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Award-winning travel writer and illustrator, David Yeadon embarks with his wife, Anne on an exploration of the "lost word" of Basilicata, in the arch of Italy's boot. What is intended as a brief sojourn turns into an intriguing residency in the ancient hill village of Aliano, where Carlo Levi, author of the world-renowned memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli, was imprisoned by Mussolini for anti-Fascist activities. As the Yeadons become immersed in Aliano's rich tapestry of people, traditions, and festivals, reveling in the rituals and rhythms of the grape and olive harvests, the culinary delights, and other peculiarities of place, they discover that much of the pagan strangeness that Carlo Levi and other notable authors revealed still lurks beneath the beguiling surface of Basilicata.
Magnificent natural beauty, rich culture and longstanding traditions, Basilicata packs an incredible diversity into the unassuming instep of the Italian boot. From the renowned Sassi di Matera to the smallest village, this in-depth travel essay uncovers a land, its people, their past and present, sharing the joys and challenges of the experience.
This volume offers an open, transdisciplinary living space (also green) through which to explore the different connections between Basilicata and Southern Italy, cinema, and ecology, and thus to reflect on the different forms through which the historical, cultural, and social contexts of Southern Italian regions have been variously identified and represented. In order to explore these connections, the volume embraces a wide range of perspectives that may all be grouped under the key term film ecocriticism, offering the reader a thorough analysis not only of the different ways of representing reality but also of the processes of signification through which reality itself can be understood, re...
This study examines the role of southern Italian women who remained behind when their husbands emigrated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By piecing together limited archival source material, the author argues that married women were not voiceless or powerless when their husbands were abroad, but they took on roles beyond their limited legal position. They petitioned local officials, requested passports, received remittances, and handled the family finances, all in the absence of their husbands, the legal head of the family. The study also emphasizes the connection forged between women and the new Italian state at a time when women did not have political rights. Centering on Basilicata—a “forgotten” region of the Italian south and one that has not been a major focus of scholarly investigation—this study challenges stereotypes that the Italian south was backwards, uncivilized, and lagging behind northern Italy. The author argues that large scale emigration greatly impacted the married women left behind in the villages of Basilicata, changing their social, political, and economic role.
An authentic guide to the festive, mouthwatering sweets of Southern Italy, including regional specialties that are virtually unknown in the US, as well as variations on more popular desserts such as cannoli, biscotti, and gelato. As a follow-up to her acclaimed My Calabria, Rosetta Costantino collects 75 favorite desserts from her Southern Italian homeland, including the regions of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Puglia, and Sicily. These areas have a history of rich traditions and tasty, beautiful desserts, many of them tied to holidays and festivals. For example, in the Cosenza region of Calabria, Christmas means plates piled with grispelle (warm fritters drizzled with local honey) and pitta 'mpigliata (pastries filled with walnuts, raisins, and cinnamon). For the feast of Carnevale, Southern Italians celebrate with bugie ("liars"), sweet fried dough dusted in powdered sugar, meant to tattle on those who sneak off with them by leaving a wispy trail of sugar. With fail-proof recipes and information on the desserts' cultural origins and context, Costantino illuminates the previously unexplored confectionary traditions of this enchanting region.
A year in the life of a remote southern Italian hill town, rich with local characters and strange, pagan-laced customs -- a place very different from the more gentrified northern Italy of Tuscany and Umbria. Award-winning travel writer and illustrator David Yeadon embarks with his wife, Anne, on an exploration of the wild, mountainous "lost world" of Basilicata, in the arch of Italy's boot. What is intended as a brief sojourn turns into a much longer and far more intriguing residency across the seasons. The Yeadons make a homein the ancient and alluring hill village of Aliano, where Carlo Levi, author of the world-renownedmemoir Christ Stopped at Eboli, was imprisoned by Mussolini during Wor...
Basilicata is a region of southern Italy that was the setting for ethnographic research during the 1950s by Ernesto De Martino, Friedrich Friedmann, Edward C. Banfield, amongst others. Sixty years on, many of the practices canonised in these classic studies live on in reconfigured ways, in which heritage, identity politics and mediatisation play important roles. Sonic ethnography applies to this contemporary frame the most recent perspectives on the anthropology of sound and photographic research, to explore situations as different as the soundscape of tree rituals, the management of sound, the role of the church in annual festivals, the afterlife of ethnographic research in heritage politics and recorded media among migrant communities. The book brings to light how in Basilicata sound plays a central role in the performance of local identities. The volume also contributes innovative insights on doing ethnography in sound and photography.
A witty and warm-hearted memoir of abandoning fast-paced American days in favor of discovering the Italian secrets of food, community, and life. Moving across the globe meant Michelle Damiani soon found herself untangling Italian customs, delighting in glorious regional cuisine (recipes included), and creating lasting friendships. From grandmothers eager to teach the ancient art of pasta making, to bakers tossing bread into fiery ovens with a song, to butchers extolling the benefits of pork fat, Il Bel Centro is rich with captivating characters and cultural insights. Throw in clinking glasses of Umbrian red with the local communists and a village all-nighter decorating the cobblestone street...
This well-illustrated volume provides the best collection of Etruscan inscriptions and texts currently in print. A substantial archeological introduction sets language and inscriptions in their historical, geographical, and cultural context. The overview of Etruscan grammar, the glossary, and chapters on mythological figures all incorporate the latest innovative discoveries.
This book is focused on the challenges to implement sustainability in diverse contexts such as agribusiness, natural resource systems and new technologies. The experiences made by the researchers of the School of Agricultural, Forestry, Food and Environmental Science (SAFE) of the University of Basilicata offer a wide and multidisciplinary approach to the identification and testing of different solutions tailored to the economic, social and environmental characteristics of the region and the surrounding areas. Basilicata’s productive system is mainly based on activities related to the agricultural sector and exploitation of natural resources but it has seen, in recent years, an industrial ...