare, philosophy, gender studies, and literary and cultural history, which were juxtaposed with the perspectives of creative artists. We explored the changing social expectations around parenting and reproductive health and payed attention to narratives of parental responsibility, in research and in the arts, but also to the ways in which uncertainty prompts new ethical and legal approaches.

New reproductive technologies have profoundly altered the demarcations of parenthood and have shown up the limitations of conventional perspectives on parental rights and responsibilities. The potential separation of biological from social parenthood necessitates new philosophical, imaginative and legal frameworks. Anthropogenic climate change also calls for a radical re-orientation of reproductive ethics and raises urgent and uncomfortable questions about population growth and uncontrolled human procreation. In this context, literature and the arts may shed light on the complex and changing emotions and experiences of parenting. Creative critical responses to new reproductive technologies may also bring into focus a variety of philosophical and religious perspectives, and draw attention to global patterns of inequality and cultural difference.

The symposium was organised by Dr Aarathi Prasad (UCL Biosciences), Prof. Simona Corso (English, Roma Tre) and Dr Florian Mussgnug (Comparative Literature, UCL) and was hosted by the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Roma Tre University.

This international conference in Rome, Italy, is jointly hosted by Sapienza University Rome and R... more This international conference in Rome, Italy, is jointly hosted by Sapienza University Rome and Roma Tre University, and by the Italian Society for the Study of Modern Literature (MOD): Contronarrazioni: Il racconto del potere nella modernità letteraria. Organisers: Prof. Simona Costa, Prof. Elisabetta Mondello, Prof. Monica Venturini. My keynote address considers the emergent genre of CliFi as a site of political activism. Other invited keynote speakers include: Stefano Bartezzaghi (Università IULM), Claudia Carmina (Università degli Studi di Palermo), Mark Chu (UCC - University College Cork - Ireland), Antonio Giannone (Università del Salento), Monica Jansen (Utrecht), Elena Porciani (Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”) and Stefania Rimini (Università degli Studi di Catania).

The idea to hold a Guest Speakers Series as part of BIOPOWER | TROUBLING POWER FROM FOUCAULT TO A... more The idea to hold a Guest Speakers Series as part of BIOPOWER | TROUBLING POWER FROM FOUCAULT TO AGAMBEN arises from the determination to turn COVID-limitations (virtual classrooms and all the rest) into opportunities for everyone. This is why, in experimenting with present limits, EPIDEMOS (ON THE PEOPLE) ends up driving all our seminar work.

The work of power is evident in our societies. Bodies with power thrive. Those without do not. The need for radical change is in the rhetoric of many. Practices, however, remain embodied in tough-to-shift power regimes. In sharing and challenging premises in French and Italian Biopolitics, BIOPOWER aims high, troubling power also through what course participants uniquely unpack as part of innovative practice-led delivery formats. EPIDEMOS is student-led and each event has an Autonomous Learning Group (ALG) in charge.

ALG1 Power People Places
ALG2 Decolonising Power
ALG3 Powerful Future(s)

CONFERENCE ORGANISERS Erica Bellia (Cambridge) Michele Maiolani (Cambridge) KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Luc... more CONFERENCE ORGANISERS
Erica Bellia (Cambridge)
Michele Maiolani (Cambridge)

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Luca Somigli (Toronto) – 19/03/2021
Federica G Pedriali (Edinburgh) – 20/03/2021

RESPONDENTS
Valeria Taddei (Oxford)– 19/03/2021
Karen Pinkus (Cornell) – 20/03/2021

SPEAKERS
Massimiliano Tortora (Turin) – 19/03/2021
Tiziano Toracca (Ghent-Turin) – 19/03/2021
Florian Mussgnug (UCL) – 19/03/2021
Gloria Scarfone (Pisa) – 20/03/2021
Alessandra Diazzi (Manchester) – 20/03/2021
Carlo Tirinanzi de Medici (Trento) – 20/03/2021

The critical category of Modernism has been applied to Italian studies only since the 1990s. It has allowed scholars to set Italian literature of the early twentieth century into a broader European context. In particular, the use of distorted and non-realistic literary time and space, the major influence of psychoanalysis on literature, a tendency to fragmentation in narrative structures and characters, and linguistic experimentalism have all been identified as common traits shared by European and Italian Modernist novels. And the novel itself has been confirmed as the literary form par excellence where the Modernist ‘revolution’ took place.

The use of the notion of Modernism, borrowed from the Anglo-American critical tradition, in Italian Studies has not been limited to the most recognisably Modernist authors of the early twentieth century (key names are those of Luigi Pirandello, Italo Svevo, Carlo Emilio Gadda) but has also been extended backwards, to consider authors and works of the nineteenth century traditionally defined as ‘decadenti’.

However, there has still been some hesitation in applying the category of Modernism to the literature produced after 1945. After the Second World War and as a reaction to Neorealism, in the late 1950s many authors started to resort to narrative strategies and techniques which can again be assimilated to Modernism. If this trend has been associated with the global phenomenon of Postmodernism, some scholars have recently challenged this well-established connection, proposing instead the category of Neomodernism, which stresses the elements of continuity with the Modernist moment. A wide range of novels written and published in Italy between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s by authors such as Elsa Morante, Paolo Volponi and Pier Paolo Pasolini, is deeply rooted in the traditions of Modernism and share ideological as well as stylistic similarities. This critical distinction between Postmodernism and Neomodernism, far from being the mere replacement of a label with another, has deep ideological implications and a heuristic power that demands further investigation.

This public lecture was given at the University of Heidelberg's Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocaly... more This public lecture was given at the University of Heidelberg's Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS) on 9 May 2023. It offers reflections on bounded subjectivity, exposure, and spatio-temporal entanglement in the self-conscious Anthropocene, through engagement with two cultural figurations: the child and the biodome. You can watch the lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6baNgKlHOaE

MOD, 2023

Partendo dall’Agenda 2030 dell’ONU, dal quadro internazionale di accordi e impegni per la salvag... more Partendo dall’Agenda 2030 dell’ONU, dal quadro internazionale di accordi e impegni per la salvaguardia dell’ambiente e dalla legislazione italiana e comunitaria in materia, s’intende fornire, in prospettiva didattica di educazione a una cittadinanza consapevole e attiva, una ricca e aggiornata mappatura di opera letterarie, in parte anche molto recenti, che affrontano i vari aspetti della crisi ecologica, non meno che stimoli e suggestioni in grado di coinvolgere e chiamare in causa aree disciplinari differenti, intorno a competenze trasversali e a spunti per la costruzione di percorsi didattici interdisciplinari.

mercoledì 24 novembre 2021 al Teatro Flavio di Roma presentiamo, con Francesco Fiorentino (Roma... more mercoledì 24 novembre 2021
al Teatro Flavio di Roma presentiamo,
con Francesco Fiorentino (Roma Tre) e Florian Mussgnug (UCL)
il libro dedicato a
Mobilità, attraversamenti, sconfinamenti in epoca pandemica
Collana Trame, Armando editore

This event marks the launch of the November issue of "Transitions", hosted by the co-editors, Asi... more This event marks the launch of the November issue of "Transitions", hosted by the co-editors, Asia Battiloro (Sapienza University Rome) and Lorenzo Zannini (Sapienza University Rome). It includes the projection of a documentary, followed by a presentation of "Transitions" and features three guest speakers: Caterina Napolitano and Costanza Mondo, authors of two articles in "The Anthropocene and Possible Futures", and Florian Mussgnug (UCL), as respondent.

Monday, 29th November 2021, 18:00 to 19.30 (CET)

Presentation of the volume "Lasciate socchiuse le porte: mobilità, attraversamenti, sconfinamenti... more Presentation of the volume "Lasciate socchiuse le porte: mobilità, attraversamenti, sconfinamenti" (Rome: Armando Editore, 2021), edited by Beniamino della Gala, Adrien Frenay, Filippo Milani, Lucia Quaquarelli.

24 November 2021, 18.30-20.00, Teatro Flavio, Via Labicana, Rome.

This series of four online events is jointly hosted by the British School at Rome and University ... more This series of four online events is jointly hosted by the British School at Rome and University College London under the auspices of the British Embassy in Rome. They are part of the pre-COP activity in Italy (All4Climate – Italy2021), free and open to the public.

The online panels engage with key topics and challenges in sustainable development and climate politics. They explore how research and creative-critical practice in the arts, humanities and social and historical sciences can advance our understanding of the climate crisis and inform and promote behavioural and policy change.