Book Presentation. Serenella Iovino. Italo Calvino’s Animals: Anthropocene Stories (Cambridge University Press, 2021, Elements in Environmental Humanities)
After the publication of Sentiero dei nidi di ragno a Palomar, Italo Calvino never stopped writing animal stories. But what does a colony of Argentine ants in western Liguria share with an albino gorilla in the Barcellona Zoo, with a hen in a Turin factory, with feral cats in an industrial city, and a rabbit that has escaped vivisection? The answer is simple: all are animals that have something to say about us humans and how our species has set the stage for a new geological era – the Anthropocene. Following Calvino, Serenella Iovino talks about an epoch in which animals are both a threat and are threatened not because they are totally different from us because we, too, are animals, creatures in a world where equilibrium, including political equilibrium, is difficult to achieve in processes of co-evolution.
Felice Cimatti and Elena Past talk with the author on 5 October 2021 at the Circolo dei Lettori.
Felice Cimatti teaches philosophy of language at the Università della Calabria. He conducts the program Uomini e profeti on Rai Radio3.
Elena Past teaches Italian Studies at Wayne University, Detroit. An expert in ecocinema and environmental humanities, she is a member of the jury for the International Documentary section CinemAmbiente 2021.