Automutilazione e dermografia : Madre Piccola di Cristina Ubax Ali Farah

In Madre piccola (2007), Cristina Ubax Ali Farah rappresenta il malessere di un soggetto diviso tra due lingue e due culture con il personaggio di Domenica Axad. Domenica Axad è una giovane meticcia, figlia di un padre somalo e di una madre italiana, il cui nome sottolinea una duplice appartenenza. Domenica, il giorno della settimana considerato sacro nella tradizione religiosa più radicata in Italia, è infatti il nome deciso dalla madre della giovane, una donna «cattolica praticante» (Ali Farah, 2007, 237). L’identità cattolica è contrapposta e insieme traduce Axad, una parola che in arabo significa «uno» (Ali Farah, 2007, 239) o il «principio» (Ali Farah, 2007, 3) ed è utilizzata per indicare la domenica. Pertanto, questo nome pone l’accento sul fatto che l’identità della protagonista del romanzo è strettamente collegata ad un processo di traduzione continua, nonché all’affermazione di un bilinguismo che oltrepassa i confini di quelle entità apparentemente monolitiche che sono le lingue nazionali. Il ruolo di traduttrice è inscritto nel corpo di Domenica Axad: la giovane chiama sé stessa «italosomala, iska-dhal, nata-insieme, nata mescolata» (Ali Farah, 2007, 95) e nel colore meticcio della sua pelle porta i segni visibili di una mediazione linguistica e culturale

Transnational ‘Italian’ stardom: Lara saint paul and the performativity of race

This article aims to contribute to the debate about critical race studies in the Italian context – and especially in the 1960s and the 1970s – by focusing on the construction and negotiation of race in the career of the prominent Italian meticcia singer, television host and producer Silvana Areggasc Savorelli, also known as Tanya from 1960 to 1966 and Lara Saint Paul from 1967 onwards. Through an examination of Savorelli’s career as a singer, television host and Italian diva, this article shows how the meanings of Savorelli’s meticcio body have been constantly adapting to the shifting perceptions of blackness in Italy and other Western societies. Lara Saint Paul’s media representations illustrate a change in the social construction of Italianness in terms of race from the early 1960s to the early 2000s

Tradurre l'identità nell'Italia post-coloniale : la quarta viadi Kaha Mohamed Aden

Abbastanza presto gli italiani tolsero dalla propria agenda le colonie, e forse l’Africa; ma non lo fecero sulla base di una critica e di un’autocritica delle passate fascinazioni. Più semplicemente si autoassolsero, ricorrendo alla retorica della «brava gente»: mancò loro una seria e vera «decolonizzazione» della memoria. Il processo di revisione del passato si era arenato senza nemmeno partire (Labanca, 2002, p. 438)

Noi Siamo i Giovani : the popular media construction of Italian youth through style, 1965-1975

This thesis analyses the media construction of the ‘imagined community’ of Italian youth from 1965 to 1975 by looking at representations of young people’s style and bodily practices in magazines, Musicarelli films and television programmes aimed at an audience of young people. The term i giovani is used here to refer to representations of young people in popular media: i giovani were a performatively constructed category, as they were not defined by a specific age, but by specific practices, often connected to the consumption of commercial goods. The first chapter describes the interdisciplinary and intersectional approach used to examine the media construction of i giovani, which includes popular music studies, feminist theory, cultural studies, star studies and the history of 1960s and 1970s Italian society.The subsequent three chapters chronologically outline the emergence of different trends for Italian giovani. Chapter two analyses the beat trend, which appeared in popular media during the period 1965-1967. Chapter three examines the introduction of the hippy fashion in the period 1967-1970. Lastly, Chapter four investigates the alleged ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style in the early 1970s. These chapters together highlight four main processes that worked together in the construction of Italian giovani. Firstly, they show the naturalisation of a giovane identity through the passage from a unitary construction to a more fragmented representation. The analysis also shows how discourses around the giovane style were influenced by social changes affecting young people in the Western world as well as Italian society in the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, the chapters show how representations of giovani gender identities produced anxieties regarding a change in gendered dynamics of power in Italian post-war society. Finally, the analysis of the transnational inspiration of the giovane style shows how the media construction of i giovani was influenced both by Italy’s relationships with its own past and by the modernity embodied by foreign young people. The definition of a specifically Italian way of being giovani thus ultimately confirms the significant role of popular media in constructing Italian-ness

Zombies and the Post-colonial Italian Unconscious

This article analyses the relationship between the horror genre and colonialism by focusing on Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (1979) and discusses how and to what extent the colonial overtones of this film provide a fictional representation of the Italian collective unconscious fear of African immigration, which resurrected the memory of forgotten colonial crimes in Africa. Drawing on postcolonial theory and psychoanalysis, this article also underlines how xenophobe political propaganda has employed horror imagery – and especially that provided by zombie movies – in order to discriminate against immigrants

Between two stages: Rita Pavone and i giovani on Studio Uno (1961–1966)

This article analyses how Italian young people were represented in the Saturday night television programme Studio Uno (1961–1966). It defines i giovani as a performative identity: i giovani are not described as a specific age group, but rather as a normative identity constructed in popular media through the reiteration of bodily practices defined in opposition to ‘adult’ practices. Firstly, the article connects the emergence of discourses around i giovani with the educative function of RAI. Secondly, it outlines to what extent 1965 can be considered a turning point for representations of i giovani in Italian media. Thirdly, it compares the two young Studio Uno 1966 co-hosts Mina and Rita Pavone, to highlight the practices through which the latter was constructed as giovane. Lastly, the article suggests how the giovane identity was presented to an audience of adults and youths respectively through a different spatialisation of giovani performers on the show

Rethinking Italy’s Margins Through Walking: Mobility, Activism and Positionality in Wu Ming 2’s Il sentiero luminoso (2016) and Giuliano Santoro’s Su due piedi (2012)

The article argues that Wu Ming 2’s Il sentiero luminoso (2016) and Giuliano Santoro’s Su due piedi. Camminando per un mese attraverso la Calabria (2012) describe walking as an activity which allows one to recognize the social modifications of space, and to rethink the geographies of suburban areas in Italy. This analysis resounds with Robert P. Marzec’s invitation to study how literature has represented the privatization and the capitalist and neoliberal organization of space, revealing forms of internal colonization which epitomize a pillar of colonial ideology. Il sentiero luminoso and Su due piedi reconfigure walking as an epistemological, ecocritical and postcolonial practice which allows one to cross paths with people who are marginalized in Italy, especially migrants. Drawing on Michel de Certeau’s and David Pinder’s reflections about space and representation, the article suggests that Il sentiero luminoso and Su due piedi show how the direct experience of a place through walking is germane to understanding the effects of economic exploitation present in human-land relations

Pharmacodynamic studies of antimalarial drugs in a murine malaria model

Murine malaria models have proved to be a valuable preclinical tool, particularly in the development of new concepts in the research of human malaria. Plasmodium berghei (P. berghei), is the most extensively studied and manipulated rodent parasite and as a laboratory model, is largely selected for studies relating to developmental biology of parasites and investigation into new and innovative drug therapies. Whilst direct extrapolation from rodent biology to human malarias should be generally avoided, murine malaria models may contribute a greater understanding of important characteristics for antimalarial drug development and drug efficacy studies. However, there is currently a paucity of murine pharmacological data available for both commonly used, and emerging, antimalarial therapies. The findings of the studies in this thesis are seen as an important contribution to the preclinical knowledge of the investigated drugs which to date, have not been adequately studied.The aim of the thesis was to investigate the efficacy, pharmacokinetic and/or pharmacodynamic properties of various antimalarial drugs, in a P. berghei murine malaria model. Specific aims were to: (i) Evaluate the pharmacodynamic effects of dihydroartemisinin (DHA) in asplenic P. berghei infected mice. (ii) Investigate the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of single dose piperaquine (PQ) in healthy and P. berghei infected mice. (iii) Investigate the extended antimalarial effect of PQ concentrating on drug efficacy, re-inoculation outcomes and parasite viability. (iv) Evaluate the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of single and multiple doses of chloroquine (CQ) in healthy and P. berghei infected mice.Using an asplenic model of P. berghei malaria, the efficacy of single doses of DHA (0, 10, 30 and 100 mg/kg) were evaluated in uninfected and P. berghei infected, intact and asplenic mice. Haematology, liver biochemistry and histopathology were performed to investigate the responses of key organs to malaria infection. Whilst overall efficacy of single dose DHA in asplenic mice was shown to be similar to intact mice, the rate of parasite recrudescence after parasite nadir (20 h at all doses studied) was significantly higher in the asplenic mice, particularly at higher doses (30 and 100 mg/kg DHA). Histopathology of the liver and associated blood chemistries, demonstrated an increased stimulation of liver function during malaria infection in asplenic mice, when compared to intact mice.Whilst studying the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic responses of PQ in the P. berghei malaria treatment model, particular focus was placed on (i) pharmacodynamic properties of single doses of PQ (0, 10, 30 and 90 mg/kg PQ phosphate (PQP)); (ii) pharmacokinetic parameters of PQ in healthy and P. berghei infected mice; (iii) efficacy of combined doses of 10 mg/kg PQP and 30 mg/kg DHA. Single dose administration of PQP resulted in a median survival time of 4, 10 and 54 days after doses of 0, 10 and 30 mg/kg PQP, respectively, while mice receiving a single 90 mg/kg dose showed a medium survival time exceeding 60 days (experimental endpoint). Pharmacokinetic analysis determined the elimination half-life of PQ in healthy and P. berghei infected mice was 18 and 16 days, respectively. Furthermore, extrapolation of PQ concentrations suggested that at 60 days the plasma drug concentration would be ineffective at suppressing the P. berghei infection (<10 μg/L). Combination of PQP and DHA resulted in a significantly lower parasite nadir (22 ± 12 fold) than for either drug given individually.Given that high dose PQP (90 mg/kg) demonstrated extended antimalarial efficacy, further invetsigations were pursued on drug efficacy, re-inoculation outcomes and parasite viability after a single 90 mg/kg dose of PQP. Investigation showed that after initial dosing, PQ concentrations were not adequate to suppress parasitaemia after 25 days. Furthermore, although viable parasites were present up to 90 days after drug administration, once these viable parasites were passaged into naive mice they were found to be generally resistant to PQ when exposed to the drug for a second time. Overall, PQ was found to have a substantial antimalarial effect in this model with this effect appearing to be sufficient for a host immunological response to be established thus resulting in the long term survival of P. berghei infected mice.Although CQ is widely used in preclinical animal studies, there is a paucity of comprehensive pharmacokinetic data of CQ in animal models. In this thesis robust pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data of CQ is presentated after single and multiple dose administration of CQ in the P. berghei malaria model. The pharmacokinetics of desethyl-CQ (DECQ), the major active metabolite of CQ, were estimated. Pharmacodynamic data demonstrated that parasite nadir was reached 79 h after a single dose of 60 mg/kg CQ, with all mice developing parasite recrudescence. Multiple dose (5 x 50 mg/kg CQ; dosed every 24 h) administration resulted in parasitaemia falling below the limit of detection. Despite a short period of recrudescence (between 10 and 24 days after initial dose), parasitaemia remained undetectable until the experimental end point (35 days after the initial dose). Pharmacokinetic analysis determined an elimination half-life of 46.6 h in healthy mice and 99.3 h in malaria-infected mice (single dose data; non-compartmental analysis). The mean rate of formation of DCQ from CQ was 0.63 ± 0.55 h-1 with a formation half-life of 1.7 ± 1.0 h.Consequently, the drug efficacy, pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic data included in this thesis demonstrates that the current P. berghei murine malaria treatment model can be used as a valuable preclinical conceptual tool for the investigation of antimalarial drugs such as DHA, PQ and CQ