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ABSTRACTS DEADLINE POSTPONED TO OCTOBER 15, 2025.
CIS Vol. 15: Italia-stile. “Made in Italy” and the Making of Italian-ness, Edited by Claudio Fogu (UC Santa Barbara) and Medina Lasansky (Cornell)
Since the early 1960s, the phrase “Made in Italy” has recaptured the mythic quality that “Rinascimento” and “Risorgimento” commanded in earlier ages – and also gone beyond it. While gesturing to the resurgence of a traditional connection between Italian-ness and aesthetic creativity, made “in Italy” is not simply a signifier of locality as “made” in China or the USA. “Made in Italy” signifies uniqueness and distinction on a global scale; it means “having style” rather than merely “being in style,” and it sets itself in opposition to the homogenizing forces of fashions. In this respect, it also gestures towards the primacy of “making Italian-ness” over both “making Italy” and “making Italians” in the long transnational history of Italian cultural identities. Ideas of Italian-ness have long preceded both the formation of the nation-state and the belated cultural goal of fare gl’italiani. And for “Italian-ness,” as in the case of “Made in Italy”, the historical agents responsible for the making have not been exclusively internal. Foreign contributions to the making of Italian-ness have been equally determining.
Starting from these premises, this issue of California Italian Studies seeks to interrogate both the phantom lines of continuity that hold Italian-ness tightly interwoven to notions of genius loci across historical periods, as well as the socio-cultural construction of aesthetic codes and sensibilities in late modernity.
We welcome contributions from scholars of both modern-contemporary Italy and of earlier times, from all fields of expertise in the humanities, particularly those dealing with visual culture, as well as social sciences such as sociology and studies of intellectual property, patent law etc… Preference will be given to essays that directly address the following questions:
Under which historical, philosophical, and sociological conditions can we speak of an Italian form of aesthetic creativity, taste, etc.?
What are the main factors that went into the creation and success of the “Made in Italy” mytheme?
How do notions of style and fashion, authorship, and craftsmanship enter into the socio-cultural construction of “Made in Italy”?
Submission
Please send preliminary contribution proposals (300-400 words) and a brief autobiographical note about yourself to Claudio Fogu (claudiofogu@ucsb.edu) and Medina Lasansky (dml34@cornell.edu) by no later than October 15, 2025. If your proposal is accepted, you w