[Commlist] CfP_Cinergie n. 25_Crime Unmasked: Exploring the Morphologies of Italian Giallo through Transnational Influences and Intermedial Hybridization

Cfp

Crime Unmasked: Exploring the Morphologies of Italian Giallo through 
Transnational Influences and Intermedial Hybridization

edited by Giulia Scomazzon e Arianna Vergari

Deadline for abstract proposals: October 17, 2023

If a lively intermedial dialogue emerges between the two world wars in 
Italy, pushing the Giallo beyond the boundaries of literature (Mazzei 
and Valentini, 2017; Curti 2022), it is after the end of the Second 
World War, and especially with the advent of television, that the crime 
genre (Calabrese and Rossi, 2018; Pieri 2011; Priestman 2009; Knight 
2004) branches out into popular culture, exploding in a multitude of 
forms, productions, atmospheres, styles, and characters.

The representations of crime within the transmedia macro-genre of the 
Giallo have thus accompanied and interpreted some fundamental cultural 
and social transformations in Italy, from the 1950s to the present. The 
polarity between detection and the criminal act – the core of the Giallo 
– expresses, on the one hand, the morphological complexity of the genre, 
its permeability to both indigenous and international narrative models 
and archetypes, and on the other hand, it serves as an amplifier of 
social anxieties regarding criminal phenomena in contemporary liberal 
democracies (Biressi 2001) and the tensions and desires of Western 
societies (Perissinotto 2008).

In this respect, the Giallo becomes a heuristic device capable of 
capturing and deciphering the symptoms of an ongoing socio-cultural 
change, as well as revealing the traumatic signs of past historical 
events (Pezzotti 2014) or the traces of the evolution of criminal law 
theories and practices, especially in the oscillations between the 
inquisitorial and the accusatory models (Amodio 2016). At the narrative 
level, these models are often reflected in the development and 
hybridization of two different narrative paradigms: detective fiction 
and procedural drama.

Equally significant from a cultural perspective is Giallo's ability to 
intersect and reinterpret the paradigms of femininity and masculinity 
within specific historical periods. It accomplishes this through the use 
of plots and visual strategies that problematize the relationship 
between socially prescribed roles, characters, and gender identity, 
often highlighting contradictions related to stereotypes and hegemonic 
positions (Dresner 2007; Gates 2011; Buonanno 2017; D’Amelio and Re 2021).

The aim of the monographic issue – developed within the Prin 2020 
project The Atlas of Italian “Giallo”: Media History and Popular Culture 
(1954-2020) – is to analyze the depiction of criminals and 
representatives of the law and institutions, exploring the intermedial 
connections between television, cinema, radio, fictional imagery, 
investigative journalism, and crime reporting. The analysis of how these 
figures are portrayed will reveal their significance and role in shaping 
and distorting the public perception of crime and justice.

Through the examination of recurrences and variations of patterns and 
expressive formulas, this issue aims to open a space for reflection on 
the diachronic, synchronic and geographical trajectories that have 
shaped new identity and cultural configurations within Italian crime 
narratives. The subjects that navigate the realms of detection can be 
studied in their diverse aesthetic and representational evolutions, 
taking into account changes in production contexts. Furthermore, it is 
important to consider the audience responses, including the impact of 
branding (Turnbull, 2019) and the mechanisms that sometimes associate a 
star image with a particular role.

Similarly, an interdisciplinary approach to the Giallo represents a 
privileged access to the complex web of interpretive pathways that span 
Media Studies, sociology, criminology, Legal Studies, and philosophical 
reflections on themes of guilt and responsibility. By interweaving these 
disciplines, this monographic issue aims to shed light on cognitive, 
political and gender identity issues.

This issue of Cinergie aims to collect contributions that focus on, but 
are not exclusively limited to, the following points:

-The figure of the investigator, whether inside or outside state 
institutions, including law enforcement officers, investigative 
journalists, writers or private citizens, between professionalism and 
amateurism.

-The developments and modes of representation of figures related to the 
defense of the accused and the staging of the victim as a civil party in 
the trial, beyond traditional patterns of detection and often in a 
problematic off-screen position, both in the investigative and 
procedural phases.

-The relationship between investigation, trial and truth in the national 
representation of crime or true crime in a diachronic, intermedial and 
interdisciplinary perspective.

-How the hybridizations of different genres and international influences 
redefine masculine and feminine models of detection as discursive 
positionalities in the Italian context.

-The relationship between gender identity and the staging of violence in 
the dialectic between criminal transgression and the punitive 
restoration of social order.

-The symbolic and narrative significance of atmospheres and spaces in 
the Giallo genre, where the exploration of different locations becomes 
an expressive practice that activates further levels of identity research.

-The different sites involved in criminal, investigative, judicial, and 
punitive actions, such as crime scenes, police stations, courts, 
prisons, and more

Submission details

Please send an abstract of 300/500 words and a short biography to Giulia 
Scomazzon and Arianna Vergari at (giulia.scmzn /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(giulia.scmzn /at/ gmail.com)> and (a.vergari /at/ unilink.it) 
<mailto:(a.vergari /at/ unilink.it)> by October 17, 2023 - [subject: Cinergie 
Volti e scene del crimine+ name surname author(s)].

Notification of acceptance will be sent within October 23, 2023.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the 
full article by December 15, 2023.

Articles must not exceed 6,000 words and may include images, clips, and 
links for illustrative purposes. Please provide proper credits, 
permissions, and copyright information to ensure that images, clips, and 
links are copyright-free and can be published.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

  The issue will be published in July 2024

Read the full CFP here: https://cinergie.unibo.it/announcement/view/585 
<https://cinergie.unibo.it/announcement/view/585>

No payment from the authors will be required.


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