What does the expression pop culture mean today? And how does it contribute to understanding a Country and a cultural group? This collection of essays, diverse in content, approach and perspective, tries to answer these questions. It aims at describing and figuring out the texture of Italian pop culture – as a meaningful juxtaposition between high and low, mass and elite, artistic and consumerist – in relation to the Italian mediascape and cultural context. Through the mosaic of narratives produced by television, music, comics and novels, to name a few, and the mixture of genres and types of cultural products analyzed in every essay, the reader is allowed to further the knowledge of Italian pop culture and to get a glimpse of Italians and ‘Italian-ness’.

What is Italian pop culture? This volume provides an answer to this question, offering an insight into some of the most recent and interesting developments in the field of pop culture. The reader will find essays on a variety of topics including literature, theater, music, social media, comics, politics, and even Christmas. Each contribution here places stress on the popular. The main reference points guiding the chapters are, in fact, the pioneering works by Antonio Gramsci and Umberto Eco. The result is, therefore, a portrait of a country where mass participation in cultural events always accompanies some form of reflection on the national identity and other related issues. Historians and sociologists, as well as musicologists and philosophers (in addition to pop culture aficionados), will find the text an engaging and indispensable read.

Volare develops an analysis of the contemporary popular media-driven image of Italy. The high visibility of Italian fashion and industrial design, "Italian" settings for advertising, shelves of Italian foods in every supermarket, and select gentrified cuisines all demonstrate the way in which Italy has become a global pop icon. This book, written and designed to capture the energy of its subject, explores the phenomenon of Italy as icon, which extends through the transformations of popular culture now sweeping the world. The global culture, unified by the market and by transnational media corporations, has produced a series of stereotypes and semantic references that might be termed the "Italian dream, " which occupies a space on the continuum of spectacular images the world sees as the American dream, French allure, and classic English style. In turn, the Italian icon, freed of territorial boundaries linking it to the land it ostensibly depicts, influences not only the external view of Italians but Italians' own views of themselves. Italy has created a dream, which is dreamed by others, and it is necessary to realize the existence of this dream for it to become reality.

This rigorously compiled A-Z volume offers rich, readable coverage of the diverse forms of post-1945 Italian culture. With over 900 entries by international contributors, this volume is genuinely interdisciplinary in character, treating traditional political, economic, and legal concerns, with a particular emphasis on neglected areas of popular culture. Entries range from short definitions, histories or biographies to longer overviews covering themes, movements, institutions and personalities, from advertising to fascism, and Pirelli to Zeffirelli. The Encyclopedia aims to inform and inspire both teachers and students in the following fields: *Italian language and literature *Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences *European Studies *Media and Cultural Studies *Business and Management *Art and Design It is extensively cross-referenced, has a thematic contents list and suggestions for further reading.

Americans have a voracious appetite for Italy. It remains a primary destination for travel, art history, cuisine, and more. Like no other source, Culture and Customs of Italy engagingly explains the scope of Italy and Italians today to students and general readers in one volume. As well, this book provides the needed context to understand the enormous contributions of Italian Americans in shaping the cultural heritage and current popular culture of the United States. It clearly summarizes the land, people, and history and relates the highlights of a culture that has excelled in so many areas, such as food, sports, literature, the arts, architecture and design, and cinema. The powerful roles of religion and thought, family and gender, holidays, leisure, and media in Italian life are treated in-depth in individual chapters as well. Crucial regional aspects and historical framing of all topics add to the authoritativeness. A chronology, glossary, photos, and maps round out the coverage.

This book pursues the specific case of Italian travel narratives in the Far East, through a focus on the experience of Japan in works by writers who visited the Land of the Rising Sun beginning in the Meiji period (1868-1912) and during the concomitant opening of Japan's relations with the West. Drawing from the fields of Postcolonial and Transnational Studies, analysis of these texts explores one central question: what does it mean to imagine Japanese culture as contributing to Italian culture? Each author shares in common an attempt to disrupt ideas about dichotomies and unbalanced power relationships between East and West. Proposing the notion of 'relational Orientalism, ' this book suggests that Italian travelogues to Japan, in many cases, pursued the goal of building imaginary transnational communities, predicated on commonalities and integration, by claiming what they perceived as 'Oriental' as their own. In contrast with a long history of Western representations of Japan as inferior and irrational, Searching for Japan identifies a positive overarching attitude toward the Far East country in modern Italian culture. Expanding the horizon of Italian transnational networks, normally situated within the Southern European region, this book reinstates the existence of an alternative Euro-Asian axis, operating across Italian history.

An in-depth study detailing how members of a small Italian community use both traditional practices and expressive forms taken from popular culture to grapple with the social changes brought about by modernity.