‘This volume of essays makes a powerful argument for the distinctiveness of theItalian contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. The contributorsto Posthumanism in Italian Literature and Film: Boundaries and Identity show howthe culture that gave the world modern European humanism has also producedsome of the most radical and searching critiques of what it is to be human in themodern and late modern age.’— Michael Cronin, Professor of French, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, andauthor of Eco-translation (2017)‘Brilliantly edited by Enrica Maria Ferrara, Posthumanism in Italian Literature andFilm expands the canon of posthumanist literary studies, enriching it withunexpected topics and voices. In a dazzling sequence of chapters on Leopardi,Pirandello, Elena Ferrante, Gianni Celati, Michelangelo Antonioni, and a numberof contemporary storytellers and filmmakers, the authors of this fascinating bookfollow the human as it emerges from a tangle of organic and inorganic substances,DNA and energy sources, mobile phones and microbes, technology and politics.An engaging read, it is yet another testimony to the established presence ofItalian culture on the scene of posthumanities.’— Serenella Iovino, Professor of Italian Studies and Environmental Humanities,University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USAAs humans re-negotiate their boundaries with the nonhuman world of animals,inanimate entities and technological artefacts, new identities are formed and anew epistemological and ethical approach to reality is needed. Through twelvethought-provoking, scholarly essays, this volume analyzes works by a range ofmodern and contemporary Italian authors, from Giacomo Leopardi to ElenaFerrante, who have captured the shift from anthropocentrism and postmodernismto posthumanism. Indeed, this is the first academic volume investigating narrativeconfigurations of posthuman identity in Italian literature and film.
