Italian Science Fiction and the Environmental Humanities [Hardcover]

This is the first edited collection to explore what can be gained from bringing together Italian science fiction and the environmental humanities. Early-career and established scholars from varied fields provide cutting-edge analysis of a somewhat overlooked genre that has plenty to offer in terms of ecological and sociopolitical insights.This volume explores Italian science fiction from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, covering literary texts, films, music and visual works by figures as diverse as Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, Peter Kolosimo, Primo Levi, Antonio Margheriti, Gilda Musa and Roberto Vacca. It broadens the horizons of both Italian studies and the environmental humanities by addressing a long-neglected genre, and expands our understanding of relations between the ecological, the imaginary and the sociopolitical. The chapters draw on a variety of methodological frameworks, including animal studies, ecocriticism, ecofeminism, eco-media studies, energy humanities and posthumanism. The reader will gain insights into consequential topics such as anthropocentrism/speciesism, ecomodernist thought, environmental justice struggles at the planetary and regional level, non-human and new materialist ontologies, utopian/dystopian philosophies and prospects for transitioning beyond the crisis of petro-modernity through the construction of post-depletion futures.

Open Access versions of the introduction and six of the book chapters are available on the Liverpool University Press website.Introduction: Greening Italian Science Fiction - New Approaches to a Long-Lasting Genre
Daniel A. Finch-Race, Emiliano Guaraldo, Marco Malvestio

Section I: Science in the Anthropocene

Herbert Pagani'sM?galopolis: A Rock Opera between Dystopian Science Fiction and Ecological Utopia
Eleonora Lima

Cultural and Ecological Extinction in Primo Levi's Science-Fiction
Michele Maiolani

What Kind of Science? Italian ScienclS+