| Southernism was a racist, positivist, and near-colonial ideological discourse, developed in Italy after the unification of 1861. It described the alleged anthropological, religious, and cultural dissonance of Southerners from the rest of the newly formed nation.;Reacting to this discourse, Southern Italian culture actively appropriated Southernism, turning it into a category of communal identity, which informed aesthetics of sensational primitivism, sentimental melodrama, and local realism in literature, music, theatre, and film. This highly dialectical receptive process, or mimesis, entailed imitative mechanisms of consensus and internalization, but also subversive mimicry that pervaded both higher and popular dimensions of Southern culture. This dissertation examines examples of Southernist mimesis, including the vastly popular Italian-made filmed melodramas of pathos and dejection, scripted and directed by famous Sicilian and Neapolitan writers.;Southernism was exported to the United States, where both scientific and popular discourses expanded the conclusions of Italian social Darwinism. Amidst resulting allegations of racial inferiority, innate criminality, and cultural inadequacy, Southern Italian immigrants established different venues to nurture their cultural universe, from mutual-aid societies, a flourishing press, and the popular religious feste, to numerous theatrical venues exhibiting dialect plays, sketches, and films. Between 1908 and 1918, the popular Italian vaudeville theaters of Little Italy exhibited hundreds of Italian films, from prestigious historical epics to newsreels documenting Italy's war efforts in Libya and during WWI. These films contributed to developing dialogic and relational formulations of "Italian" and "Southern Italian" diasporic identity for immigrants.;In conclusion, this project shows that for Southern Italians living in Italy at the turn of the century, the modern experience of popular culture and moviegoing implied the mimetic rehearsal of a newly configured vernacular identity rather than the acquisition of national consciousness. Similarly, and equally counter to common understanding, for Southern Italians now immigrants in early 20th century New York, the exposure to modern consumerist culture, including both American and Italian films, implied a participatory performance of exilic identity, rather than assimilation. |
