Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Introduction

  • Patricia Gaborik
  • Book:
    Mussolini's Theatre
    Published online:
    15 April 2021
    Print publication:
    06 May 2021, pp 1-29

  • Summary

    The Introduction’s Prologue “Mussolini as Actor” reconstructs a tendency – alive in both popular and scholarly discourse – to castigate Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as an uncultured buffoon, a histrionic personality more interested in putting on a show than in governing his country. Teasing out the ways in which such an image resides within broader narratives that dismiss fascism itself as spectacle, Gaborik makes the case for a new approach to fascist studies that uses the theatre not as a metaphor but as a key object of investigation. The second part of the introduction, “From Theatre History to Fascist Historiography,” lays out how the study of performance and theatrical institutions in Mussolini's Italy can offer new perspectives not just on the dictator’s cultural proclivities (and appreciation for the performing arts) but on fascism itself: the centrality of arts and culture to its domestic and foreign policy goals, the surprisingly complex relationship of Italy’s intellectuals with il Duce and his regime, and the very totalitarian nature of the fascist State.