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Italian Science Fiction, Nuclear Technologies: Narrative Strategies Between the 'Two Cultures' (1950s-1970s)
Iannuzzi, Giulia
2017
Abstract
This chapter critically investigates how science fiction interacted with, and contributed to the development of a collective imagery related to nuclear energy in Italy between the 1950s and the 1970s, within a context characterized by a difficult relationship between the “two cultures”. To do this, it takes into account the theme of nuclear technologies in science fiction genre narratives, and its treatment on the part of non-genre Italian writers. An initial enthusiasm toward nuclear energy is interpreted as part of new hopes connected to an unprecedented modernization in the peninsula and a new centrality of techno-science – of which science fiction was an apt expression. The hostility toward both nuclear technologies and science fiction on the part of the Italian cultural elite during subsequent decades is read as two different sides of the same “malaise of modernity”.
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Giulia Iannuzzi, “Italian Science Fiction, Nuclear Technologies: Narrative Strategies Between the 'Two Cultures' (1950s-1970s)”, in Elisabetta Bini, Igor Londero (edited by), “Nuclear Italy. An International History of Italian Nuclear Policies during the Cold War”, Trieste, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2017, pp. 181-198
Languages
en
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