5. Media-ting “Sterile Masculinity”: On Male Aging, Migration, and Biopolitics in a (post)Berlusconi Italy

Lisa Dolasinski August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Themed Section

This article intervenes in current discussions on perceptions of aging, masculinity, and (in)fecundity, and their combined effect on perceptions of Italy. The first half of this piece centers on Berlusconi and the broader phenomenon of Berlusconismo. Drawing on queer theorist Lee Edelman’s notion of “reproductive futurism,” and works by Italian philosophers and scholars (Ida Dominijanni and Lorenzo Bernini) who bring together theories of psychoanalysis and biopolitics in their analyses of Berlusconi/Berlusconismo,

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6. Mistica della maternità: nuove repressioni “secondo natura”

Giuditta Bassano, Aura Tiralongo August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Themed Section

This article looks critically at the widespread revival of the myth of the “natural mother,” observing the confirmation of gender stereotypes in materials directed to pregnant women and new mothers. The authors analyze, from a socio-semiotic perspective, several social healthcare campaigns and Italian press outlets, exploring two main themes: the rhetoric of natural breastfeeding in institutional social advertising and dietary recommendations “for moms”—during and after pregnancy—in women’s magazines. Both parts of their analysis unveil a prescriptive idea of the “good mother” and a normative pressure on women’s freedom of choice and self-determination.

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7. Cybermoms and Postfeminism in Italian Web Series

Giovanna Faleschini Lerner August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Themed Section

Journalist Loredana Lipperini astutely observes how in Italy “motherhood is the knot” in which are entangled different feminist philosophies, as well as patriarchal views of the maternal figure as the only acceptable version of female identity. In biopolitical terms, the maternal body is “the place where power expresses itself and where power, by assuming control of it, exercises its greatest repression (Lupperini 2007). This article aims to disentangle the “knot” of feminist aspirations and contradictory discourses on motherhood in contemporary Italy as it is explored in three Italian web series: Ivan Cotroneo’s Una mamma imperfetta (2013),

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8. Sul corpo delle surrogate. Analisi del discorso pubblico italiano sulla gestazione per altri

Corinna S. Guerzoni, Tatiana Motterle August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Themed Section

This article analyzes the most recent Italian debate on surrogacy, using the concept of cultural anomaly as described by anthropologist Mary Douglas. Surrogacy is a complex phenomenon that involves different levels of analysis that intersect with the fields of scientific ethics, law, re/production and motherhood. The authors argue that it is necessary to investigate all the doubts and worries that surrogacy practices raise, since in Italy as in other contexts, the mainstream debate on surrogacy often narrows the possibility of delving into the discussion.

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9. Verso la decostruzione dei ruoli genitoriali: il caso degli albi illustrati arcobaleno in Italia

Dalila Forni August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Themed Section

In Italy, same-sex families are now a prominent reality despite the lack of legal and social recognition. Schools and families, for example, are still embarrassed and unprepared when talking about same-sex families. Since teachers, educators, and parents are usually not informed about homo-affective families and non-traditional family dynamics, this study suggests using books, and specifically picture books, as an educational tool that may help children in considering new points of view and reflecting upon unfamiliar and sometimes distant realities.

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10. La fertilità è un bene comune? Il “Fertility Day” in una prospettiva storica

Claudia Mantovani August 30, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Invited Perspectives

The polemics that accompanied the launch of Fertility Day by the Italian Ministry of Health in 2016 call for a historical reflection on the nexus between health policies, demographic questions, and gender roles that characterize the Italian public debate on the theme of reproduction. In the first half of the twentieth century, interest in the new key term ‘eugenics’ revealed itself in function of the definition of its own role in new national institutions on the part of intellectuals from a medical/scientific background.

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11. #FertilityDay e #FertilityFake. Una campagna di comunicazione pubblica e i suoi esiti inattesi

Marco Binotto, Paola Panarese, Stefania Parisi August 30, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Invited Perspectives

This article represents the first output of research on the communication campaign for “Fertility Day” that was launched by the Italian Ministry of Health in 2016. In front of a theme considered “sensitive” like that of couples fertility, discursive strategies, thematic frames, and the informative material distributed by the Ministry were at the center of an articulated dispute by audiences connected via social media and through creative-performative piazza protest by activist groups. The two forms of mobilization give rise to a response that can be read overall in terms of a true “counter campaign.” The areas of research reguarded the dimensions of public comunication,

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12. New Challenges for Human Reproduction: “Cross-Border Reproductive Care” and “Social Egg Freezing”

Lia Lombardi August 30, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Invited Perspectives

This article investigates the practices of ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) through a sociological approach, with an eye to the political and legal issues relating to the process of the medicalization of human reproduction. It focuses on the most recent challenges in this field: “cross-border reproductive care” and “social egg freezing”. These two issues are analysed by looking at both the European and the Italian context, highlighting differences, contradictions and inequalities with regard to legal frameworks,

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13.Tutto parte da me: Alina Marazzi, regista. Videosaggio.

Nicoletta Marini-Maio August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Invited Perspectives, Videos

Tutto parte da me: Alina Marazzi. Videosaggio.

This is a video-essay that Marini-Maio created from her interview with acclaimed filmmaker Alina Marazzi in New York City on March 17, 2018. The interview is presented in alternate editing with clips from Marazzi’s experimental non-fiction films Un’ora sola ti vorrei and Vogliamo anche le rose, and her stylistically hybrid theatrical feature Tutto parla di te. The goal of the video-essay is to unpack,

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14. “Dolorosa Mater” e “RiGenerazione.” Due video performance sulla forza generativa e curatrice del femminino

Francesca Lolli August 31, 2018 Issue: G/S/I 5 (2018) Category: Invited Perspectives

This article summarizes the artist’s poetics and her relationship with the themes of maternity and reproduction, in building feminine characters that she has interpreted in video-art projects and performances. In particular, Lolli presents here two of her works, Ri-Generazione (2017) and Mater Dolorosa (2017). Since the visual component is fundamental in her work, in order to further sketch Lolli’s own artistic path, photographs and video excerpts of her performances are included in this article.

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