Murder Made in Italy

Ellen Nerenberg

Description

Questions of cultural violence

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Looking at media coverage of three very prominent murder cases, Murder Made in Italy explores the cultural issues raised by the murders and how they reflect developments in Italian civil society over the past 20 years. Providing detailed descriptions of each murder, investigation, and court case, Ellen Nerenberg addresses the perception of lawlessness in Italy, the country's geography of crime, and the generalized fear for public safety among the Italian population. Nerenberg examines the fictional and nonfictional representations of these crimes through the lenses of moral panic, media spectacle, true crime writing, and the abject body. The worldwide publicity given the recent case of Amanda Knox, the American student tried for murder in a Perugia court, once more drew attention to crime and punishment in Italy and is the subject of the epilogue.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Making a Killing

Part I: Serial Killing
1. The "Monster" of Florence: Serial Murders and investigation
2. Monstrous Murder: Serial Killers and Detectives in Contemporary Italian Literature
3. Penile Procedure: The Pleasures and Dangers of Looking in Dario Argento's Cinema
Part II: Matricide and Fratricide Erika, Omar, and Violent Youth in Italy
4. "Sono stati loro:" Erika, Omar, and the Double Homicide of Susy Cassini and Gianluca De Nardo in Novi Ligure
5. The Raw and the Cooked: Transnational Media and Violence in Italy's "Cannibal" Pulp Fiction of the 1990s
Part III: Filicide The Bad/Mad Mother of Cogne and Violence Against Children
6. The Yellow and the Black: Cogne or, Crime of the Century
7. Spectacular Grief and Public Mourning
8. Unspeakable Crimes: Children as Witnesses, Victims, and Perpetrators
Epilogue: Kiss Me Deadly
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Violence in Society
• Media Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social sciences
• Journalism
• Cinema
• Cultural Studies
• Violence
• Culture
• Media
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 29 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253012425
• Langue: English

Extrait

Murder Made in Italy

Murder Made in Italy
Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture
ELLEN NERENBERG
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana
47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
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2012 by Ellen Nerenberg
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-35625-3 cloth
ISBN 0-253-22309-8 paper
1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12
For my tireless companions of the mind, Elizabeth Jones and Anthony Valerio
Vengeance is practiced . Real murders take place as part of it, but also (insofar as they can be distinguished) cultural murders, murders of minds, emotions, and intelligence.
LUCE IRIGARAY, WOMEN, THE SACRED, AND MONEY
Periodically, some trial, and not necessarily fictitious like the one in Camus s The Outsider , comes to remind you that the Law is always prepared to lend you a spare brain in order to condemn you without remorse, and that, like Corneille, it depicts you as you should be, not as you are.
ROLAND BARTHES, MYTHOLOGIES
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Making a Killing
PART ONE. SERIAL KILLING
1 The Monster of Florence: Serial Murders and Investigation
2 Monstrous Murder: Serial Killers and Detectives in Contemporary Italian Fiction
3 Penile Procedure: Law and Order in Dario Argento s Cinema
PART TWO. MATRICIDE AND FRATRICIDE: ERIKA, OMAR, AND VIOLENT YOUTH IN ITALY
4 Sono stati loro : Erika, Omar, and the Double Homicide of Susy Cassini and Gianluca De Nardo in Novi Ligure
5 The Raw and the Cooked: Transnational Media and Violence in Italy s Cannibal Pulp Fiction of the 1990s
PART THREE. FILICIDE: THE BAD/MAD MOTHER OF COGNE AND VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN
6 The Yellow and the Black: Cogne; or, Crime of the Century
7 Spectacular Grief and Public Mourning
8 Unspeakable Crimes: Children as Witnesses, Victims, and Perpetrators

Epilogue: Kiss Me Deadly
Notes
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
In some ways, Murder Made in Italy is two books in one. One of these-not the first in terms of priority-is a narrative destined for an audience of readers who are interested in media studies, crime studies, and studies in popular culture and whose interest in contemporary Italy is not necessarily characterized by great familiarity with Italian culture or the Italian justice system. The other book-but not the second -seeks to contribute to an evolving discussion in contemporary Italian cultural studies staged largely among scholars of Italian studies. All readers, I imagine, will read parts of the narrative. At the same time, I doubt all readers will turn to the notes. Neither of the books stands independent from the other, and my goal has been to bridge, not to shore up, the differences between them. Achieving the required balance between the two texts has constituted one of my toughest challenges as a scholar and one that has brought some of the most satisfying rewards.
In her study on sex, gender, and science published in 2000, Sexing the Body , Anne Fausto-Sterling made shrewd choices concerning how much of her technical discussion to leave in the text and what to present in the extensive and finely detailed notes. I have adopted a similar strategy. In the main, Fausto-Sterling s choices concerned the sort and amount of scientific discourse to maintain in the text. The decisions I made, on the other hand, concerned the presence of critical theory and theoreticians and how much to rely on readers knowledge of, say, Italian regional geography, anthropology, and cultural history. I hope to have made wise choices between the sometimes competing needs of different readerships.
Given the nature of the academy, one s progress and success (tenure, retention, promotion) depend on advancing academic arguments and furthering knowledge on a subject, sometimes within a very narrow subfield. One consequence of this is scholarship that is not accessible to the lay reader. In fact, one sometimes hears opinions about how making scholarly research accessible amounts to diluting it or, said with less politesse, dumbing it down. Even worse than saying that the book or essay is accessible is to assert that it is not research at all, but is, instead, journalism.
Yet, writing for a wider audience is an admirable goal. A colleague who works at the intersection of sexuality and textuality in medieval studies has repeatedly-and, to my mind, wisely-told me that one of the goals she sets for herself is to be able, at all times, to explain her research to her mother. I discovered that her mother, like my own, was a highly educated professional woman d un certain ge . I am an Italianist, though my family is not Italian even at its farthest reaches, and my mother does not speak Italian. Remarkably nondenominational in her tastes and reading practices, my mother is the gamest, most fearless reader I know. Trained as a scientist and armed with curiosity and a wish for empirical evidence, she straddles the humanistic divide, reading widely in history and literature. Her respect for interdisciplinary research is exemplary. I have been considering the thoughts of colleagues in Italian studies for the past twenty years, and, as a result, it has not been difficult to understand the shape Murder Made in Italy should take in their regard. It is for this reason that, as I sought to synthesize the two books that compose this study, my thoughts have gone in the direction of my mother s universal qualities as a reader.
A word about translations and stylistic conventions in the pages that follow. When Italian appears in the body of the text, an English translation will usually follow in close proximity. In cases where a citation from an Italian source is offered in English only, the original Italian will be found in the notes. For Italian films released in the United States, the italicized English title will follow the Italian in parentheses. If the Italian film in question was never released or distributed in the U.S., my own English translation of the title follows the Italian in parentheses but is not italicized or capitalized. Well-known films that have never featured translated titles (e.g., La Dolce Vita ) will remain untranslated. Translations for books follow the same conventions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been in the making for close to ten years, and many colleagues and students, both here and abroad, have offered help and advice along the way. I am sure those I name below do not constitute an exhaustive list.
I am grateful to the trustees of Wesleyan University for the continued support of my research in the form of regular sabbaticals. At Wesleyan I am indebted to the tireless staff of Olin Library s Interlibrary Loan office as well as to the Catharine and Thomas McMahon Fund for its support of my scholarship. Thanks are also owed to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. At Indiana University Press, special thanks go to Jane Behnken, Angela Burton, and Sarah Wyatt Swanson.
Some of my research was conducted at the archives of the RAI, Italy s state television and radio network. Among those I would like to thank at the RAI Teche in Rome are Dottoressa Antonella Rita Roscilli, Dottoressa Francesca Cadin, and Andrea Persio. At the RAI Teche in Turin, thanks go to Dottoressa Susanna Gianandrea. My thanks also go out to Dottore Patrizio Rossano, of the Associazione TV e Minori in Rome. I extend my gratitude to Professors Stefano Baia Curioni and Antonio Calabr at Bocconi University in Milan and to the students of their course, Pubblica Opinione. Thanks to filmmaker Guido Chiesa for providing me with a copy of his documentary about the Novi Ligure murders and the eruption of xenophobia that followed, Sono stati loro: 48 ore a Novi Ligure .
Several colleagues have provided great insight into-and explanation of-the Italian justice system, criminal law procedure, and, in general, Italian law and order. These include Andrea Alberti and Roberto Passini, attorneys at law; the Honorable Emilio Gironi; Ret. Col. Luciano Garofano, formerly of the Reparto investigazioni scientifiche; and Vittoria Calvi. For precise elucidation of police procedure, special thanks to Paola Madonna of Interpol.
A collection of colleagues deserves acknowledgment and thanks. These include Nadja Aksamija, Michael Armstrong-Roche, Giorgio Bertellini, Norma Bouchard, Suzanne Branciforte, Simona Ceci, Mark Chu, Christina Crosby, Andrew Curran, Jane Edwards, Ruth Glynn, B. Antonio Gonz lez, Lina Insana, Natasha Korda, Marcia Landy, Typhaine Leservot, Stefania Lucamante, Nicoletta Marini-Maio, Sean McCann, Giuseppina Mecchia, Laurie Nussdorfer, Jill Morawski, John Paoletti, Christopher Parslow, Robin Pickering-Iazzi, Laura Rascaroli, Michael Roberts, Silvia Ross, David Schorr, and Daniela Viale. I am deeply grateful to Keala Jewell for the subtlety of her reading and her powerful critique. I owe a similar debt to Rebe