CHARLES L. LEAVITT IV is an assistant professor of Italian at the University of Notre Dame. “In this superbly researched study, Charles L. Leavitt IV historicizes the canonization of ‘neorealismo’ by identifying the term’s earlier references to interwar modernist literature, Soviet cinema, and European artistic practices. Italian Neorealism is a triumph of cultural archaeology and critical clarity.” Giorgio Bertellini, Professor, Department of Film, Television, and Media, University of Michigan “Impeccably researched and deeply illuminating, Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History probes the networks, the histories, the ethics, and the aesthetics that made neorealism such a vibrant and also contradictory – indeed, vibrant because it was contradictory – cultural moment. Offering a bracing corrective to tired attempts that tie neorealism to dogma and definition, Leavitt proposes instead a compelling model of neorealism as an extended ‘cultural conversation,’ drawing on examples from film, novels, poetry, drama, essays, art, and architecture. In the process he captures neorealism’s variety of voice and its quite exceptional contribution to the culture of Europe’s ‘postwar.’” Robert S.C. Gordon, Serena Professor of Italian, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge Jacket illustration: Armano Pizzinato, Tutti i popoli vogliono la pace, 1950/51, oil on canvas, 97 x 126.6 cm, private collection. Courtesy of Armando Pizzinato Archives. University of Toronto Press Jacket printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-0710-7 ISBN 978-1-4875-0710-7 9 781487 507107 ITALIAN NEOREALISM A Cultural History CHARLES L. LEAVITT IV Neorealism emerged in the midtwentieth century as a cultural exchange and a field of discourse that served to shift the confines of creativity and revise the terms of artistic expression around the world. If neorealism was a global phenomenon, however, it was so because of its revolutionary portrayal of a transformative moment in the local, regional, and national histories of Italy. At once guiding and guided by that transformative moment, neorealist texts took up, reflected, and performed the contentious conditions of their creation, not just at the level of narrative content but also in their form, language, and structure. Through a series of representative case studies, Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History recounts the history of a generation of artists and offers fundamental insights into one of the most innovative and influential cultural moments of the twentieth century. (Toronto Italian Studies)