Matteo Cardillo | Università di Bologna (original) (raw)
Papers by Matteo Cardillo
Fulgor, 2022
The "handless-maiden" tale type-706 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folklore index (Uther 2004)-has a... more The "handless-maiden" tale type-706 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folklore index (Uther 2004)-has a long tradition of retelling, including in the first Brothers Grimm collection of 1812. The Italian case study for this article is "La Penta Mano Mozza" / "Penta with the Chopped-Off Hands", from Giambattista Basile's seventeenth-century Lo Cunto de li Cunti (1986) / The Tale of Tales (2007). I discuss Penta's story as an example of the way in which Western folktales are permeated by a heteronormative social substratum and a conventional depiction of marriage as the exchange of gifts between tribes. I then focus on the escape phase of the tale, in which the maiden suspends her social function of patriarchal subject and experiences a journey which temporarily excludes her from the dynamics of power and coercion that oppress her, enacting a strategy of resistance against gender violence. This leads to a discussion of the limited agency of female characters in the logic of folktales, as they represent social models embodying a moral framework. Finally, I examine Margaret Atwood's 1995 poem "Girl Without Hands", where the folktale element acquires an allegorical force, inviting reflection on the sense of alienation felt by the contemporary female protagonist. Here I consider how isolation can constitute a strategy of resistance. This article seeks to contribute to the feminist revisionist study of mythology and comparative literature, by establishing an intertextual dialogue between variants of the tale type in different ages and cultures.
2018 2 To my mother A mi madre A mia madre
Cuando hablamos de la conquista colonial española de América Latina, hablamos de una fase históri... more Cuando hablamos de la conquista colonial española de América Latina, hablamos de una fase histórica que tiene inicio en el siglo XVI, periodo en el que después del Concilio de Trento, viene proclamada la Contrarreforma para dar freno a los lujos y a la corrupción de la Iglesia Católica de esos tiempos. Uno de los organismos que se ve beneficiado por esta reforma es la Santa Inquisición, que recibe un gran apoyo por parte de la institución eclesiástica, marcando así el inicio de lo que pasará a la historia como la caza de brujas de Europa. Hablamos de un periodo caracterizado por la misoginia, que se basa en las construcciones medievales de la imagen de la mujer como tentadora y envenenadora, y que la considera un peligro, ya que puede alterar los equilibrios de la fe y la santidad divina a través de alianzas profanas con Satanás. Esta ideología, que tiene sus fundamentos en un intento de reforzar la estructura patriarcal de la sociedad y de reiterar los principios de obediencia de la mujer al universo masculino, será importada al Nuevo Mundo junto al imaginario poblado de espíritus y demonios, creando así una mistificación de la cultura de los Andes que ha llevado a ver en los huacas, dioses de la cultura andina, la representación de las tentaciones demoníacas presentes en el imaginario colectivo europeo. Después de todo, como Tzvetan Tdorov ilustra en su ensayo La conquista de América, la presencia de los conquistadores en el territorio de los indios representó un bloqueo cognitivo, una pérdida de confianza en las propias divinidades, así como una mezcla cultural entre las civilizaciones autóctonas y las derivaciones cristianas y católicas, que llevó a los indígenas a asociar a los nobles conquistadores con divinidades a quien venerar.
'There is a joy in fear'. This is what the main eponymous character of Joanna Baillie's 1812 trag... more 'There is a joy in fear'. This is what the main eponymous character of Joanna Baillie's 1812 tragedy, Orra, says, when her ladies attendants notice the physical appearance of fear on her body while she is listening to a ghost story told her by Cathrina, and this short sentence can probably be considered as the gist for the whole play; thus, the apparently unexplicable sense of peace acquired through fear.
The play was conceived as being part of a series of plays, the Plays on the Passions. Orra belongs to the third and last volume of the project, released in 1812. [...] Joanna Baillies's plays can be considered as experiments applied to the field of acting on how a passion shows itself and its evolution influences the development of the whole play enacted, as explained by the author herself in her 'Introductory discourse' to the first volume of plays, published anonymously in 1798, called 'A Series of Plays: in which it is attempted to delineate the stronger passions of the mind'. Baillie's philosophical notion of the sympathetic curiosity is an ethic manifesto, it evokes J. J. Rousseau's notion of pity, and it is an invitation to find in ourselves, as spectators, the very curiosity that will make us be as lucid as viewers to perceive the otherness, and the feeling of the other people around us.
Non bisogna infatti trascurare il ruolo socio-politico delle donne nell’età Moderna. Come osserva... more Non bisogna infatti trascurare il ruolo socio-politico delle donne nell’età Moderna. Come osserva Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli nel suo saggio ‘Donne e potere tra Medioevo e prima Età moderna’, in quanto modello di principe al femminile, Caterina visse un’esistenza costellata di gioie e di tragedie, poiché
per quanto […] l’efferatezza e le ritorsioni violente contro i rivoltosi fossero perfettamente giustificate nelle signorie del tempo per il mantenimento dell’ordine e del potere, esse si trasformano in azioni ingiustificabili e mostruose se commesse da una donna; la libertà nei costumi sessuali, tollerata quando non considerata con compiacimento nei sovrani, diventa orrida perversione se esercitata da una donna.
Questo ci permette di inquadrare Caterina in una posizione di per sé eccentrica e di capire come questa posizione le si rivelò un vantaggio e una condanna al contempo. Ciononostante, la sua vita è la testimonianza che, davanti alla possibilità di manovrare il potere, alcune donne hanno eccelso, spesso meglio degli uomini.
In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so ca... more In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so called 'ex-gay' claimed about himself: 'I felt it [where 'it' stands for sexual conversion from homosexuality to allegedly gained heterosexuality] it was what I had to do in order to gain a right to live on the planet.' The necessity to find a cure to our sexuality is basically due to social consent to an heteronormative perception of reality, of a life that must be considered as conventional by society and, thus, far from any kind of 'diversity' (Haldeman, 1994). This means that homosexuality is perceived as an illness from that kind of society that stigmatizes it, or something undesirable. As psychiatrist Bieber in 1962 said, homosexuality must be considered as a pathology, and consequenty it cannot be compatible with a happy life, and again, Nicolosi later will say 'I do not believe that gay lifestyle can ever be wealthy nor that the homosexual identity can ever be completely ego-syntonic" (Nicolosi, 1991, p. 13). Since homoeroticism is then an undesirable condition, there have been many ways to contain it. Gay people are induced to feel uncomfortable with their sexual orientation, and this is because of many different reasons: the social stigma and devaluation of homosexuality, gender roles of wives and husbands, religious values that make their sexual orientation incompatible with their beliefs, low self-esteem due to their homoerotic impulses, etc. The scope of this essay is to give a general introduction to how the practices of sexual conversion have developed throughout psychiatric history and how homosexuality has become an illness to cure, but at the same time I will try to examine the progress obtained from LGBT rights in order to recognize homosexuality not as a deficit to medicalize, but as a variable in human sexuality. Furthermore, after this research I am induced to think that the mixture of the boundaries between those which were considered as medical practices of conversion (and also the political and religious beliefs of those who worked in order to enact these conversion) are the living proof of how this system of adequacy to an heterosexual society had rather more moral than medical necessities. Especially in a span of time that goes from the 40s to the 70s of 20 th century, many medical practices were enacted in order to cure homosexual men and lesbian women who felt inadequacy with their sexual orientation. These treatments, that will all be considered as being part of the project of the so called 'sexual conversion therapy' or also 'reparative therapy', seeked to 'bring back' to the norm all the gay subjects exposed to it. A lack of faithful empirical data and the declassification, in 1970's, of homosexuality as a mental illness will gradually reduce trust into these therapies from the mainstream medical establishment.
Da una prospettiva di genere, il filo conduttore del mio saggio è porre in evidenza l'evoluzione ... more Da una prospettiva di genere, il filo conduttore del mio saggio è porre in evidenza l'evoluzione della voce narrante femminile prendendo in esame la letteratura medievale prodotta da donne, e analizzandola con strumenti di filosofia della narrazione, tenendo specialmente in considerazione il pensiero di Adriana Cavarero.
Drafts by Matteo Cardillo
In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so ca... more In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so called 'ex-gay' claimed about himself: 'I felt it [where 'it' stands for sexual conversion from homosexuality to allegedly gained heterosexuality] it was what I had to do in order to gain a right to live on the planet.' The necessity to find a cure to our sexuality is basically due to social consent to an heteronormative perception of reality, of a life that must be considered as conventional by society and, thus, far from any kind of 'diversity' (Haldeman, 1994). This means that homosexuality is perceived as an illness from that kind of society that stigmatizes it, or something undesirable. As psychiatrist Bieber in 1962 said, homosexuality must be considered as a pathology, and consequenty it cannot be compatible with a happy life, and again, Nicolosi later will say 'I do not believe that gay lifestyle can ever be wealthy nor that the homosexual identity can ever be completely ego-syntonic" (Nicolosi, 1991, p. 13). Since homoeroticism is then an undesirable condition, there have been many ways to contain it. Gay people are induced to feel uncomfortable with their sexual orientation, and this is because of many different reasons: the social stigma and devaluation of homosexuality, gender roles of wives and husbands, religious values that make their sexual orientation incompatible with their beliefs, low self-esteem due to their homoerotic impulses, etc. The scope of this essay is to give a general introduction to how the practices of sexual conversion have developed throughout psychiatric history and how homosexuality has become an illness to cure, but at the same time I will try to examine the progress obtained from LGBT rights in order to recognize homosexuality not as a deficit to medicalize, but as a variable in human sexuality. Furthermore, after this research I am induced to think that the mixture of the boundaries between those which were considered as medical practices of conversion (and also the political and religious beliefs of those who worked in order to enact these conversion) are the living proof of how this system of adequacy to an heterosexual society had rather more moral than medical necessities. Especially in a span of time that goes from the 40s to the 70s of 20 th century, many medical practices were enacted in order to cure homosexual men and lesbian women who felt inadequacy with their sexual orientation. These treatments, that will all be considered as being part of the project of the so called 'sexual conversion therapy' or also 'reparative therapy', seeked to 'bring back' to the norm all the gay subjects exposed to it. A lack of faithful empirical data and the declassification, in 1970's, of homosexuality as a mental illness will gradually reduce trust into these therapies from the mainstream medical establishment.
Thesis Chapters by Matteo Cardillo
Il primo pensiero che ci sovviene alla mente terminata la lettura di Lord of the Flies, o perlome... more Il primo pensiero che ci sovviene alla mente terminata la lettura di Lord of the Flies, o perlomeno, il pensiero che ha suscitato in me motivi di riflessione, è che si tratti di una parabola della nuova umanità, quell'umanità reduce dagli orrori delle due guerre che hanno segnato il XX secolo, e che William Robert Golding (1911–1993)1 , grazie alla sua attività di militare dell'esercito britannico, ha avuto modo di vivere molto da vicino. Tale esperienza l'ha certamente indotto a scrivere il suo primo romanzo, che avrebbe segnato la tappa iniziale di un percorso di ricerca tematica sulla natura umana che avrebbe attraversato tutti i suoi successivi romanzi, come un fil rouge. A Lord of the Flies (1954), infatti, farà seguito nel 1955 The Inheritors, nel quale si avverte l'influenza subita dal pensiero letterario di matrice distopica di Herbert George Wells, il quale influenzerà buona parte degli autori modernisti dei primi decenni del Novecento2, tra cui Edward Morgan Forster (The Machine Stops, 1909) e, alcuni decenni più tardi, autori contemporanei, come Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, 1932, e Ape and the Essence, 1948) e George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1945, e Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1948). In The Inheritors, infatti, gli elementi narrativi di Lord of the Flies vengono reiterati dal confronto che avviene quando un gruppo di innocenti selvaggi incontra una tribù corrotta ma più civilizzata. Con Free Fall, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1959, lo stile della narrazione recupera il modello della tradizione gotica e uno stile kafkiano nelle sue scene inquisitorie e di tortura, che vogliono essere un chiaro riferimento a quanto accaduto all'interno dei campi di concentramento tedeschi.
Fulgor, 2022
The "handless-maiden" tale type-706 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folklore index (Uther 2004)-has a... more The "handless-maiden" tale type-706 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folklore index (Uther 2004)-has a long tradition of retelling, including in the first Brothers Grimm collection of 1812. The Italian case study for this article is "La Penta Mano Mozza" / "Penta with the Chopped-Off Hands", from Giambattista Basile's seventeenth-century Lo Cunto de li Cunti (1986) / The Tale of Tales (2007). I discuss Penta's story as an example of the way in which Western folktales are permeated by a heteronormative social substratum and a conventional depiction of marriage as the exchange of gifts between tribes. I then focus on the escape phase of the tale, in which the maiden suspends her social function of patriarchal subject and experiences a journey which temporarily excludes her from the dynamics of power and coercion that oppress her, enacting a strategy of resistance against gender violence. This leads to a discussion of the limited agency of female characters in the logic of folktales, as they represent social models embodying a moral framework. Finally, I examine Margaret Atwood's 1995 poem "Girl Without Hands", where the folktale element acquires an allegorical force, inviting reflection on the sense of alienation felt by the contemporary female protagonist. Here I consider how isolation can constitute a strategy of resistance. This article seeks to contribute to the feminist revisionist study of mythology and comparative literature, by establishing an intertextual dialogue between variants of the tale type in different ages and cultures.
2018 2 To my mother A mi madre A mia madre
Cuando hablamos de la conquista colonial española de América Latina, hablamos de una fase históri... more Cuando hablamos de la conquista colonial española de América Latina, hablamos de una fase histórica que tiene inicio en el siglo XVI, periodo en el que después del Concilio de Trento, viene proclamada la Contrarreforma para dar freno a los lujos y a la corrupción de la Iglesia Católica de esos tiempos. Uno de los organismos que se ve beneficiado por esta reforma es la Santa Inquisición, que recibe un gran apoyo por parte de la institución eclesiástica, marcando así el inicio de lo que pasará a la historia como la caza de brujas de Europa. Hablamos de un periodo caracterizado por la misoginia, que se basa en las construcciones medievales de la imagen de la mujer como tentadora y envenenadora, y que la considera un peligro, ya que puede alterar los equilibrios de la fe y la santidad divina a través de alianzas profanas con Satanás. Esta ideología, que tiene sus fundamentos en un intento de reforzar la estructura patriarcal de la sociedad y de reiterar los principios de obediencia de la mujer al universo masculino, será importada al Nuevo Mundo junto al imaginario poblado de espíritus y demonios, creando así una mistificación de la cultura de los Andes que ha llevado a ver en los huacas, dioses de la cultura andina, la representación de las tentaciones demoníacas presentes en el imaginario colectivo europeo. Después de todo, como Tzvetan Tdorov ilustra en su ensayo La conquista de América, la presencia de los conquistadores en el territorio de los indios representó un bloqueo cognitivo, una pérdida de confianza en las propias divinidades, así como una mezcla cultural entre las civilizaciones autóctonas y las derivaciones cristianas y católicas, que llevó a los indígenas a asociar a los nobles conquistadores con divinidades a quien venerar.
'There is a joy in fear'. This is what the main eponymous character of Joanna Baillie's 1812 trag... more 'There is a joy in fear'. This is what the main eponymous character of Joanna Baillie's 1812 tragedy, Orra, says, when her ladies attendants notice the physical appearance of fear on her body while she is listening to a ghost story told her by Cathrina, and this short sentence can probably be considered as the gist for the whole play; thus, the apparently unexplicable sense of peace acquired through fear.
The play was conceived as being part of a series of plays, the Plays on the Passions. Orra belongs to the third and last volume of the project, released in 1812. [...] Joanna Baillies's plays can be considered as experiments applied to the field of acting on how a passion shows itself and its evolution influences the development of the whole play enacted, as explained by the author herself in her 'Introductory discourse' to the first volume of plays, published anonymously in 1798, called 'A Series of Plays: in which it is attempted to delineate the stronger passions of the mind'. Baillie's philosophical notion of the sympathetic curiosity is an ethic manifesto, it evokes J. J. Rousseau's notion of pity, and it is an invitation to find in ourselves, as spectators, the very curiosity that will make us be as lucid as viewers to perceive the otherness, and the feeling of the other people around us.
Non bisogna infatti trascurare il ruolo socio-politico delle donne nell’età Moderna. Come osserva... more Non bisogna infatti trascurare il ruolo socio-politico delle donne nell’età Moderna. Come osserva Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli nel suo saggio ‘Donne e potere tra Medioevo e prima Età moderna’, in quanto modello di principe al femminile, Caterina visse un’esistenza costellata di gioie e di tragedie, poiché
per quanto […] l’efferatezza e le ritorsioni violente contro i rivoltosi fossero perfettamente giustificate nelle signorie del tempo per il mantenimento dell’ordine e del potere, esse si trasformano in azioni ingiustificabili e mostruose se commesse da una donna; la libertà nei costumi sessuali, tollerata quando non considerata con compiacimento nei sovrani, diventa orrida perversione se esercitata da una donna.
Questo ci permette di inquadrare Caterina in una posizione di per sé eccentrica e di capire come questa posizione le si rivelò un vantaggio e una condanna al contempo. Ciononostante, la sua vita è la testimonianza che, davanti alla possibilità di manovrare il potere, alcune donne hanno eccelso, spesso meglio degli uomini.
In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so ca... more In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so called 'ex-gay' claimed about himself: 'I felt it [where 'it' stands for sexual conversion from homosexuality to allegedly gained heterosexuality] it was what I had to do in order to gain a right to live on the planet.' The necessity to find a cure to our sexuality is basically due to social consent to an heteronormative perception of reality, of a life that must be considered as conventional by society and, thus, far from any kind of 'diversity' (Haldeman, 1994). This means that homosexuality is perceived as an illness from that kind of society that stigmatizes it, or something undesirable. As psychiatrist Bieber in 1962 said, homosexuality must be considered as a pathology, and consequenty it cannot be compatible with a happy life, and again, Nicolosi later will say 'I do not believe that gay lifestyle can ever be wealthy nor that the homosexual identity can ever be completely ego-syntonic" (Nicolosi, 1991, p. 13). Since homoeroticism is then an undesirable condition, there have been many ways to contain it. Gay people are induced to feel uncomfortable with their sexual orientation, and this is because of many different reasons: the social stigma and devaluation of homosexuality, gender roles of wives and husbands, religious values that make their sexual orientation incompatible with their beliefs, low self-esteem due to their homoerotic impulses, etc. The scope of this essay is to give a general introduction to how the practices of sexual conversion have developed throughout psychiatric history and how homosexuality has become an illness to cure, but at the same time I will try to examine the progress obtained from LGBT rights in order to recognize homosexuality not as a deficit to medicalize, but as a variable in human sexuality. Furthermore, after this research I am induced to think that the mixture of the boundaries between those which were considered as medical practices of conversion (and also the political and religious beliefs of those who worked in order to enact these conversion) are the living proof of how this system of adequacy to an heterosexual society had rather more moral than medical necessities. Especially in a span of time that goes from the 40s to the 70s of 20 th century, many medical practices were enacted in order to cure homosexual men and lesbian women who felt inadequacy with their sexual orientation. These treatments, that will all be considered as being part of the project of the so called 'sexual conversion therapy' or also 'reparative therapy', seeked to 'bring back' to the norm all the gay subjects exposed to it. A lack of faithful empirical data and the declassification, in 1970's, of homosexuality as a mental illness will gradually reduce trust into these therapies from the mainstream medical establishment.
Da una prospettiva di genere, il filo conduttore del mio saggio è porre in evidenza l'evoluzione ... more Da una prospettiva di genere, il filo conduttore del mio saggio è porre in evidenza l'evoluzione della voce narrante femminile prendendo in esame la letteratura medievale prodotta da donne, e analizzandola con strumenti di filosofia della narrazione, tenendo specialmente in considerazione il pensiero di Adriana Cavarero.
In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so ca... more In a Christian symposium about conversion therapy practices through a religious approach, a so called 'ex-gay' claimed about himself: 'I felt it [where 'it' stands for sexual conversion from homosexuality to allegedly gained heterosexuality] it was what I had to do in order to gain a right to live on the planet.' The necessity to find a cure to our sexuality is basically due to social consent to an heteronormative perception of reality, of a life that must be considered as conventional by society and, thus, far from any kind of 'diversity' (Haldeman, 1994). This means that homosexuality is perceived as an illness from that kind of society that stigmatizes it, or something undesirable. As psychiatrist Bieber in 1962 said, homosexuality must be considered as a pathology, and consequenty it cannot be compatible with a happy life, and again, Nicolosi later will say 'I do not believe that gay lifestyle can ever be wealthy nor that the homosexual identity can ever be completely ego-syntonic" (Nicolosi, 1991, p. 13). Since homoeroticism is then an undesirable condition, there have been many ways to contain it. Gay people are induced to feel uncomfortable with their sexual orientation, and this is because of many different reasons: the social stigma and devaluation of homosexuality, gender roles of wives and husbands, religious values that make their sexual orientation incompatible with their beliefs, low self-esteem due to their homoerotic impulses, etc. The scope of this essay is to give a general introduction to how the practices of sexual conversion have developed throughout psychiatric history and how homosexuality has become an illness to cure, but at the same time I will try to examine the progress obtained from LGBT rights in order to recognize homosexuality not as a deficit to medicalize, but as a variable in human sexuality. Furthermore, after this research I am induced to think that the mixture of the boundaries between those which were considered as medical practices of conversion (and also the political and religious beliefs of those who worked in order to enact these conversion) are the living proof of how this system of adequacy to an heterosexual society had rather more moral than medical necessities. Especially in a span of time that goes from the 40s to the 70s of 20 th century, many medical practices were enacted in order to cure homosexual men and lesbian women who felt inadequacy with their sexual orientation. These treatments, that will all be considered as being part of the project of the so called 'sexual conversion therapy' or also 'reparative therapy', seeked to 'bring back' to the norm all the gay subjects exposed to it. A lack of faithful empirical data and the declassification, in 1970's, of homosexuality as a mental illness will gradually reduce trust into these therapies from the mainstream medical establishment.
Il primo pensiero che ci sovviene alla mente terminata la lettura di Lord of the Flies, o perlome... more Il primo pensiero che ci sovviene alla mente terminata la lettura di Lord of the Flies, o perlomeno, il pensiero che ha suscitato in me motivi di riflessione, è che si tratti di una parabola della nuova umanità, quell'umanità reduce dagli orrori delle due guerre che hanno segnato il XX secolo, e che William Robert Golding (1911–1993)1 , grazie alla sua attività di militare dell'esercito britannico, ha avuto modo di vivere molto da vicino. Tale esperienza l'ha certamente indotto a scrivere il suo primo romanzo, che avrebbe segnato la tappa iniziale di un percorso di ricerca tematica sulla natura umana che avrebbe attraversato tutti i suoi successivi romanzi, come un fil rouge. A Lord of the Flies (1954), infatti, farà seguito nel 1955 The Inheritors, nel quale si avverte l'influenza subita dal pensiero letterario di matrice distopica di Herbert George Wells, il quale influenzerà buona parte degli autori modernisti dei primi decenni del Novecento2, tra cui Edward Morgan Forster (The Machine Stops, 1909) e, alcuni decenni più tardi, autori contemporanei, come Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, 1932, e Ape and the Essence, 1948) e George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1945, e Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1948). In The Inheritors, infatti, gli elementi narrativi di Lord of the Flies vengono reiterati dal confronto che avviene quando un gruppo di innocenti selvaggi incontra una tribù corrotta ma più civilizzata. Con Free Fall, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1959, lo stile della narrazione recupera il modello della tradizione gotica e uno stile kafkiano nelle sue scene inquisitorie e di tortura, che vogliono essere un chiaro riferimento a quanto accaduto all'interno dei campi di concentramento tedeschi.