Italian Gothic

Marco Malvestio is EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Padua. His project, “EcoSF – The Ecology of Italian Science Fiction”, conducted in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explores the presence of ecological issues in Italian science fiction. He published The Conflict Revisited: The Second World War in Post-Postmodern Fiction (Peter Lang, 2021) and Raccontare la fine del mondo. Fantascienza e Antropocene (nottetempo, 2021). Stefano Serafini holds a PhD in comparative literature and cultures from Royal Holloway, University of London. He was postdoctoral fellow in Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. His contributions have appeared in journals such as Italian Studies, The Italianist, Quaderni del 900, Transalpina, Clues: A Journal of Detection and the Revue des littératures européennes.

• Acknowledgements‘Introduction. “A systemic disorder, an extravagant research, and an abjuration of common sense”: Defining the Italian Gothic’, Marco Malvestio and Stefano SerafiniPart I: History1. ‘Gothic Beginnings: 1764–1827’, Fabio Camilletti2. ‘The Gothic and the Historical Novel: 1828–1860’, Morena Corradi3. ‘Early Developments: 1861–1914’, Stefano Serafini4. ‘The Age of Permutations: 1915–1956’, Fabrizio Foni5. ‘The Golden Age of the Gothic: 1957–1979’, Roberto Curti6. ‘The Decline of the Gothic: 1980–2020’, Marco MalvestioPart II: Media7. ‘Gothic Poetry’, Simona Di Martino8. ‘The Gothic in Periodicals and Magazines’, Fabrizio Foni9. ‘Gothic Cinema’, Giulio Giusti10. ‘Comics and the Gothic’, Fabio Camilletti11. ‘Gothic Music’, Eduardo VitoloPart III: Themes12. ‘The Gothic Body’, Catherine Ramsey-Portolano13. ‘The Female Gothic’, Francesca Billiani14. ‘Gothic Criminology’, Stefano Serafini15. ‘Ecogothic and Folk Horror’, Marco Malvestio.

This imaginatively conceived volume is impeccable in its scholarship, and opens up new ways of thinking about Italian culture in the past two centuries. It does so with great critical insight and panache, dispelling long-held critical prejudices against the Gothic as genre and mode, and unsettling canonical views and critical frameworks. The volume makes for rich and compelling reading.