The Genetic Essence of Houses and People: History as Idealization and Appropriation of an Imagined Timelessness
The Genetic Essence of Houses and People: History as Idealization and Appropriation of an Imagined Timelessness

Summary/Abstract: Through a discussion of two popular Anglo-American novels set in Italy, and several relocation narratives, this paper proposes an exploration of the notion according to which history is the force cementing the identities of societies perceived as less modern and frozen in a timeless dimension. From a point in time when the dialectics of history have been allegedly transcended, Anglo-American popular narratives observe Italy as a timeless, pre-modern other.

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