Stillness in Motion brings together the writing of scholars, theorists, and artists on the uneasy relationship between Italian culture and photography. Highlighting the depth and complexity of the Italian contribution to the technology and practice of photography, this collection offers essays, interviews, and theoretical reflections at the intersection of comparative, visual, and cultural studies. Its chapters, illustrated with more than 130 black and white images and an eight-page colour section, explore how Italian literature, cinema, popular culture, and politics have engaged with the medium of photography over the course of time.

The collection includes topics such as Futurism's ambivalent relationship to photography, the influence of American photography on Italian neorealist cinema, and the connection between the photograph and Duchamp's concept of the Readymade. With contributions from writer and theorist Umberto Eco, photographer Franco Vaccari, art historian Robert Valtorta, and cultural historian Robert Lumley, Stillness in Motion engages with crucial historical and cultural moments in Italian history, examining each one through particular photographic practices.

"How might Italy's unique, even peculiar, relation to its belated modernization be articulated around the subject of photography in all of its complex cultural, political, social, and personal guises? This extraordinary volume of essays contains multiple answers, as distinguished critics and theorists range from the period of national unification to today. Dazzling in their array of erudite, original, and rigorous insights, and sustained by a judicious and relevant choice of accompanying photographs, the essays come together in this beautifully edited volume to form what is, to my mind, an instant classic." -- Rebecca West, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago "Stillness in Motion comes at the right time, when the attention on photography is growing fast in fields such as history of media, cultural studies, and visual culture." -- Ernesto Livorni, Department of French and Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison

About the Author
Sarah Patricia Hill is a senior lecturer in Italian in the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington Giuliana Minghelli is an associate professor of Italian Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at McGill University.


Book Information
ISBN 9781442649330
Author Sarah Patricia HIll
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint University of Toronto Press
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 960g
Dimensions(mm) 255mm * 182mm * 32mm