The Historian, the Poet, and the Semiologist : Perspectives on the Post 68 Decade

Abstract

In the early to mid 1980s a number of protagonists from the social movements of the previous decade reflected on that political experience, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of terrorism. The texts considered here belong to that moment but use devices or forms belonging to literary fiction rather than modes more typical of saggistica; they include: Luisa Passerini's Autoritratto di gruppo, Nanni Balestrini's L'editore, and Umberto Eco's Il nome della rosa. Each is discussed in terms of the author's individual strategies as well as in relation to broader cultural debates, raising issues of memory, literature and politics.