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New Italian Epic is a definition suggested by the Italian author Wu Ming 1 to describe a body of literary works written in Italy by various authors starting in 1993, at the end of the so called ‘First Republic’. This body of works is described as being formed of novels and other literary texts, which share various stylistic characteristics, thematic constants, and an underlying allegorical nature. They are a particular kind of metahistorical fiction, with peculiar features that derive from the Italian context.〔Cf. C. Boscolo, ("Scardinare il Postmoderno. Etica e metastoria nel New Italian Epic" ), www.carmillaonline.com, 29 April 2008〕 ==Origin of the definition== The definition was made by Wu Ming 1 in March 2008, during the work on ‘Up Close & Personal’, a seminar on contemporary Italian literature held at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Over the next few days the author proposed and discussed the expression in debates at other North American colleges, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, within the context of the programme of Comparative Media Studies directed by Henry Jenkins.〔Cf. The (podcast section of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program ), Cambridge, Massachusetts〕 From these interventions the author drew the essay ''New Italian Epic. Memorandum 1993-2008: narrative, oblique gaze, return to the future'', published online in the spring of the same year.〔(Text of the essay published on the site Carmilla on line ), also called "Memorandum on the New Italian Epic".〕 During the whole of 2008 the expression found a vast echo online, in conferences and conventions, in newspapers, in the specialist press and in radio broadcasts.〔For a general overview of the online debate, cf. The section ‘New Italian Epic’ on the site carmillaonline.com; articles on the New Italian Epic have been published in various daily newspapers and literary magazines. The Italian Radio 3 popular programme "Fahrenheit" has dedicated programmes to the discussion on 14 May 2008 and 11 June 2008.〕 In Italy, too, Wu Ming 1 put forward the expression ‘New Italian Epic’ () in English.〔The author has explained the motive in an interview: ‘in English, because I was addressing a heterogeneous and multinational audience, and also because it gives the idea of minimum detachment necessary to understand what is happening in Italian culture. You have to get out of yourself a bit, from the usual shared perceptive field, and climb onto an elevation (in reality all you need is a little hill) to see the swarm of people, things, information.’ ''Loop'' magazine, n.0, December 2008〕 In late 2008 Wu Ming put online a version of the Memorandom marked ‘2.0’, or annotated and extended, with replies to some criticisms and closer examination of the more controversial points. In January 2009 the series Stile Libero of the Einaudi publishing house published a further enriched and updated version of the Memorandum (‘3.0’), entitled ''New Italian Epic. Literatures, oblique gazes, returns to the future''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New Italian Epic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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