Italy, Islam and the Islamic World

How have events such as military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq or the protests in Tahrir Square been represented by writers, journalists and intellectuals in Italy? This study examines the arguments used in defining Italy's relationship with Islam and with the Islamic world, in the period from 9/11 to the Arab Spring.

The recent emergence and increasing visibility of Islam as Italy's second religion is an issue of undeniable importance. It has generated an intense and often polarized debate that has involved all the cultural, political and religious institutions of the country and some of its most vocal and controversial cultural figures. This study examines some of the most significant voices that have made themselves heard in defining Italy's relationship with Islam and with the Islamic world, in a period of remarkable geopolitical and cultural upheaval from 9/11 to the Arab Spring. It looks in detail at the nature of the arguments that writers, journalists and intellectuals have adduced regarding Islam and at the connections and disjunctions between opposing positions. It examines how events such as military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq or the protests in Tahrir Square have been represented within Italy and it analyses the rhetorical framework within which the issue of the emergence of Islam as an internal actor within Italian civil society has been articulated.

Autorentext

Charles Burdett is Professor of Italian at the University of Bristol. The principal area of his research is the representation of intercultural contact in modern Italian literature and culture. He has written on literary culture in the 1920s and 1930s, travel and travel writing in Italy under Fascism, the history of Italian expansionism and the memory of colonialism. He is currently working on the AHRC-funded project «Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Mobility, Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures».

Klappentext

The recent emergence and increasing visibility of Islam as Italy s second religion is an issue of undeniable importance. It has generated an intense and often polarized debate that has involved all the cultural, political and religious institutions of the country and some of its most vocal and controversial cultural figures. This study examines some of the most significant voices that have made themselves heard in defining Italy s relationship with Islam and with the Islamic world, in a period of remarkable geopolitical and cultural upheaval from 9/11 to the Arab Spring. It looks in detail at the nature of the arguments that writers, journalists and intellectuals have adduced regarding Islam and at the connections and disjunctions between opposing positions. It examines how events such as military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq or the protests in Tahrir Square have been represented within Italy and it analyses the rhetorical framework within which the issue of the emergence of Islam as an internal actor within Italian civil society has been articulated.

Zusammenfassung
«Charles Burdett's succinct yet exhaustive analysis of the relationship between Italy, Islam, and the Islamic world focuses on a corpus of texts that have played a seminal role in shaping the cultural debate in Italy from 9/11 to the Arab Spring, revealing a wide intellectual breadth in his study.»
(Marino Forlino, Modern Language Review, 113.1, 2018)

Inhalt

Contents: 9/11: The Islamic World as Other in Oriana Fallaci s «Trilogy» The War on Terror: Journeys of Writers and Journalists through Iraq and Afghanistan Representations of Islamic Communities in Italy Literary Representations of Islam and Italy Voices of Tahrir Square: Representations of Egypt and the Arab Uprisings.