Library guide Italian Studies. “Mafia and other organized-crime groups”

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The topic of the first Library guide Italian Studies was national identity, which easily related to diversity, equity and inclusion through the ways a given people defines its collective identity, and what kinds of diversity that identity includes, on equitable ground.

The present Library guide – on the mafia and other organized-crime groups – might seem less related to diversity, equity and inclusion, were it not for the ways that Italian collective history and identity and, therefore, (stereotyped) image and reputation, are often (prejudicially) defined by the role of organized crime in the Country’s past and present.

In the curricular context of a bachelor’s in Italian Studies it is therefore relevant to help students find scholarly sources about how fiction and media explore and represent the Italian mafia, and how such representations might contribute to (de)construct stereotypes and prejudices.

The Library guide is therefore organized around four different themes, i.e. mafia and literature; mafia and cinema/television; Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino (two anti-mafia judges murdered by the mafia in 1992); and Questione meridionale and Mezzogiorno. Among the readings are titles such as Donne, mafia e cinema: Una prospettiva interdisciplinare (Women, mafia and cinema: An Interdisciplinary perspective), or La questione: Come liberare la storia del Mezzogiorno dagli stereotipi (The problem: How to free Southern Italy’s history from the stereotypes).

You can browse the guide below, or otherwise feel welcome to ask me a PDF version.