Moderna | 2023 | N. 2

Based on the psychoanalytic theory of Melanie Klein and Christina Wieland, the essay explores the dynamics of ‘projective identification’ in Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio operatore of Luigi Pirandello (1915-16 ; 1925). The hallucinatory representation of the film phenomenon, central within the novel, seems to focus in particular on a symbology afferent to the matricide archetype of Aeschylus’ Orestea, which is evoked in a place of primary importance in The Fu Mattia Pascal (1904), and which links to the problematic gender characterization of artistic creation in Suo marito (1911).

The essay aims to provide materials for an in-depth examination of some aspects of Il pianeta irritabile, the allegorical-apocalyptic novel published by Volponi in 1978, in the midst of youth movements and struggles. The first level of analysis is that of intertextuality : the hypothesis is that the novel is even more culturally saturated than has been recognised so far. The second level is that of the dynamics of interaction between the characters : the animal protagonists are neither anthropomorphised as they used to be in the fairy-tale or ironic-satirical tradition, nor are they figures of an absolute exteriority to humankind. The third level, barely touched upon, is that of the oblique connections with the youth protest of the Movimento 1977.

The publication of the first texts by Vitaliano Trevisan (not the very first, to be honest), in a collection titled Trilogia di Thomas (Un mondo meraviglioso, I quindicimila passi e Il ponte), invites us to rethink the meaning of his stylistic imitation of Thomas Bernhard, very evident and moreover declared and problematized by the author, who attracted so many misunderstandings at the time of their first publication (1997-2007). Trevisan’s relationship with the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, and in particular with his text Repetition, is at the center of the analysis of texts in which repetition, in fact, is not only at the level of elocutio but also of inventio : and it reveals to be psychic compulsion and existential inclination, rather than a deliberate stylistic option.

This essay investigates the relationships between Foucault and literature starting from three questions: what was literature according to Foucault; what literature was for Foucault, that is, within his trajectory of thought and writing; what clues ideas for our definition of the idea of literature can we draw from the triangulation with the role it plays in Foucault

The fourth volume of the History of Sexuality reveals some decisive problematizations of Foucault’s power analytics. Displaced from its preliminary inclusion in the judicial framework and from its contamination with the inquisitorial practices of torture – a theme that recurs between Surveiller et punir and the Courses of 1974-75 – ‘the confession’, in the double meaning of the sacramental practice (aveu) and of the ‘profession’ of faith (confession), returns to the centre of Foucauldian research, as a ‘governed’ form of veridiction and access to that particular dimension of Christian subjectivity – the ‘western’ form of subjectivity, Foucault was to recognize – which, starting from the first centuries and not to date from the post-tridentine era, decisively marks the culture to which we belong. This research on Christianity is only preliminary and serves not only to set up a genealogy of the techniques of veridiction historically functional to the emergence of the governed form of subjectivity, but also to formulate the problem of the ‘politics of ourselves’ that will occupy Foucault until his last works. The research conducted between 1980 and 1982 therefore maintains a transitional role. And it is probably for this reason that he gave up publishing Les aveux de la chair.

The essay critically analyzes a series of interpretations that over the years have put forward the hypothesis that the last Foucault, especially starting from the second half of the 1970s, embraced the neoliberal option.

The analysis underscores the critical potential and the challenges present in embracing Foucault’s philosophical heritage. While Foucault’s intellectual endeavour offer fertile ground for contemporary thought, they also pose fundamental questions about community action and political engagement. The exploration of Foucault’s last phase reveals a tension between the individual’s self-care and collective political agency, which has significant implications for political theory and praxis.
Foucault’s conceptual toolkit has undeniably carved an indelible mark across multiple academic domains, shaping public discourse in profound ways. Nonetheless, the limitations inherent in his late philosophy regarding political collectivity challenge scholars to grapple with the articulation of individual and collective agency in modern political thought.