This article was downloaded by: [University of North Texas]On: 09 November 2014, At: 03:48Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The European Legacy: Toward NewParadigmsPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cele20

Terrorism, Italian Style:Representations of Political Violence inContemporary Italian CinemaLavinia Stana

a St Francis Xavier University, CanadaPublished online: 29 Jul 2014.

To cite this article: Lavinia Stan (2014) Terrorism, Italian Style: Representations of PoliticalViolence in Contemporary Italian Cinema, The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms, 19:5,670-671, DOI: 10.1080/10848770.2014.943519

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2014.943519

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possible parameters of all behaviour” (132).Rubens also dismisses Hume’s “emotivism”(134) and Kant’s “truth-claims” (138) withthe counter-argument that “truth in any abso-lute sense does not exist” (139). Rubens thenhews a concept of neo-Darwinism that“focuses on the biological factors and forceswhich, in the process of evolution, haveshaped human mentality, and have thereforeshaped the relation of that mentality to theexternal world” (139).

Among the predecessors of neo-Darwin-ism, Rubens mentions Schopenhauer, who“was especially influenced by Hobbes” (149)and “nothing less than horrified by incessantlyinternecine struggle and turmoil” (151). Ear-lier, Spinoza accommodated ethics to “a caus-ally-based outlook” (152) and hence to “thescientific explanation… [for all things] by ref-erence to cause and effect” (153). Finally,Rubens cites “leading minds… conspicuouslyengaged in an attack on historicism [history’s‘laws’ trump causation]… includ[ing] Russell,Santayana, Popper, Berlin, Heidegger, Ayer,Foucault, and Derrida” (157), and ends on ahumanistic note: “Pain pervading the animalworld… needs to be given much more moralattention” (162).

STANLEY SHOSTAK

University of Pittsburgh, USAsshostak@pitt.edu© 2014, Stanley Shostakhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2014.943518

Terrorism, Italian Style: Representationsof Political Violence in ContemporaryItalian Cinema. Edited by Ruth Glynn,Giancarlo Lombardi and Alan O’Leary(London: Institute of Germanic and RomanceStudies, 2012), 244 pp. $40.00 paper.

The legacy of the anni di piombo (years oflead) of 1969–83, during which Italy regis-tered some 14,000 terrorist attacks that led tosome 374 deaths and close to 1,170 injuries,still weighs heavily on that country. Offeringa close examination of a still understudiedtopic, this edited volume discusses the role ofcinema in articulating the impact of that per-iod and in defining how Italians address and

redress the atrocities and traumas of thoseyears. The volume’s basic premise is that “thestudy of cinematic and televisual texts can castlight on historical and ideological conditions,and on the topicality and legacies of terror-ism” (21). Most of its chapters are compara-tive and theoretically diverse, adoptingframeworks that are absent from Italian schol-arship on the subject. The emphasis is onmovies released in the 1980s and those repre-senting the kidnapping and murder of Presi-dent Aldo Moro in 1978 by the BrigadeRosse of Democrazia Cristiana.

The volume includes three sectionswhose chapters share common themes ortheoretical perspectives. The opening sectionfocuses on genre. In her examination ofpolice films and conspiracy thrillers thatinvestigate terrorist attacks and identifyright-wing perpetrators, Mary P. Woodresponds to the commonly held view thatmost public discourse on Italian terrorismconcerns itself with the violence originatingon the left while forgetting right-wing ter-rorist attacks. Focused on director BernardoBertolucci’s work, Alan O’Leary’s chaptershows that La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo[Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man] (1981) is “atribute to the capacity of Italian film com-edy to respond promptly” to the anni di pio-mbo violence and “to capture theatmosphere of those years” (48). GiancarloLombardi looks at the portrayal of politicalterrorism in four mini-series broadcast inprimetime from 1980 to 2006.

The second section consists of threeessays focused on family and gender motifs.Max Henninger examines three movies thatframe “post-1968 Italy’s history of politicalviolence in terms of family and generationalconflict” (85) to show that all three employthe categories of family, state and history,but put them to different use. Turning thetheoretical lens to Colpire al cuore [Blow tothe Heart] (1982), Ellen Nerenberg exploresthe generational fractures it reflects on threelevels—thematic, formal, and extra-cinematic—and concludes that the film is premisedon the inversion of the classic positionalitywithin the father-son dyad. In her essay,Ruth Glynn notes the emergence of theviolent woman as a cinematic featuredepicting women’s involvement in left-wingterrorism. The female perpetrator and victim

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are cast as the madwoman and the femmefatale.

The concluding section explores thesignificance of movies for the Aldo Moromurder case. Rachele Tardi shows thatdifferent genre conventions prompt threewell-known feature films to rewrite thatevent in different keys that reflect theboundaries of the social imaginary. By apply-ing the concepts of the “politics of spectrali-ty” and “metahistory” to feature films andtelevision productions, Nicoleta Marini-Maiohighlights the “conflict between the revolu-tionary myths of Italian Marxist tradition andthe use of political violence during the annidi piombo” (174). Last, Dana Renga recountshow Buongiorno, Notte [Good Morning,Night] (2003) recasts Moro as father of theItalian state and Anna Laura Braghetti, theonly Brigade Rossi member to live inMoro’s people’s prison, as a feminizedneurotic consumed with self-doubt.

This work offers fresh readings of filmsfocused on Italian terrorism by bringing newperspectives both to the way they recount themovies and to the theoretical frameworksthey employ. While the chapters are ofuneven quality and detail, the volume as awhole is likely to be of interest to bothscholars and the general public.

LAVINIA STANSt Francis Xavier University, Canadalaviniastan@yahoo.ca© 2014, Lavinia Stanhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2014.943519

The Makings of Indonesian Islam:Orientalism and the Narration of a SufiPast. By Michael Laffan (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2011), xx + 301pp. $39.50/£27.95 cloth.

Whereas most scholars extol Indonesian Islamas moderate thanks to the role Sufism hasplayed in shaping its traditions, Michael Laffanoffers an alternative assessment of the intellec-tual and religious history of Indonesia, themost populous Muslim nation in the world.His book, which proposes a carefully con-structed and comprehensive argument basedon the best scholarship available to date and

vast historiographical analysis, argues that themoderate image of Indonesian Islam wasshaped by encounters between colonial Dutchand English scholars and reformist Islamicthinkers.

The first three chapters narrate the for-mation of Southeastern Asian Islamic dis-course starting from the 1200s, the periodwhich marked the first steps towards theregion’s Islamization, and ending in the1880s, when the Dutch colonizers mademore explicit interventions in Muslim Law.Whether one accepts Laffan’s view that ourpresent knowledge of the first stages ofIslamization in Indonesia “is informed inlarge part by our acceptance of the retro-spective framings and validations of seven-teenth-century Sufi teachings thatemphasized the mystical connection betweenthe Prophet and a learned elite patronizedby regal authorities” (xiii), it is clear thatduring the eighteenth century more formal-ized structures of learning were establishedas Indonesian scholars increasingly took partin Middle Eastern networks. During the fol-lowing century, a more populist authoritystrengthened Islam and mystical fraternitiesat the expense of the courts.

Sections 2 and 3 bring in the Dutch andEnglish colonizers and their experience withIslam on Indonesian territory. Starting withthe vague notions of Islam formed during thefirst voyages of the 1590s, the ProtestantDutch colonizers’ understanding of Islamevolved over time, but it was only during thenineteenth century, with the decline of thetrading empires and after the transformationof the Indies into a missionary field, that thecolonial powers educated their officials inIslamic Law before their deployment inSoutheastern Asia. Snouck Hurgronje’s workin Batavia, Java, and Aceh, his criticism of thepopulist mysticism that various Muslim teach-ers employed against their rivals, and thearguments of scholars and non-scholars whowere not that convinced by his methods andarguments, figure prominently in thenarrative.

The book concludes with chaptersexamining the interplay between Dutchscholars and Muslim reformers during theearly twentieth century, their debates center-ing on the rising new version of Islam thatmight overtake the region’s mysticism, the

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