INSTITUT FÜR ROMANISTIK Herzliche Einladung zum Gastvortrag von David Forgacs (New York University) Italyʼs Margins in Photography and Film Freitag, 8. Mai, 17 Uhr, ROM 14 Marco Delogu: Senada e Jonathan (2000) Matthias Meyer Dekan der Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät Elisabeth Fraller Organisatorin Eva-Maria Remberger Institutsvorstand “Marginal” places – including slums, mental asylums, colonial peripheries, poor rural areas, “nomad camps” – have long held a particular fascination for writers, photographers and filmmakers. This talk looks at what lies behind that fascination, with specific reference to the Italian case. It examines the link between social exclusion and the formation of the nation state. It considers the power relations in play when photographs or films of marginal people or places are made by and shown to people from a more culturally prestigious center. And it considers a number of attempts to reverse these ways of looking and showing by describing marginal people more empathetically or by involving them in the production of accounts about themselves. The talk draws on a research project carried out in 2008-12, whose main outputs have been an exhibition, shown in Rome and New York, of 100 found photographs and film clips, and the book, Italyʼs Margins, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. The Italian edition, Margini dʼItalia, will be published by Laterza in May 2015. David Forgacs holds the endowed Guido and Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò Chair of Contemporary Italian Studies at New York University. He taught previously at University College London, Royal Holloway London and the universities of Cambridge and Sussex. His books include Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War, with Stephen Gundle (Indiana University Press, 2007; Italian edition Cultura di massa e società italiana, 1936-54, Il Mulino, 2007), Lʼindustrializzazione della cultura italiana 1880-2000 (Il Mulino, 2000) and The Antonio Gramsci Reader (NYU Press, 2000) His work on cinema includes a co-edited book on Rossellini (2000), essays on Antonioni (2000, 2009, 2011) and Pontecorvo (2007), and full-length audio commentaries for the DVD and Blu-ray discs of Ossessione, Il Gattopardo, Il deserto rosso and Il conformista.