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Book Cover
E-book
Author Benadusi, Lorenzo, 1973-

Title The Enemy of the New Man : Homosexuality in Fascist Italy / Lorenzo Benadusi ; translated by Suzanne Dingee and Jennifer Pudney
Published Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, ©2012

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Description 1 online resource (xxi, 432 pages) : illustrations
Series George L. Mosse series in modern European cultural and intellectual history
George L. Mosse series in modern European cultural and intellectual history.
Contents 1. The Making of the Virile Italian -- 2. The Discovery of Homosexuality -- 3. Sodomy: Sin or Crime -- 4. The Repression of Homosexuality -- 5. Madmen or Criminals -- 6. The Political Use of Homosexuality -- 7. Bourgeois Respectability and Fascist Morality
Summary In this first in-depth historical study of homosexuality in Fascist Italy, Lorenzo Benadusi brings to light immensely important archival documents regarding the sexual politics of the Italian Fascist regime; he adds new insights to the study of the complex relationships of masculinity, sexuality, and Fascism; he explores the connections between new Fascist values and preexisting Italian traditional and Roman Catholic views on morality; he documents both the Fascist regime's denial of the existence of homosexuality in Italy and its clandestine strategies and motivations for repressing and imprisoning homosexuals; he uncovers the ways that accusations of homosexuality (whether true or false) were used against political and personal enemies; and above all, he shows how homosexuality was deemed the enemy of the Fascist "New Man," an ideal of a virile warrior and dominating husband vigorously devoted to the "political" function of producing children for the Fascist state. Benadusi investigates the regulation and regimentation of gender in Fascist Italy, and the extent to which, in uneasy concert with the Catholic Church, the regime engaged in the cultural and legal engineering of masculinity and femininity. He cites a wealth of unpublished documents, official speeches, letters, coerced confessions, private letters and diaries, legal documents, and government memos to reveal and analyze how the orders issued by the regime attempted to protect the "integrity of the Italian race." For the first time, documents from the Vatican archives illuminate how the Catholic Church dealt with issues related to homosexuality during the Fascist period in Italy
Notes Originally published as Il nemico dell'uomo nuovo: L'omosessualità nell'esperimento totalitario fascista. Milano : Feltrinelli, 2005
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Subject Fascism -- Italy -- History
Masculinity -- Italy -- History -- 20th century
Gay men -- Italy -- History -- 20th century
Fascism and sex -- Italy
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Gay Studies.
Fascism
Fascism and sex
Gay men
Masculinity
SUBJECT Italy -- History -- 1922-1945. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85068978
Subject Italy
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
Author Dingee, Suzanne.
Pudney, Jennifer.
LC no. 2011019926
ISBN 0299283933
9780299283933
1283486091
9781283486095
0299283941
9780299283940
9786613486097
6613486094
Other Titles Nemico dell'uomo nuovo. English