Transnational Italian identity in contemporary Italian literature and music

Lei, Daniele 2024. Transnational Italian identity in contemporary Italian literature and music. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

In my thesis, I focus on representations of transnational identity in contemporary Italian cultural production. My interdisciplinary methodology is rooted in literary analysis, from transnational and post-colonial perspectives, and informed by musical theory. I tap into the articulations of contingency, situatedness and complexity that musical language offers to propose a new perspective on current narratives of transnational identity and multiple belongings. The corpus of the thesis consists of written and musical texts. I consider Gabriella Ghermandi’s literary production alongside the musical output of the Atse Tewodros Project, an initiative she originally founded and now leads. I show how her poetics, driven by the desire to recover and expose the Italian colonial past, evolve across media and how her writing and research methods shape her work. Through the analysis of Carmine Abate’s production, I offer an original perspective on the notion of voice as a tool to articulate personal belonging. Abate’s voice is rooted in translingual practice and translanguaging, as various languages combine to create representations of transnational belonging. I offer a discussion of rapper Tommy Kuti’s cultural production as presented in his memoir and his music. I develop the notion of voice presented above to frame the ways in which Kuti challenges dominant notions of Italianness through his use of language, as well as through the crafting of a personal imaginary which taps into the transnational dimension of hip-hop cultures. Lastly, I show how, in his novels, Amara Lakhous crafts a polyphonic space in which various voices interact and shape each other. Each of these narratives challenges a model of affirmation of identity based on a colonial mindset and the construction of an antagonistic Other. The alternative models of identity offered by the artists represent strategies to push against national borders, and the dynamics of exclusion they engender.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Modern Languages
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 April 2025
Last Modified:	15 Apr 2025 09:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177661

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