Description
Book SynopsisPoet, novelist, dramatist, polemicist, and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini continues to be one of the most influential intellectuals of post-war Italy. In Pasolini: The Sacred Flesh, Stefania Benini examines his corporeal vision of the sacred, focusing on his immanent interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation and the “sacred flesh” of Christ in both Passion and Death as the subproletarian flesh of the outcast at the margins of capitalism.
By investigating the many crucifixions within Pasolini’s poems, novels, films, cinematic scripts and treatments, as well as his subversive hagiographies of criminal or crazed saints, Benini illuminates the radical politics embedded within Pasolini’s adoption of Christian themes. Drawing on the work of theorists such as Ernesto De Martino, Mircea Eliade, Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, and Slavoj Žižek, she shows how Pasolini’s meditation on the disappearance of the sacred i
Trade Review
'This is a thorough study of the true intellectual Pasolini.' Choice Magazine vol 53:09:2016 'Benini's book is a tour de force to be lauded and a must read for any Pasolini scholar.' -- Daniela Bini Annali D'Italianistica vol 35:2016 'Benini succeeds in carving out an innovative space for interpretation, so that her work is an interesting addition to the huge bulk of Pasolini criticism. Furthermore, her work can benefit those who are interested in "meeting" the "organic intellectual" Pasolini, an agent of Italian cultural history for over fifty years.' -- Carla Locatelli Forum Italicum vol 5:01:2017 'Benini's book is a tour de force to be lauded and a must read for any Pasolini scholar.' -- Daniela Bini Annali D'Italianistica vol 35:2016
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. The Sense of the Sacred 2. The Passion and the Incarnation: Ricotta and The Gospel According to Matthew 3. The Words of the Flesh: Blasphemy 4. The Mad Saint and the Anchorite: Theorem 5. The Franciscan Model 6. The Pauline Model Conclusion
