Nicoletta Marini-Maio
Andrew W. Mellon Regional Fellow in the Humanities
2013—2014 Forum on Violence
Nicoletta Marini-Maio
Associate Professor of Italian, Dickinson College
A Specter Is Haunting Italy: Representations of the Aldo Moro Case in Film and Theater
My project centers on the cinematic and theatrical representation of the Red Brigades' abduction and murder of Italian political leader Aldo Moro in 1978. Propelling my research was the centrality and persistence of Moro's spectral persona haunting Italian collective memory in several fictional venues. My work examines the ways in which artistic recounting has understood and processed political violence in conflicting narratives of guilt, innocence, disavowal, conspiracy, and reconciliation. I argue that these narratives are strategies by which cultural forces and social actors come to terms with their perceived responsibilities in the context of terrorist acts. I suggest that this process of self-reflection has served to rebuild a collective cultural identity, one which is purged of complicity with political violence.