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Bringing the empire home : Italian fascism’s Mediterranean tour of Rhodes

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McGuire_2018_CIS_BringingEmpireHome_CCBYNC_VoR.pdf (1.544Mb)
Date
01/12/2018
Author
McGuire, Valerie Elizabeth
Keywords
PC Romance languages
DG Italy
3rd-NDAS
BDC
Metadata
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Abstract
From 1912 until World War II, Italy occupied Rhodes and thirteen other islands in the Southeast Aegean as part of its territorial expansion. In comparison with Italian colonies in Africa the islands have received significantly less historical and critical attention. This article brings the Southeast Aegean into the light and into dialogue with ongoing debates about Italy’s colonial past. I argue that the islands offer an important lens onto the relationship between overseas expansion and the remaking of Italian national identity at home. The essay reconstructs a massive project to reinvent the port of Rhodes as an upscale resort town of cultural attraction for Italian and European tourists. It describes how the urban renovation of Rhodes was marked simultaneously by the desire to modernize the island and by the desire to preserve, embellish and celebrate the exotic setting of the island. Analyzing architecture, urban planning, touring propaganda, and representations of the local community in photography and film, the article illuminates Italian fantasies of recuperating cosmopolitan histories through Mediterranean colonial tourism. At the same time, these fantasies evolved over time. The articles tracks an unresolvable ambivalence about whether the islands were “Western” or “Eastern”—part of metropolitan Italy or part of its overseas expansion—and its ideological challenge to the Fascist ideas about nation and race.
Citation
McGuire , V E 2018 , ' Bringing the empire home : Italian fascism’s Mediterranean tour of Rhodes ' , California Italian Studies , vol. 8 , no. 2 , 9kd9m5tk , pp. 1-27 . < https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9kd9m5tk >
Publication
California Italian Studies
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2155-7926
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright 2018 the author. Licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC licence.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9kd9m5tk
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/18491

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