Etica nella letteratura: il romanzo italiano

This paper is a kind of commentary on the different symbolic systems of three economic systems. The main hypothesis is that novelist take taken their own ethic from the main values which are necessary to develop the area where they grow according to their cultural heritage. The first kind of economy is based on agriculture (Manzoni, Nievo, Fogazzaro, Verga, Tozzi, Gadda, Pratolini, Jovine, Pasolini), the second on fishing and trade (Foscolo, Tommaseo, D’Annunzio, Pirandello, Svevo, Calvino) and the third on industry and finance (Mastriani, Cena, Valera, Bontempelli, Moravia, Sanguineti). Now we are in a revolutionary historical period, in relation to cultural choice, and the Internet world is producing a novel based not on collective value, but just on personal and singular desire

Cibo e conoscenza nel romanzo italiano moderno

The main goal of an agrarian society is to survive: the natural cycle of birth-reproduction-death is the example of a universal law, valid for every living being, and ruling over every aspect of human existence. The cycle’s rhythms are fixed and cannot be altered: every element of it has to bear its fruits, for the cycle to go on. Besides this, there is a symbolic system which includes family, land ownership, saving, solidarity and resilience, amongst its positive values. This strong relationship of biological and vital dependency of human beings and plants permeate also religion, for which woman and earth, childbearing and harvest, are connected and considered as a whole. ‘Earthly’ writers do not like any kind of abstract knowledge, they prefer something entwined with everyday life and food holds a great importance for them, because of its great and clear symbolic value. The essay examines the relationship between food and the agrarian culture in the works "I Promessi Sposi" by Manzoni, "Confessioni di un Italiano" by Nievo, "Piccolo mondo antico" by Fogazzaro, "Lemmonio Boreo" by Soffici, Bacchelli’s trilogy of "Mulino del Po", Tozzi’s "Con gli occhi chiusi" and "Cognizione del dolore" by Gadda. The essay then briefly considers the different predispositions to be found in those cultures whose economy revolves around the sea

Politically Numb? Russian Muslims' Attitudes Towards Putin's Wars

This commentary describes how Russia’s Muslims have reacted to Moscow’s controversial military intervention in Syria and discusses what their reaction may tell us about Russia’s Muslims’ attitude vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine

Halal Headaches: Post-Cultural Islam in Tatarstan

This contribution discusses contemporary halal practices in Tatarstan through the lens of culture, or rather its fragmentation in a post-secular, post-Durkheimian world. It argues that halal provides pious Muslims with a matrix for the harmonization of multiple "spheres of value and experience," rendered increasingly disjoined by secularization processes, under a coherent religious paradigm. Such process of reunification is not, however, without its headaches. This chapter details the difficulties and paradoxes inherent in this effort, alongside the spiritual and ethical gratifications that reward committed halalists

Ethical infrastructure: Halal and the ecology of askesis in Muslim Russia

This article explores the ecology of late-modern askesis through the concept of ‘ethical infrastructure’: the array of goods, locales, technologies, procedures, and sundry pieces of equipment upon which the possibility of ethicists’ striving is premised. By looking at the ethnographic case of halal living among Muslim pietists in post-Soviet Tatarstan (Russia), I advance a framework that highlights the ‘profane’, often unassuming or religiously unmarked, yet essential material scaffolding constituting the ‘material conditions of possibility’ for pious life in the lifeworld of late modernity. Halalness is conceptualised not as an inherent quality of a clearly defined set of things, but as a (sometimes complicated) relationship between humans, ethical intentionality, and infrastructurally organised habitats. Pointing beyond the case of halal, this article syncretises theories of self-cultivation, material religion, ethical consumption, and infrastructure to address current lacunas and explore fresh theoretical and methodological ground. This ‘ethical infrastructure’ framework enables us to conceptualise the embeddedness of contemporary ethicists in complex environments and the process by which processes of inner self-fashioning change and are changed by material worlds

Pietaskscapes of halal living: subjectivity, striving, and space-making in Muslim Russia

Drawing on ethnographic research in Tatarstan (Russia) and through an engagement with Foucauldian, phenomenological, and ecological social theories, this paper advances the concept of piety taskscape, or “pietaskscape”, to indicate the granular, organically emerging meshwork of settings and locations where Muslim pietists carry out self-fashioning. This concept aspires to grasp the nexus of ethical action, space-making, and experience, in concrete human environments such as the post-Soviet city. Such a concept may prove a valuable contribution to scholarly conversations about religion and space by placing subjectivity, performativity, teleology, and materiality in resonance with each other. It will be argued that, compared to alternative approaches, this framework affords greater analytical insight into the spatiality of Muslim piety beyond the scholarly box of Islamic “sites”.Drawing on ethnographic research in Tatarstan (Russia) and through an engagement with Foucauldian, phenomenological, and ecological social theories, this paper advances the concept of piety taskscape, or "pietaskscape", to indicate the granular, organically emerging meshwork of settings and locations where Muslim pietists carry out self-fashioning. This concept aspires to grasp the nexus of ethical action, space-making, and experience, in concrete human environments such as the post-Soviet city. Such a concept may prove a valuable contribution to scholarly conversations about religion and space by placing subjectivity, performativity, teleology, and materiality in resonance with each other. It will be argued that, compared to alternative approaches, this framework affords greater analytical insight into the spatiality of Muslim piety beyond the scholarly box of Islamic "sites"

“Sovereign” Islam and Tatar “Aqīdah”: normative religious narratives and grassroots criticism amongst Tatarstan’s Muslims

Funder: University of CambridgeAbstract: “Traditional Islam” has emerged in the post-Soviet Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation) as a powerful if contentious discursive trope. In this paper, I look at traditional Islam and its conceptual twin, “non-traditional Islam”, as normative governmental tools aimed at defining acceptable or unwelcome form of religious commitment in an environment in which the rapid success of Sunni piety trends after socialism’s end has exacerbated the anxieties of both state institutions and a predominantly secular public. Traditional Islam’s multiple facets are explored, with particular attention given to the aspects of heritage-making, at the local (republican) level, and loyalty-fostering at the national (all-Russian) level. The concept’s genealogy, spanning different phases of Soviet and post-Soviet history, is analysed in detail. In addition, I focus on the reception of the traditional/non-traditional Islam discourse amongst grassroots pious Muslims, highlighting instances of criticism, lampooning, rejection, but also qualified acceptance. The concluding sections of my paper touch on “theological” traditional Islam’s potential and limitations for expanding civil society and harnessing grassroots enthusiasm

Il romanzo italiano da D'Annunzio al neorealismo

Il saggio traccia la storia del romanzo italiano del Novecento secondo una prospettiva geografico-antropologica. Le differenze sostanziali sono tra scrittori appartenenti a zone ad economia agraria rispetto a quelli appartenenti a zone di economia industriale e finanziaria. Ci\uf2 vale fino agli anni Sessanta, quando i valori socio-culturale tendono a divenire omogenei. Un cambiamento della struttura narrativa si ha con la diffusione di internet e dei social