Literature, Spiritualities and the Politics of Meaning in Liberal Italy, 1861–1915 (Romance Studies)

This special issue examines the intersections of literature, spirituality, and politics in Italian culture between 1861, the year of Italian unification, and 1915, a symbolic threshold that, for Italy, marked both the onset of the war and the collapse of its liberal order. This period witnessed a profound epistemological crisis, as traditional structures of knowledge and belief were increasingly destabilized by the pressures of modernization, secularization, and rapid ideological and social change.