Cultural Demise: South of Rome and American Terroni – Piedmontista Then and Now (Silvana Patriarca, Nelson Moe, Italian Studies)

“I will not invoke the REALITY behind [Piedmontese] representations [of the South]...” writes renowned Italian historian Silvana Patriarca. This incredibly pregnant clause is a conceptual vortex capturing the dialectics of Hegel’s “Master-Slave”, Gramsci’s “Cultural Hegemony” and Edward Said’s “Orientalism”. In short, when two conscious entities (e.g. cultures) dialectically encounter each other, each hegemonically attempts to destroy the “Other” by negating the Other’s REALITY. American de facto Piedmontista such as Partiarca, Nelson Moe and Italian Studies Programs, acting out the role of north-Italian cultural hegemonist, contribute to the demise of southern Italian culture by writing (much more importantly – teaching) Italian history as though Southern Italian REALITY does not, indeed never did, exist...American TERRONI beware the nocturnal siren-songs streaming from the Chairs of Wisdom – first a culture sleeps and then it dies. No history (REALITY) – No Culture! No southern-Italian history (REALITY) – No southern-Italian American culture!

 Preface                                Descriptions vs. Representations

Keeping in mind the most fundamental precept of critical historiography: “with pen and paper one can write anything”,

If  the people are not willing to give him accurate information,

In as much as the South was in the process of being conquered, brutalized and dehumanized in the year 1861 by the Piedmont Army,

Consider, the following descriptions of life in the South at the time of the census reported by historian John Dickie (Darkest Italy) and ask yourself:

Given those descriptions of life south of Rome at the time of the census,

And so, one wonders...