Staff-Student Colloquium

Lecture by guest speaker Roberto Viviani, graduate student in the Italian Program.

Negation as Extreme Affirmative Gesture: The Influence of Herbert Marcuse on Late Pasolini鈥檚 Works

Beginning in the 1960s, Pier Paolo Pasolini shifted from neorealism to a more experimental cinematic style in which sexuality played a key role. Drawing on Herbert Marcuse's critical theory, Viviani contextualizes this aesthetic as a new Marxist turn. Contrary to existing scholarship, he argues that Pasolini's aesthetic exploration of sexual themes reflects not only individual expression but, more importantly, salient political and cultural critiques.