[ecrea] CfP: Catholics and Cinema in Italy between the 40s and the 70s

Call for papers

*Catholics and Cinema in Italy between the 40s and the 70s *
An international conference organized by Tomaso Subini
Università degli Studi di Milano, June 8-10, 2016

Religions have been labelled as “traditions by definition” (Giovanni
Filoramo). However, challenging interpretations of modernity as radical
novelty, some scholars have defined modernity as a secularized version
of originally religious phenomena: “The myth of modernity originates in
its radical opposition to the religious myth, even if it has retained
the characteristic modes of religion: mobilizing energies and forging a
social bond, typically by absolutizing (reason, science, the
proletariat, the nation-state), demonizing (tradition, religion, the
bourgeoisie, a foreign nation) or generating utopias as the promise of a
better future” (Frédéric Lenoir). In such a perspective, modernity and
religion are not conflicting, but rather competing entities. As one of
the chief expressions of modernity, cinema brings the challenge on
slippery grounds inasmuch as they have traditionally fallen under the
jurisdiction of religion: rituality, sociality, the ability to create
worlds which shape the imaginary (Brent Plate). The international
conference Catholics and cinema in Italy between the the 40s and the 70s
is the final event of a national research program (PRIN 2012) which has
been working at the intersection between the cultural history of Italian
cinema and the history of the Church and of the Catholic movement’s
relation to modernity. The main research question of the project has
been if, how and when the Church relied on modern mass media (on cinema
in particular, due to its predominant position within the media system
of the period) in order to negotiate its active role within the complex
dynamics of a modern mass society. The Church’s approach to cinema was
polarised: images were considered as something immoral on the one hand
and as loaded with religious meaning on the other. The Church’s
investment in cinema – which represents the main focus of the project –
became institutionalized between the 30s and the beginning of the 40s
after decades of isolated and contradictory initiatives and came to a
relative conclusion at the end of the 70s. On the one side, this
resulted in the emergence of explicit pornography as a consequence of
the breakdown of taboos related to obscenity, which led to the
relentless pornographisation of Italian society. On the other the
Church’s renewed and growing investment in media, intended as modern
tools to spread the religious message, caused the mediatisation of
religion and of its institutions, which led to the establishment of the
Vatican Television Centre and, in very recent times, of a new dicastery
of the Roman Curia, the Secretariat for communication. With its focus on
the period from the 40s to the 70s, the research project – and therefore
its final conference – aims to investigate the origins of the historical
process that produced such an outcome. The conference aims to embrace a
broad view which considers cinema as a part of a wider media system
which the Church often dealt with in terms of a “modernization without
modernity”: “The flat refusal of the principles of modernity was
combined with the incentive to appropriate the tools of modern culture
under the alert control of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, entrusted with
the task to make sure that the desired modernisation would not turn into
modernism, that is, into the devious infiltration of the Church’s
structure by those modern values which had to be unquestionably opposed”
(Daniele Menozzi). Between the two poles of censored image and promoted
image, the relationship between Catholics and cinema has been
characterized by hesitancy and fundamental contradictions. Was it shaped
by conflict or, rather, by competition? Was it a relationship in which
common goals prevailed and which can therefore be defined in terms of
alliance and mutual employment?

We invite proposals related to the following topics:

- Institutions: ACEC (Associazione Cattolica Esercenti Cinema [Catholic
Association of Movie Theatre Managers]); Centro Culturale San Fedele;
Ente dello Spettacolo (Centro Cattolico Radiofonico [Catholic
Radiophonic Centre], Centro Cattolico Televisivo [Catholic TV Centre],
Centro Cattolico Cinematografico [Catholic Cinematographic Centre]);
Mostra Internazionale del Cinema di Venezia (Venice Film Festival);
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Experimental Cinematography
Centre); Orbis/Universalia; Pontificia Commissione per la Cinematografia
Didattica e Religiosa (Pontifical Commission for Educational and
Religious Films); Pro Civitate Christiana; RAI; Segretariato per la
Moralità (ACI [Secretariat for Morality, Italian Catholic Action]);
Ufficio Nazionale dello Spettacolo (Bishop’s Conference of Italy);
Università Pro Deo; Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore;

- People: Floris Ammannati; Giulio Andreotti; Francesco Angelicchio;
Mario Apollonio; Angelo Arpa; Enrico Baragli; Giuseppe Dalla Torre;
Salvo D’Angelo; Diego Fabbri; Giuseppe Gaffuri; Albino Galletto; Luigi
Gedda; Emilio Lonero; Renato May; father Mariano; Giovanni Battista
Montini; Félix Morlion; Pius XII; Ferdinando Prosperini; Gian Luigi
Rondi; Giuseppe Siri; Nazareno Taddei; Turi Vasile;

- Theories: the magisterium’s formulations; the debate within Italian
Catholicism (Agostino Gemelli, Mario Apollonio, Nazareno Taddei); the
work of international catholic thinkers (Amédée Ayfre, André Bazin,
Félix Morlion, André Ruszkowski) who influenced the Italian catholic world;

- Censorship: Catholics and administrative censorship; the censorship of
movies for parochial movie theatres; the control on the RAI’s
palimpsest; Catholics and representation of obscenity.

- The representation of religion: definitions of religious cinema; the
representation of Jesus, pontiffs and saints; religious, liturgical and
didactic use of cinema and television.

- Cultural phenomena: cineforum; catholic associations devoted to film
culture; Catholics and stardom; Catholics and representations of
marriage and divorce; the catholic spectator.

- Films, radio and TV programmes: Catholic Cinema Centre’s productions;
religious movies; authors of Italian religious cinema; religious radio
and TV programmes.

- Politics and society: law on censorship and cinema; the relationship
with the Christian Democratic Party; the relationship with the
judiciary; international relationship.

- Religious orders: Paulines; Salesians; Jesuits; missionary orders.

- Press and publishing industry: catholic TV and film criticism; Azione
Cattolica’s journals; diocesan newspapers; “L’Osservatore Romano”;
“Famiglia Cristiana”; “La Civiltà Cattolica”; specialized press.

- Media and clergy: americanization; secularization; cinema and
devotion; pastoral and pedagogical models; cinema and TV on Good Friday.


We invite scholars who intend to submit a proposal to access our
database, containing scans of about 6000 items (complete with index and
metadata with keywords allowing specific queries). The documents have
been collected in ecclesiastical archives and have seldom (if at all)
been the object of research (http://users.unimi.it/cattoliciecinema/).
Scholars who have not yet subscribed to the database can request an
account to the conference organizer ((tomaso.subini /at/ unimi.it)
<mailto:(tomaso.subini /at/ unimi.it)>).

Please send a 300-word proposal and a short biographical statement to
(cattoliciecinema /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(cattoliciecinema /at/ gmail.com)> by March
31, 2016.

Proposals will be evaluated by the scientific committee composed by
Elena Dagrada, Raffaele De Berti, Ruggero Eugeni, Giacomo Manzoli,
Enrico Menduni, Peppino Ortoleva, Pierre Sorlin, Daniela Treveri
Gennari, Dario E. Viganò.

We accept proposals for papers both in Italian and in English. The
conference will reimburse travelling and accommodation expenses.

--
Dr Daniela Treveri Gennari

Reader in Film Studies
School of Arts
Oxford Brookes University
Headington Hill Campus
Oxford OX3 0BP

email: (dtreveri-gennari /at/ brookes.ac.uk)

*http://www.italiancinemaaudiences.org/*
*
*

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