Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's ItalyUniversity of California Press, 2000 M08 31 - 303 pages This richly textured cultural history of Italian fascism traces the narrative path that accompanied the making of the regime and the construction of Mussolini's power. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi reads fascist myths, rituals, images, and speeches as texts that tell the story of fascism. Linking Mussolini's elaboration of a new ruling style to the shaping of the regime's identity, she finds that in searching for symbolic means and forms that would represent its political novelty, fascism in fact brought itself into being, creating its own power and history. Falasca-Zamponi argues that an aesthetically founded notion of politics guided fascist power's historical unfolding and determined the fascist regime's violent understanding of social relations, its desensitized and dehumanized claims to creation, its privileging of form over ethical norms, and ultimately its truly totalitarian nature. |
Contents
Aesthetics and Politics | 8 |
MUSSOLINIs AESTHETIC POLITICS | 15 |
MUSSOL INI THE MYTH | 42 |
FROM CONTENT TO FORM | 89 |
BoDILY ECONOMY CORPORATIVISM AND CONSUMPTION | 119 |
WAR AND MELODRAMA | 148 |
CONCLUSIONS | 183 |
Notes | 195 |
Bibliography | 267 |
Photograph Credits | 295 |
Other editions - View all
Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi Limited preview - 1997 |
Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi Limited preview - 2023 |
Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi Limited preview - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic affirmed Aquarone Archivio Centrale artist Battle of Wheat became Benito Mussolini black shirt bourgeois Centrale dello Stato cinema Cited claimed conception constituted consumption corporativism crowd culture democracy Direttorio discipline discourse Duce Duce's economic Einaudi Emilio Gentile Ethiopian fascio fascio littorio fascist Italy Figure films Gran Consiglio Ibid ideal Il Popolo d'Italia individual Italian Italian fascism Italy's Laterza leader littorio Ludwig March on Rome masses Milan Milizia modern moral Mussolini told Mussolini's speeches myth narrative nation needed October op.cit Opera Omnia organization Partito Nazionale Fascista party passo people's politica political Popolo d'Italia popular published reality regime's Renzo De Felice representation revolution rhetoric rituals role Roman salute Rome-Bari Scritti e discorsi social socialist society solini Sorel spectacle spiritual Starace Storia style symbolic syndicalism theory tion totalitarian traditional trans Turin University Press violence virility vision wrote York