The Italian Beach: A Cultural History
Using literature and film as its principal sources, this project charts the emergence of mass leisure in Italy through an examination of the Italians' relationship to the seaside. From the Žlite practice of villeggiatura in the later nineteenth century, through the Fascist sponsorship of the beach for its health-giving properties, to the explosion of popular culture on and around the beach in the post-war era, the beach has been a central space of modernity in Italy and a recurring obsession within Italian political-cultural debate. The beach is thus an ideal observation point from which to examine demographic, social and cultural change in contemporary Italy.
