Between

Other Possible Worlds (Theory, Narration, Thought)

Paola Del Zoppo — 2024-05-30

The issue Other Possible Worlds (Theory, Narration, Thought) aims to investigate fiction and its frontiers, objects of critical and theoretical attention, starting from the central position they occupy in the conceptual, aesthetic, and methodological debate - for the 20th Century as well as at the beginning of the 21st. The boundaries between fiction and non-fiction disclose connections with the invention of possible worlds in literary and artistic texts in general: utopias, eutopias, dystopias, and anti-utopias, whose peculiar strategies make them identifiable in representations and writings. The sheer number of studies and investigations focused on the relationship between fact and fiction in the last decades calls for a multidisciplinary dialogue to deepen the different meanings, messages, and aesthetic forms developed, especially in the literary field.

Possible Worlds, Eutopias and Dystopias in some Contemporary Fictional Universes

Françoise Lavocat — 2024-05-30

In this article, I examine the Possible Worlds Theory and its application to contemporary fictional universes, specifically focusing on eutopias and dystopias. I trace the historical development of the Theory from the 1970s. The Theory, emerging from formal logic and analytic philosophy, presents an alternative to binary thinking by considering all as fiction. I critique David Lewis’s approach, which eliminates hierarchies between real and fictional worlds, and instead propose to analyze alternative fictions, particularly counterfactuals, fantasy, and science fiction, from their relation to the real world and their moral dimensions. The study contrasts utopias and dystopias, suggesting the use of “eutopia” and “cacotopia” for better and worse states than the current world. I explore whether these alternative fictions challenge or reinforce the boundary between reality and fiction. Through the analysis of works like Laurent Binet’s Civilizations and Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, I investigate the role of play in these narratives and their implications for understanding contemporary culture’s obsession with alternative worlds.

A Mickiewicz’s History of the Future by Mickiewicz: It Is True, Manuscripts do not Burn

Raffaele Caldarelli — 2024-06-11

Mickiewicz’s A History of the Future was never written down, and we have only a few texts that arose in the frame of the poet’s project. However, A History of the Future exerted a powerful and long-lasting influence on Polish culture. After a sketch of the fragmentary contents, drawn according to Pigoń and Skwarczyńska, the main aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Mickiewicz’s project in the history of Polish literature and culture. Stressed are some aspects of utopian and dystopian thought, as well as the interest of Mickiewicz and other Polish Romantics in scientific and technical achievements.

Some pioneering transplants in early 20th century Russian science fiction: Bulgakov, Tolstoy, Belyayev

Marco Caratozzolo — 2024-06-11

In this article, the author turns his attention to two specific literary motifs from Russian science fiction literature of the early 1920s: surgically obtained rejuvenation and pioneering transplantation between animal and human organs, in particular brain transplantation. These elements are present in important, mostly contemporary literary works by Mikhail Bulgakov (Heart of a Dog), Aleksey Tolstoy (The Blue Cities), and Alexander Belyayev (Hoity-Toity). By means of a contrastive analysis of these literary motifs in the works of these writers and a reconstruction of the Russian and Soviet 1920s scientific context that generated them, when medicine made enormous strides, the author will attempt to find a connection between these works and thus determine the existence of a common pattern that justifies the similarities in the thematic and stylistic approach of their authors.

The divine and science in Aleksandr Beljaev’s Amphibian Man: other possible worlds, between cosmist thinking and Soviet science-fiction

Alessandro Cifariello — 2024-06-11

Aleksandr Beljaev (1884-1942) is widely regarded as the first professional Russian science fiction writer and one of the pioneers of Soviet science fiction. This essay explores the impact of cosmist thought, also known as Russian Cosmism, on Beljaev’s work, with a particular focus on the novel Amphibian Man (1928). It examines the creation of possible worlds in which humanity can extend life and overcome death through the ‘new religion’ of science and technology. The analysis of Beljaev’s work considers the influence of early 20th century Russian cosmist thought in a unique and innovative way.

Early Russian Science fiction: Fedorov, Ciolkovskij, Brjusov

Michela Venditti — 2024-06-11

The essay examines the relations between Russian modernism, in particular the work of Valerij Brjusov, and the philosophy of Nikolaj Fedorov and his follower and popularizer K. Ciolkovskij. The analysis of Brjusov’s cosmist view, as it expressed in poetry and prose, is preceded by an excursus on the origin of Russian science fiction. In an unpublished article entitled “The Boundaries of Fantasy”, Brjusov offers one of the first science fiction’s theory.
In the post-revolutionary period Russian cosmism is expressed by the notion of the conquest of space, which lays the foundations of Soviet science fiction. The symbolist poet Brjusov, one of the few to welcome the October revolution, follows this evolution in his sci-fi prose.

“Renewed in health”: Meeting Giordano Bruno on planet Mars

Alessandra Calanchi — 2024-06-11

Journeys to the Planet Mars (1903) and Decimon Huydas: A Romance of Mars (1906) by American writer Sara Weiss (1834?-1904) can be placed between the great utopias of the late 19th century and the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Written in the same years when astronomer Percival Lowell published his volumes dedicated to planet Mars, these romances reflect an era which was torn between spiritism and rationality, a patriarchal world and female emancipation. The journey to the Red Planet is carried out through psychic energy, and the place of arrival reveals surprising affinities with the Earth. Next to religion, sciences play a fundamental role. All the spirits encountered on Mars used to be either scientists or philosophers, and among them Giordano Bruno stands out as a great thinker and the defender of liberty of thought and speech. By implicitly expressing her concerns about the betrayal of the American Dream in the end-of-Frontier age, Weiss seems to remind today’s readers of their own responsibilities as regards civil rights and migratory policies in the age of Mars frontier.

"Suspension of disbelief" vs. "Secondary Belief": fictional worlds in Coleridge and Tolkien

Paolo Pizzimento — 2024-06-11

This article aims to analyse S.T. Coleridge’s theory of suspension of disbelief and poetic faith, which seems to overshadow a conception of the literary work as displaying a “separate universe” capable of reconfiguring the experience of everyday reality. This theory, particularly through the mediation of Owen Barfield, exerts a considerable influence on J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay On Fairy-stories, which enters subtle controversy with Coleridge and opposes and opposes the suspension of disbelief with his “Secondary Belief”. The difference between the two authors can shed light on dissimilar conceptions of the ontological status of the fictional worlds.

Utopias and Dystopia in Andrei Bely’s Novel Moscow (1926-1932)

Giuseppina Giuliano — 2024-06-11

The essay analyzes Moscow, the cycle of novels published between 1926 and 1932 in the USSR by the symbolist writer Andrei Bely. The cycle retrospectively recounts the transformations that would lead to the birth of the new Soviet socialist state.
Three different utopias in the struggle against the capitalist and bourgeois order identifiable in the cycle of novels are examined: that of the young Lizasha, daughter of the Western businessman and spy Mandro, who dreams of the existence of a “world beyond”, that of the socialist Kierko and that of professor Korobkin, i.e. the utopia of free science and universal order, as well as the inner transfiguration of humanity.
The essay intends to show how the first two utopias, which in the course of the narration merge into a single one, are overcome in Bielian narration by the third: spiritual regeneration, and not the achievement of socialism, whose flaws Bely covertly highlights, is the only true evolutionary condition of the spiral of history.

The estranging perspective of science in Eduardo Holmberg’s utopia Olimpio Pitango de Monalia (1915)

Federica Scopsi — 2024-06-11

It is customary to think of utopia as a genre that deals mostly with socio-political issues and that takes a revolutionary approach to a status quo. This paper reflects on the impossibility of identifying a common and original aim behind the utopian genre, especially that of cognitive estrangement, if understood as a critical-dialectical, liberating and dubitative epistemological approach. The analysis of a utopian novel by Argentinian writer Eduardo Holmberg shows that the presence of estranging procedures does not necessarily lead to scepticism about the ‘normality’ of social facts. On the contrary, it can serve the purpose of persuading about the existence of a more valid and normal social order compared to the existing one. The paper proposes then a key to interpret utopian texts in relation to the problem of evil and suggests expanding the meaning of the word ‘estrangement’ to take into account the different aims which can coexist within the same literary procedure.

Rural utopia and social dystopia in Miguel Delibes’ Los santos inocentes: from novel to film (1981-1984)

Renata Londero — 2024-06-11

Taking advantage of the principles maintained by Thomas More in Utopia (1516) and by Erasmus of Rotterdam in In Praise of Folly (1511), this essay analyzes some topics and stylistic features of one of the hardest and most pessimistic novels by the great Castilian writer Miguel Delibes (Valladolid, 1920-2010), that is to say, Los santos inocentes (1981). The text is set in the isolated and underdeveloped countryside of Extremadura during the middle 1960s, and deals with a harsh contrast: on the one hand, the positive protagonist, the madman, and animal-like Azarías, who lives in close contact with pristine nature (symbolized by birds), while on the other hand his masters, represented by the cynical «señorito Iván», exert a tyrannical, dystopic power on Azarías and his family, based on a medieval idea of property. The final part of the essay studies the significant influence that the novel’s topics and structure have over the excellent film adaptation produced by Mario Camus in 1984.

"The magic potion that made Germany sleep". Stimmen der Nacht by Thomas Ziegler

Alessandro Fambrini — 2024-06-11

The novel Stimmen der Nacht by Thomas Ziegler, with its two versions of 1984 and 1993, constitutes an important chapter in the discussion on German reunification, read through the key of uchronia. Indeed, in the first version, Stimmen der Nacht represents the victory of the Third Reich in the Second World War as a speculative hypothesis, an absolute nightmare averted once and for all in the real history; in the second version, however, after the Wende, the reawakening of German nationalism re-proposes that danger which seemed definitively relegated to the past. Our article retraces the themes of the novel and discusses its topicality.

Language and Representation of Reality in Marica Bodrožić: Sterne erben, Sterne färben and Das Wasser unserer Träume as Case Studies

Eriberto Russo — 2024-06-11

This essay delves into the intricate interplay between language and identity in selected works by the German-language intercultural author Marica Bodrožić. Focusing on metaphor usage and embedded layers of meaning, the study examines identity representation in Sterne erben, Sterne färben. Meine Ankunft in Wörtern and Das Wasser unserer Träume. The study strives to uncover the author’s use of language as a tool for identity construction while generating metaphoric alternatives to reality.

On Possible Worlds Threshold.Lavagetto and the Theory of Literature

Simone Carati — 2024-05-30

The aim of the paper is to underline the links between fictional worlds theory and Mario Lavagetto’s critical work. Retracing Lavagetto’s literary theory through some of his essays, the analysis focuses on some key aspects such as thresholds, lies, borders, and blanks, that allow drawing several connections with fictional worlds theory. A specific attention is given to the patterns Lavagetto, as a literary critic, explores in his books with the reader’s help, interpreted as openings towards other possible worlds.

Against humanity. Anti-anthropocentric trajectories in Italian dystopian literature

Stefano Pifferi — 2024-05-30

This essay looks at a series of post-war texts, quite different in terms of purpose, origin, background of their authors, editorial events, and so on, but connected by a transversal interpretation in an anti-anthropocentric perspective. This reading ranges from 1970’s works as Simonetta’s I viaggiatori della sera, Volponi’s Il pianeta irritabile, Morselli’s Dissipatio H.G. or Cassola’s “atomic trilogy” to contemporary works such as Anna by Ammaniti. I will try to draw the threads of those reflections, obviously in a dystopian key, on human beings and their presence on Earth.

Fantastic Linkages and Transgression of Possible Worlds in Nicolas Eymerich, inquisitore by Valerio Evangelisti

Paolo Remorini — 2024-05-30

The main purpose of this article is to identify the narrative devices of transgression of the different Possible Worlds (PWs) that constitute the science fiction novel Nicolas Eymerich, inquisitore by Valerio Evangelisti, applying the apperception theory on fantastic linkages.

In this work, the construction of the PW₁ of present space-time is founded on concrete theoretical and applicative developments of specific physical theories already drawn up our Actual World (AW), materializing in the PW₂ of future space-time, with narrative and ontological repercussions also on the PW₃ of past space-time.

Through the cognitive perspective of apperception theory and the text analytic schema, we can highlight the mechanisms of horizontal hyperlepsis of diegetic elements involving the distinct paradigmatic anomalies of PW₃ and the final transgressive alteration between PW₂ and PW₃.

Zenobia: the invisible city. Paolo Zanotti, Italo Calvino and the heterotopias

Michele Paolo — 2024-05-30

Paolo Zanotti, an appreciated scholar of the romance tradition and a brilliant reader of Calvino, was also (and above all) a storyteller. This contribution focuses on first posthumous novel, Il testamento Disney, to show how he managed to unfold his erudition on the page, and to transfigure it by counting on an his imaginative ability and refined technique. This paper will state accurate references to his contemporary essays, in order to identify the theoretical coordinates within which the novel should be framed: alongside the aforementioned Calvino, also Celati, Jameson, Auden, as well as his beloved Stevenson could be named. Just like his favourite writer Cortázar, Zanotti narrates the digressions of a gang of funny and unkempt flâneurs who try to enchant a city that pushed them to the fringe. To achieve it, they resort to any means, through continuous apparitions, nostalgia, ecstasy, rituals, coincidences, and interference from other dimensions. Thus, this essay aims to emphasize Zanotti’s visionary ability, worthy of the best fantastic tradition: like Ariosto invoked by Calvino in the face of the cold Machiavelli, Zanotti knows how to hover above the reality, and to glimpse a lively world in a desolate desert.

Fable with Beast. An (eco)utopian Reading of Alonso e i visionari

Claudia Marsulli — 2024-05-30

The article proposes a utopian reading of Anna Maria Ortese’s novel Alonso e i visionari from an ecocritical perspective. This proposal stems from the idea that understanding a utopian quality in the novel can help better grasp its key points: a critique of the capitalist model, a call for respect for nature and non-human species, and the establishment of a new epistemology. The inherent porosity of utopian discourse, while encouraging openness, also requires a critical approach to utopia as a literary genre. Both the thematic and formal features of the utopian genre can be identified in the Ortesian novel. Hence, the juxtaposition of Alonso e i visionari with utopia is of twofold interest: on the one hand, it problematizes the accuses of abstractionism towards the utopian genre; on the other, it highlights the value of an ecological-philosophical reading of the Ortesian novel.

Science Fiction: World Creation and Diegetic Space Organization

Paolo Bertetti — 2024-05-30

If every fictional text, as Eco wrote in Lector in Fabula, creates a fictional world, creating worlds is structurally intrinsic to Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. My contribution will focus on Science Fiction worldbuilding from a semiotic point of view, with particular reference to studies on possible narrative worlds (Eco, Ryan, Dolezel). Firstly, I will briefly summarize some key aspects of the theory of possible worlds with regard to the Science Fiction genre; on this basis, I will outline a definition of Science Fiction worlds before investigating their nature more throughly. Finally, an analysis of Arthur C. Clarke’s classic sci-fi novel The City and the Stars will reveal the importance of spatial organization in the construction of science-fiction worlds, considered as bearer of the deep meaning that structures fantastic worlds.

The Dystopian Imagination in Giovanna Rivero’s Short Fiction

Edoardo Franchi — 2024-05-30

This study aims to investigate contemporary Spanish-American science-fiction short stories, focusing on the emblematic case of the Bolivian author Giovanna Rivero. She is part of a national context that is very prolific in this literary genre, which has been stimulating new studies, symposiums and specialized journals. Her themes, style and language will be investigated through the study of the short stories “Regreso” and “Pasó como un espíritu”, in order to explore the dystopian universe created by the author. Combining Andean cultural heritage and dystopic projection, she manages to outline the current political and sociological context in Bolivia.

A new region of the world. Édouard Glissant’s worldliness utopia

Mattia Bonasia — 2024-05-30

In this article we aim to study the discursive practices through which Édouard Glissant structures his own chaos-monde’s utopia in the two essays La Cohée du Lamentin (2005) and Une nouvelle région du monde (2006), and in the novel Sartorius (1999). Unlike classical utopia’s search for order and harmony, Glissant’s model is characterized by the accumulation and the creolization of the elements. His goal is the statement of a worldliness imaginary as a totality of differences, opposed to the capitalistic standardized globalization. We will contextualize Glissant’s analysis with Deleuze and Guattari’s theories and with Michel Foucault’s heterotopia.

Arrabal’s Cosmogony: "Pingüinas" or the Creation According to Pan

Paola Bellomi — 2024-05-30

Co-founder of the “Panic Movement” Fernando Arrabal created in 2005 a new cosmogony of his theatrical universe in a text, Pingüinas, that merges and mixes space and time, in an alchemic experiment that combines extracts from the works of Miguel de Cervantes with references that go beyond postmodernity. Hybridity and plurality, fiction and fantasy are all essential elements in the artistic vision of this playwright; in this essay, we aim to probe the theatrical modalities with which Arrabal translates, more than forty years after the “Panic Manifesto”, his universe, with the intention not only of studying the possible worlds he proposes through his art, but also trying to investigate the concept proposed by Bauman of “retrotopia”.

The dystopian worlds of Manuel Moyano: between micro-story and novel

Antonio Candeloro — 2024-05-30

Prolific author of collections of short stories, microstories and novels, Manuel Moyano has developed over the years a narrative universe characterized by a disenchanted vision of reality and a clear writing in constant balance between a realist representation of facts and the creation of dystopian worlds.
This study aims to analyze how Moyano builds worlds parallel to ours starting from the three different literary genres mentioned above: in particular, some passages from the novel El imperio de Yegorov (2014) will be analysed as well as some stories from the collection Los Reinos de Otrora (2019) and some microstories from the Teatro de ceniza collection (2011). Through the creation of these dystopian worlds, Manuel Moyano also elaborates a constant philosophical reflection on time as an unsolvable enigma and as a supporting element of the chronotopes of these different fictitious universes.

José María Merino’s Anthropocene scenarios

Barbara Greco — 2024-05-30

The article investigates the literary anthropocene scenarios proposed by José María Merino in the short stories collection Noticias del Antropoceno (2021). This politically committed work reframes the narrative on the human-nature relationship in a realist perspective, a novelty in comparison with the author’s previous writings of fantastic genre. Starting from theoretical reflections on the concept of “Anthropocene”, a number of short stories from the volume are examined, thereby ascribing the collection the category of literary ecology. The analysis of extreme but real settings in the stories, such as the plastic island or ‘Pacific trash vortex’, shows how literature can make environmental catastrophe visible, in order to promote ecological ethics and awaken the dormant consciences of readers.

A dystopian, or retrotopian, proposal in Los ojos vacíos by Fernando Aramburu

Giovanna Fiordaliso — 2024-05-30

This article proposes an exam of the novel Los ojos vacíos, published in 2000 by the Spanish novelist Fernando Aramburu. The novel inaugurates the trilogy set in the imagined town of Antíbula and, in spite of presenting date and events which apparently belong to the historical reality, it is actually an alienating reproposition of a “possible world”, set in an imaginary time and a space. With a retrotopian, or dystopian approach developed in this kind of fiction, the author shows a deep idea of the human being, committed in deciphering, interpreting and understanding History, his destiny, the present time and his future.

Nicanor Parra, anti-poetry and anti-utopia

Matteo Lefèvre — 2024-05-30

In this article, we analyze the themes and language of Nicanor Parra’s Antipoems to show how its ethical and aesthetic code certify the refutation of any kind of utopia, from the literary to the political one, from the religious to the scientific one, conceived as a mythology of the human progress. Anti-poetry and Anti-utopia, thus, naturally meet due to their shallow pretensions and motives, to the denial of any social compromise or teleological aspiration, and through an Anti-Rethoric based on an irreverent use of language, on irony and, sometimes, on the sarcastic way in which human pulsions and ambitions are observed.

Subaltern Utopia in the Wasteocene: Diamela Eltit’s Sumar

Francesco Caracci — 2024-05-30

This paper aims to explore the intertwining of utopia, reality, and politics in the construction of a more socially just, free, and inclusive world through 21st-century Chilean working-class literature. Utopia understood as a means of expressing desires and hopes, finds its generative core in thorough reflections on the problems of the present. Diamela Eltit’s novel Sumar, which explores the pressing issues of the Chilean working world and the utopian collective reorganization of marginal, dissident, and liminal subjectivities, is an example of this dialogical relationship between the factual and the fictional. Sociosemiotic analysis will provide the methodological and speculative basis for presenting, on the one hand, the wasting relationships that shape the world of the neo-working class; on the other, Gramscian political action of the subaltern classes, understood as class alliances for mobilization against capitalism and the bourgeois state.

The human body in two Egyptian dystopias: al-̣Tabūr (2013, The Queue) and Hunā badan (2017, Here Is a Body) by Basma ‘Abd al-‘Azīz

Maria Elena Paniconi — 2024-05-30

Against the backdrop of the recent resurfacing of the dystopian genre in the Arabic literary field, the Egyptian psychiatrist, essayist, and novelist Basma ‘Abd al-‘Azīz stands out for her political dystopias, which can be read as lucid projections of the ‘real malfunctioning’ of the Egyptian political system.
In this essay, building on a close-reading analysis and on two interviews given to me by the author between 2018 and 2023, I dissect the novel al-Ṭabūr (2012, The Queue 2016) and its prequel Hunā badan (2017, Here Is a Body 2021). In particular, I will focus on the trope of the human body as a ‘transformative space’ in which the oppressive authority can exert its control, its persuasion, and its strength to the point of creating bodies that lack minds.

«There must be darkness to see the stars»: How contemporary women writers have been queering the way to mixtopic world-making

Andrea Raso — 2024-05-30

Focussing on a number of literary works in English(es), this article intends to show how contemporary women writers have been enacting the disruption of the polarity not only between the fantastic and the real but also between apocalyptic scenarios and the utopistic urge of subgenres like solarpunk. By embracing the concept of mixtopia, as proposed by Giuliana Misserville, I will thus attempt to prove how, in a world ravaged by climate change and shaped by A.I., several women writers bring to the fore the relevance of a technocritical approach in form and content, queering the material-semiotic nature of sci-fi itself, originally a male-dominated genre, and now a wild land of uncharted territories, full of eco-aware possibilities.

Michel Houellebecq’s La possibilité d’une île: autobiography as human final stand.

Giovanni Salvagnini Zanazzo — 2024-05-30

The article wants to investigate the narrative device at the heart of Michel Houellebecq’s novel La possibilité d’une île (2005). Its structure is based on the alternation of two different worlds, one human and the other non-human, populated by clones. For the reader, this implicates a double effort to adapt to both settings; for the text, this implicates the possibility of exploiting the bifurcation to establish mutual, meaningful links. With the help of the Possible Worlds Theory, we emphasize that this mechanism enables the author to highlight the crucial role of autobiographical writing, which is the only instrument of communication between the two worlds, and the last indispensable feature even in a literally post-human future.

Multiverse Fiction: A narratological approach to infinite worlds narratives

Gabriele D'Amato — 2024-05-30

In recent years, movies and tv shows have increasingly adopted the notion and the structure of the multiverse from superhero comics, resulting in a great popularity of the concept across a wider audience. The article aims to define the basic features of contemporary multiverse narratives, and to explore some of their textual applications. The first part will deal with the narratological theory of parallel worlds in fiction, following Marie-Laure Ryan’s and Karin Kukkonen’s analyses, to outline five key features shared by each multiverse narrative. The second part will be devoted to three significant case studies, that show three different applications of the multiverse as a textual device: Everything Everywhere All at Once as an example of intertextual narrative; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, that relies on a cultural dominant; and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a transmedial storyworld expanded through the characteristics of the multiverse.

Topographies of imagination: exploring light, body, and meaning in the myth of Endymion and Selene

Anna Chiara Corradino — 2024-05-30

This contribution explores the representation of the myth of Endymion and Selene in specific artworks from the Global North (especially by Pier Francesco Mola and Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson), focusing on the interplay between light, body, and meaning. The study uncovers the complexity and evolution of Endymion’s character, influenced by changing cultural and artistic contexts. It delves into the spatial dimensions of imagination, symbolic associations, semiotics of light, and evolving ideals of masculinity, emphasizing the importance of interpreting the myth through a topographic perspective. Furthermore, it examines how cultural norms and spatial constructs challenge established conventions, introducing disruptive elements within familiar narratives. Endymion’s portrayal as a passive figure bathed in Selene’s light serves as a focal point for exploring themes of desire, castration symbolism, and the objectification of the male body that reflects broader shifts in artistic sensibilities and cultural norms.

The day and the not-day: On possible worlds and freedom (some foundational considerations)

Darko Suvin — 2024-05-30

This paper is divided into 1. Possible Worlds: An Approach Reading Doležel’s Heterocosmica; 2. Freedom as a Constituent and Horizon of Possible Worlds. Agreeing with Doležel’s formulation that fictional worlds of literature are incomplete, I proceed to plead for a semiotic pragmatics within a historical epistemology and to foreground the PW’s story, while doubting the usefulness of his modalities. Inescapably, a story and its PW need to be approached syntagmatically and paradigmatically (Jakobson). Part 2 aims to give some orienting suggestions about what does freedom do for understanding PWs, and what do PWs do for understanding freedom. The PWs of “word art” include a vision of limits, a possible self-rule within them; they are clearly and openly probes; and finally they are suffused with potential power and yet radical. As all arts, they are akin to phronesis, practical wisdom that discusses right choices – that is, freedom and creativity, Whitman’s “I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited”.

In memory of Gianni Maniscalco Basile

Darko Suvin — 2024-05-30

This invited article is a tribute to Giovanni Maniscalco Basile, reflecting on his multifaceted contributions as a scholar, and cultural enthusiast. Darko Suvin highlights Basile’s extensive work and interests spanning Russian politics and ideology, music, science fiction, and utopian studies. Suvin underscores Basile’s unique intellectual presence, likening him to a Renaissance man with a profound ability to interweave diverse fields. The article delves into Basile’s engagement with Russian utopian and dystopian literature, his polyglot abilities, and his critical approach to blending historical and futuristic narratives. Suvin discusses Basile’s role in elevating science fiction as a legitimate field of academic inquiry and his efforts in integrating it with contemporary cultural and political critiques.
Marina Ciccarini further explores Basile’s life, and personal and professional background, emphasizing his broad interests, between literature, politics, music and physics, and eventually providing a selected bibliography of his works.
In conclusion, the article portrays Giovanni Maniscalco Basile as a profound thinker whose interdisciplinary work continues to inspire discussions on creativity, freedom, and the intellectual’s role in society.

Emanations, Spectralizations, Obsessions Between Real and Virtual

Massimo Fusillo — 2024-06-11

The relationship between the real and the virtual is increasingly central in defining narrative worlds in contemporary culture. On one hand, the rise of digital and immersive technologies seems to reignite easy apocalyptic temptations in critical thought; on the other, it offers new modes of writing and techniques for the materialization and dissemination of narrative worlds. In this interview, Mirko Lino, Associate Professor of Cinema, Television, and Photography at the University of L'Aquila, provides an overview and brief assessment of the dialectic between the real and the virtual. Ranging across various fields of artistic and media production (cinema, serials, literature, video games, comics), he describes some transmedia strategies for constructing storyworlds, while also exploring contemporary imagination's obsessions, such as illusion, dreams, and spectrality.

«No More Possible to Laugh at Anything?»: When Wit Bites Women

Clotilde Bertoni — 2024-06-11

We carry out further our reflection about Cancel Culture, this time with a dialogue between Clotilde Bertoni and Corrado Confalonieri: especially concerning two subjects, the gender issue, and the various sides of comedy and humour.

The Experience of Altre Modernità. With an Interview with Laura Scarabelli and Nicoletta Vallorani

Marina Guglielmi — 2024-06-10

This article aims to propose some reflections on the impact of open access publications in the field of cultural studies and literary criticism. The publishing experience of the open access journal Altre modernità will be reviewed in dialogue with its Editors-in-Chief, Laura Scarabelli and Nicoletta Vallorani.

Johnny L. Bertolio, Controcanone. La letteratura delle donne dalle origini a oggi

Simone Marsi — 2024-06-11

Review of i Johnny L. Bertolio's Controcanone. La letteratura delle donne dalle origini a oggi.

Paola Cantoni, «Ti congedo, o mio libro». Lingua e stile dei maestri nei Giornali della classe del primo Novecento

Giulio Iacoli — 2024-06-11

Review of Paola Cantoni's «Ti congedo, o mio libro». Lingua e stile dei maestri nei Giornali della classe del primo Novecento.

Giorgio Caproni, Registri di classe

Niccolò Scaffai — 2024-06-11

Review of Giorgio Caproni's Registri di classe (edited by Nina Quarenghi).

Simone Giusti, Didattica della letteratura italiana. La storia, la ricerca, le pratiche

Simone Marsi — 2024-06-11

Review of Simone Giusti's Didattica della letteratura italiana. La storia, la ricerca, le pratiche.

Lorenzo Tommasini, Educazione e utopia. Franco Fortini docente a scuola e all’università

Daniela Santacroce — 2024-06-11

Review of Lorenzo Tommasini's Educazione e utopia. Franco Fortini docente a scuola e all’università.

Massimiliano Tortora, Il lavoro culturale dell’insegnante. La letteratura in classe

Giulio Iacoli — 2024-06-11

Review of Massimiliano Tortora's Il lavoro culturale dell’insegnante. La letteratura in classe.

Ringraziamenti

Giulio Iacoli — 2024-05-30

Roberto Mario Danese, Margareth Amatulli, Riccardo Donati (eds.), Amnesie d’autore. Un secolo di parole e immagini per raccontare i disturbi della memoria (1920-2020).

Filippo Pelacci — 2024-06-11

Review of the book Amnesie d’autore. Un secolo di parole e immagini per raccontare i disturbi della memoria (1920-2020) edited by Roberto Mario Danese, Margareth Amatulli e Riccardo Donati,

Riccardo Donati, «Queste mie carte argute». Sei studi su Giuseppe Parini

Diego Varini — 2024-06-11

Review of Riccardo Donati's «Queste mie carte argute». Sei studi su Giuseppe Parini.

Antonio Gurrieri – Cristina La Rosa – Ilenia Licitra – Novella Primo (ed.), «Par les geus d'amors savoreus». Parole di Eros dal Medioevo al Moderno

Daniela Potenza — 2024-06-11

Review of the book Antonio Gurrieri, Cristina La Rosa, Ilenia Licitra, Novella Primo (eds.), « Par les geus d'amors savoreus ». Parole di Eros dal Medioevo al Moderno.

Stefano Redaelli, Psicopatografie. Il racconto della malattia mentale nella narrativa italiana del XXI secolo

Marina Guglielmi — 2024-06-11

Review of Stefano Redaelli's Psicopatografie. Il racconto della malattia mentale nella narrativa italiana del XXI secolo.

Italo Testa, Autorizzare la speranza. Giustizia poetica e futuro radicale

Corrado Confalonieri — 2024-06-11

Paolo Tortonese, L’uomo in azione. Letteratura e mimesis da Aristotele a Zola

David Matteini — 2024-06-11

Review of Paolo Tortonese's L'uomo in azione. Letteratura e mimesis da Aristotele a Zola.

Francesco Marola, La dialettica dei miti moderni. Faust e Don Giovanni, Amleto e Don Chisciotte nella ricezione romantica

Luca Marangolo — 2024-06-16

Review of Francesco Marola's La dialettica dei miti moderni. Faust e Don Giovanni, Amleto e Don Chisciotte nella ricezione romantica.