Representations of Lethal Gender-Based Violence in Italy Between Journalism and Literature: Femminicidio Narratives - Hardcover

by Nicoletta Mandolini (Author)

This book discusses femicide in Italy, and the cultural conversations that have resulted from feminist discourse on lethal violence against women entering the mainstream, by analyzing journalistic inquiries and literary works produced after 2012.

In a global and national context where activism's goals are mainly discursive this study deepens our understanding of the role played by written narratives in the critique of a public interest matter such as gender-based violence. The first part of the book is dedicated to the analysis of three journalistic inquiries published in book format that focus on one or more cases of femicide that happened on the Italian peninsula. The second section draws on the concept of feminist rewriting to propose the analysis of a heterogeneous body of literary texts that explore some of the most controversial and notorious femicide cases covered by previous journalistic, historical, or mythical narratives, before demonstrating the close connection between theoretical and narrative discourse within the analyzed texts.

This is a fascinating case study contributing to global understandings of gender-based violence, which will be important for researchers in gender studies, sociology, and media studies.

Author Biography

Nicoletta Mandolini is FCT researcher at CECS, Universidade do Minho, Portugal. At CECS, she works on the project "Sketch That Story and Make It Popular" using Graphic Narratives in Italian and Lusophone Feminist Activism Against Gender Violence (www.sketchthatstory.com). She was previously FWO postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, and received her PhD from University College Cork, Ireland. Funded by the Irish Research Council, her doctorate project focused on the representation of gender-based violence and feminicide in contemporary Italian journalistic and literary narratives. She is coeditor of Rappresentare la violenza di genere. Sguardi femministi tra critica, attivismo e scrittura (2018), and the author of several articles.