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Sicilian Intellectual And Cultural Resistance To Piedmont's Appropriation (1860-1920), Giordana Poggioli-Kaftan

Theses and Dissertations

Through my analysis of literary works, I endeavor to bring to the fore a cultural and intellectual counter-hegemonic discourse that came to be articulated by three Sicilian writers in the years following Italy’s unification. Their intent was that of debunking a national discourse that constructed Italian Southerners as “Otherness.” My study focuses on six primary texts, five short stories, and one novel, written at the turn of the twentieth century. These texts include Giovanni Verga’s “What is the King?” and “Freedom”; Luigi Pirandello’s “Madam Mimma,” “The Black Baby Goat,” and “The Other Son”; Luigi Capuana’s Rabbato’s Americani. In order to …