Fishing Net and the Spider Web

Claudio Fogu is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

• 1. Introduction: Mediterranean Imaginaries.- 2. Making Italians, Making Southerners.- 3. The Fishing Net and the Spider Web.- 4. Homo Mediterraneus.- 5. Epiphanic Mediterraneanism.- 6. Between Imperium and Emporion.- 7. Fascist Mediterraneanism.- 8. From Mare Nostrum to Mare Aliorum.- 9. Coda: The Mediterranean Quest(ion).

“The fishing net and the spider web provides us with a detailed and broad study on the genesis and development of two fundamental models whose movements have been central since the Risorgimento in order to make Italians. This volume is a highly valuable contribution to the understanding of Italy’s diasporic and colonialist entanglement … .” (Anna Finozzi, Annali d’italianistica, Vol. 39, 2021)“Well-researched and highly elaborated argument ... . welcome and valuable additions to the field of Italian and Mediterranean studies. They deserve high praise for their interdisciplinarity and for providing useful tools for addressing the issues with which they are concerned. ... The most fascinating parts in Fogu's book are not where he delves into theory but where he considers specific historical episodes, sites, persons, or objects.” (Konstantina Zanou, Italian American Review, Vol. 11 (2), 2021)