Gothic Italy

Book excerpt: The Gothic, proliferating across different literary, socio-cultural, and scientific spaces, permeated and influenced the project of Italian nation-building, casting a dark and pervasive shadow on Italian history. Gothic Italy explores the nuances, contradictions, and implications of the conflict between what the Gothic embodies in post-unification Italy and the values that a supposedly secular, modern country tries to uphold and promote. The book analyses a variety of literary works concerned with crime that tapped into fears relating to contagion, race, and class fluidity; deviant minds and abnormal sexuality; female transgression; male performativity; and the instability of the new body politic. By tracing how writers, scientists, and thinkers engaged with these issues, Gothic Italy unveils the mutual network of exchanges that informed national discourses about crime. Stefano Serafini brings attention to a historical moment that was crucial to the development of modern attitudes towards normality and deviance, which continue to circulate widely and still resonate disturbingly in contemporary society.