On Wednesday, Nov. 16 and Thursday, Nov. 17, the conference dedicated to the PRIN 2017 (Research Project of National Interest), "Il Pollo Ruspante: il Cinema e la Nuova Cultura dei Consumi in Italia – 1950-1973 (The Free Range Chicken: Cinema and the New Culture of Consumption in Italy - 1950-1973)" will be held at the Multimedia Room of the Rector's Office on the University Campus in Chieti, Italy. The project aims to study the role that cinema played in the modernization processes of the Country, with particular reference to the spread of the new culture of consumption in the so-called "Golden Age of Capitalism," namely the period 1950-1973.
The theme of the conference will be "Cinema and Consumption in Italian Magazines". The International Telematic University UNINETTUNO will be participating with the presence of Prof. Gianluca Della Maggiore, professor of the "Visual Storytelling" course in UNINETTUNO's Faculty of Communication Sciences and director of the CAST (Catholicism and Audiovisual Studies) Research Center. He also recently worked on the restoration of Vittorio De Sica's 1944 film "La Porta del Cielo," which was brilliantly presented at the 2022 Rome Film Festival. Prof. Della Maggiore will deliver his talk at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17, entitled "Uomini-Réclame e Divi Santi. Culture del Consumo e Nuove Forme di Culto nelle Riviste Cattoliche (Men-Advertisements and Saintly Stars. Cultures of Consumption and New Forms of Worship in Catholic Magazines)."
The research project “Il Pollo Ruspante: il Cinema e la Nuova Cultura dei Consumi in Italia (1950-1973)” involves four Universities (Bari “Aldo Moro”, Cagliari, Chieti/Pescara “Gabriele D’Annunzio” and Messina) and the main theme is precisely the study of cinema. By "cinema" we mean the institution as a whole, as the industrial apparatus of film production, distribution and screening, rooted in a given historical context. By "new consumer culture," on the other hand, we refer to the experiential baggage gained by individuals and families from daily exposure to the characteristic consumer goods of second half of the Twentieth-Century Western Societies.
The work is based on three different perspectives. In the first place, it will examine the ways in which cinema has made consumer goods a central element of film narrative, staging their narrativisation through different and biased articulations. Secondly, it will investigate the extent to which cinema was explicitly thematized within the early national public debate that arose at that time around the incipient phenomenon of mass consumption. Thirdly, it will explore how cinema was strategically used in the context of advertising campaigns delivered by the popular illustrated press.
UNINETTUNO's presence at this Conference once again confirms the University's interest in cultural issues such as the history and in-depth study of cinema and its social impact over the years.
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