The Pathologisation of Homosexuality in Fascist Italy

The Pathologisation of Homosexuality in Fascist Italy

Author: Gabriella Romano

Publisher:

Published: 2020-10-08

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 9781013270444

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This open access book investigates the pathologisation of homosexuality during the fascist regime in Italy through an analysis of the case of G., a man with "homosexual tendencies" interned in the Collegno mental health hospital in 1928. No systematic study exists on the possibility that Fascism used internment in an asylum as a tool of repression for LGBT people, as an alternative to confinement on an island, prison or home arrests. This research offers evidence that in some cases it did. The book highlights how the dictatorship operated in a low-key, shadowy and undetectable manner, bending pre-existing legislation. Its brutality was - and still is - difficult to prove. It also emphasises the ways in which existing stereotypes on homosexuality were reinforced by the regime propaganda in support of its so-called moralising campaign and how families, the police and the medical professionals joined forces in implementing this form of repression. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.


The Pathologisation of Homosexuality in Fascist Italy

The Pathologisation of Homosexuality in Fascist Italy

Author: Gabriella Romano

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-29

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 3030009947

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This open access book investigates the pathologisation of homosexuality during the fascist regime in Italy through an analysis of the case of G., a man with "homosexual tendencies" interned in the Collegno mental health hospital in 1928. No systematic study exists on the possibility that Fascism used internment in an asylum as a tool of repression for LGBT people, as an alternative to confinement on an island, prison or home arrests. This research offers evidence that in some cases it did. The book highlights how the dictatorship operated in a low-key, shadowy and undetectable manner, bending pre-existing legislation. Its brutality was - and still is - difficult to prove. It also emphasises the ways in which existing stereotypes on homosexuality were reinforced by the regime propaganda in support of its so-called moralising campaign and how families, the police and the medical professionals joined forces in implementing this form of repression.


Italian Fascism’s Forgotten LGBT Victims

Italian Fascism’s Forgotten LGBT Victims

Author: Gabriella Romano

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-01-25

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 1350377112

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This book examines the question of the repression of LGBT people through psychiatry during the fascist regime in Italy, a subject that has not been investigated until now. It draws together the substantial archival record of patients, doctors and fascist authorities to reconstruct intricate behind-the-scenes dialogue, and to document one of the ways in which the regime repressed LGBT lives in this period. Italian Fascism's Forgotten LGBT Victims focusses on three different psychiatric hospitals in three parts of the country - Rome, Florence and the small Calabrian town of Girifalco, which had different attitudes and therapeutic approaches. Archive research results are contextualised within the psychiatric theory of the time, highlighting the existing discrepancies between theory and daily routine practice of mental health institutions in Italy during the regime. Using a variety of sources, Gabriella Romano expands current knowledge of the history of Italian psychiatry, and, in doing so, she also touches a number of crucial issues of medical history, history of Fascism and queer history. Most importantly, this original and well-documented study sheds light on the life stories of ordinary LGBT individuals and their families under the fascist regime, a topic that is still mostly unexplored.


The Enemy of the New Man

The Enemy of the New Man

Author: Lorenzo Benadusi

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2012-04-23

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 0299283933

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In this first in-depth historical study of homosexuality in Fascist Italy, Lorenzo Benadusi brings to light immensely important archival documents regarding the sexual politics of the Italian Fascist regime; he adds new insights to the study of the complex relationships of masculinity, sexuality, and Fascism; he explores the connections between new Fascist values and preexisting Italian traditional and Roman Catholic views on morality; he documents both the Fascist regime’s denial of the existence of homosexuality in Italy and its clandestine strategies and motivations for repressing and imprisoning homosexuals; he uncovers the ways that accusations of homosexuality (whether true or false) were used against political and personal enemies; and above all, he shows how homosexuality was deemed the enemy of the Fascist “New Man,” an ideal of a virile warrior and dominating husband vigorously devoted to the “political” function of producing children for the Fascist state. Benadusi investigates the regulation and regimentation of gender in Fascist Italy, and the extent to which, in uneasy concert with the Catholic Church, the regime engaged in the cultural and legal engineering of masculinity and femininity. He cites a wealth of unpublished documents, official speeches, letters, coerced confessions, private letters and diaries, legal documents, and government memos to reveal and analyze how the orders issued by the regime attempted to protect the “integrity of the Italian race.” For the first time, documents from the Vatican archives illuminate how the Catholic Church dealt with issues related to homosexuality during the Fascist period in Italy.


Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements

Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements

Author: Elizabeth Evans

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-26

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1000747409

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Examining the ways in which feminist and queer activists confront privilege through the use of intersectionality, this edited collection presents empirical case studies from around the world to consider how intersectionality has been taken up (or indeed contested) by activists in order to expose and resist privilege. The volume sets out three key ways in which intersectionality operates within feminist and queer movements: it is used as a collective identity, as a strategy for forming coalitions, and as a repertoire for inclusivity. The case studies presented in this book then evaluate the extent to which some, or all, of these types of intersectional activism are used to confront manifestations of privilege. Drawing upon a wide range of cases from across time and space, this volume explores the difficulties with which activists often grapple when it comes to translating the desire for intersectionality into a praxis which confronts privilege. Addressing inter-related and politically relevant questions concerning how we apply and theorise intersectionality in our studies of feminist and queer movements, this timely edited collection will be of interest to students and scholars from across the social sciences and humanities with an interest in gender and feminism, LGBT+ and queer studies, and social movement studies.


Unspeakable

Unspeakable

Author: Rachel Hope Cleves

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 022673367X

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The sexual exploitation of children by adults has a long, fraught history. Yet how cultures have reacted to it is shaped by a range of forces, beliefs, and norms, like any other social phenomenon. Changes in how Anglo-American culture has understood intergenerational sex can be seen with startling clarity in the life of British writer Norman Douglas (1868–1952), who was a beloved and popular author, a friend of luminaries like Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, and D.H. Lawrence, and an unrepentant and uncloseted pederast. Rachel Hope Cleves’s careful study opens a window onto the social history of intergenerational sex in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, revealing how charisma, celebrity, and contemporary standards protected Douglas from punishment—until they didn’t. Unspeakable approaches Douglas as neither monster nor literary hero, but as a man who participated in an exploitative sexual subculture that was tolerated in ways we may find hard to understand. Using letters, diaries, memoirs, police records, novels, and photographs—including sources by the children Douglas encountered—Cleves identifies the cultural practices that structured pedophilic behaviors in England, Italy, and other places Douglas favored. Her book delineates how approaches to adult-child sex have changed over time and offers insight into how society can confront similar scandals today, celebrity and otherwise.


Queer Italia: Same-Sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film

Queer Italia: Same-Sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film

Author: G. Cestaro

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2004-07-22

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1403982597

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Queer Italia gathers essays on Italian literature and film, medieval to modern. The volume's chronological organization reflects its intention to define a queer tradition in Italian culture. While fully cognizant of the theoretical risks inherent in trans-historicizing sexuality, the contributors to this volume share an interest in probing the multi-form dynamics of sexual desires in Italian texts through the centuries. The volume aims not to promote the mistaken notion of a single homosexuality through history. Rather, these essays together upset and undo the equally misguided assumption of an omnipresent heterosexuality through time by uncovering the various, complex workings of desire in texts from all periods. Somewhat paradoxically, a kind of queer canon results. These essays open a much-needed critical space in the Italian tradition wherein fixed definitions of sexual identity collapse. Queer Italia is the first and only work of its kind in Italian criticism. As such, it will be of interest to a wide audience of Italianists, medieval to modern, and queer cultural theorists.


Fascist Italy

Fascist Italy

Author: William 1910-1976 Ebenstein

Publisher: Hassell Street Press

Published: 2021-09-09

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9781014149220

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.


Modern Rome

Modern Rome

Author: Italo Insolera

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-01-23

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 152752678X

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After fifty years and fifteen editions and reprints in Italy, this classic, groundbreaking work in the field of historical urban studies is now published in English. A masterful, fluent narrative leads the reader through the last two centuries in the history of the Eternal City, capital of the Papal State, then of the united Italy, first under the monarchy and subsequently the republic. Rome’s chaotic growth and often ineffective urban planning, almost invariably overpowered by building speculation, can find an opportunity for future redemption in a vibrant multicultural society and the enhancement of an unequalled archaeological heritage with the ancient Appian Way as its spine. With respect to the last Italian edition of 2011, the volume is updated, enriched in text, indexes, maps and photographs. Historians, urban planners, architects, decision makers, university students, and anyone who is interested in one of the world’s most intriguing cities will enjoy this book.


Architects of the Resurrection

Architects of the Resurrection

Author: R. M. Douglas

Publisher:

Published: 2009-09-15

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13:

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In 1942 Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, a young pro-Axis activist, founded Ailtirí na hAiséirghe ("Architects of the Resurrection"), a fascist movement that aimed to destroy the infant Irish democracy and replace it with a one-party totalitarian state. But Ailtirí na hAiséirghe was no Nazi imitator. Rather, it aimed at something far more ambitious: the fusion of totalitarianism and Christianity that would make Ireland a "missionary-ideological state" wielding global influence in the postwar era. Supported by idealistic youths and mainstream politicians like Ernest Blythe, Oliver J. Flanagan and Dan Breen--and scrutinized anxiously by British and American intelligence--Aiséirghe won several seats in the 1945 local government elections. Architects of the Resurrection casts an uncomfortable light on the popularity of anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and extremist ideas in wartime Ireland. Students of Irish history and of comparative fascism will find many new insights in this book.