In and Off the Saddle: Cavalieri in 20th-Century Italian Culture

          In and Off the Saddle: Cavalieri in 20^th-Century Italian Culture

This talk focuses on images of cavalrymen and knights in twentieth-century Italian culture, looking at how men on horseback (or off the saddle!) were depicted in literature, arts, popular artefacts and publications, animations, and films from early Futurism to commedia all’italiana. Images here are regarded as a language, and considered for their power to encode messages and tell stories expressing different ideas and emotions. Following practices of rewriting across different media, the talk looks at how images of men on horseback were received, transformed, appropriated and re-adapted in twentieth-century Italy by single authors and artists, cultural movements, and political powers, and takes this as an opportunity to discuss the nature of connections in comparative cultural studies.

Beatrice Sica is Associate Professor in Italian Studies at University College London. Her main research areas are Italian literature and cultural studies, and Italian-French comparative literature. She has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including the EURIAS fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Bologna and the Lauro de Bosis visiting fellowship at Harvard University. Her publications include Poesia surrealista italiana (2007) and L’Italia magica di Gianfranco Contini: storia e interpretazione (2013), as well as other essays on Italian Futurism, magical realism, and French Surrealism; Italian Fascism; Franco-Italian cultural exchanges; twentieth-century Italian literature.