RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Itinerant ecocriticism, Southern thought, and Italian cinema on foot
A1 Past, Elena Margarita
K1 Cassano
K1 Italian cinema
K1 Walking
K1 Slow cinema
K1 Southern thought
K1 Cine italiano
K1 Caminar
K1 Cine lento
K1 Pensamiento meridional
K1 Literatura
K1 Literature
K1 Medio ambiente
K1 Environmental science
AB This  short  essay  explores  an  impulse  guiding  Italian  ecocriticism,  and  also  a  recurrent  trend  in Italian cinema: that of thinking on foot. Drawing on the work of sociologist and philosopher Franco Cassano, I  consider  why  contemporary  philosophers  seek  to  understand  Italy  at  a  pace  that  works  strategically (sometimes  defiantly)  against  petroleum-fueled  speed. Three  recent  Italian  films  that  proceed  on  foot (“Basilicata  Coast  to  Coast” [2010], “La  lunga  strada  gialla” [2016], and “Il cammino dell’Appia antica” [2016]) attempt to reanimate southern Italian landscapes as “vehicles of identity, solidarity, and development” (Cassano xxxvi). Each film represents a socio-political project enabled by its walking pace; each, in turn, has the  potential  to  unveil  how  these  projects  depend  on  the  naturalcultural  health  of  the  landscapes  being traversed. Against the “slow violence” being perpetrated on Italian landscapes—a  slow  violence  of  toxic contamination at the hand  of ecomafias, of the cementification of agricultural landsand delicate coasts—and  against  the  speed  of  turbocapitalism,  thinking  on  foot  enables  modes  of  ethics  and  aesthetics simultaneously attuned to historical depth and ecological crisis. In this view, Italy is no longer a “bel paese,” but rather an ecocultural landscape in which the seeds for meaningful change are deeply embedded.
PB Universidad de Alcalá
SN 2171-9594
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10017/45488
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10017/45488
LA eng
DS MINDS@UW
RD 02-may-2024