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| Articles |
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Antonio Casado da Rocha, Narrative Ethics and the Ecology of Culture: Notes on New Italian-Icelandic Sagas The following are a few loose notes about a tough subject: the relationship between ethics, storytelling and the legal-cum-social framework that makes human creativity thrive or decay. Rather than a tight argument, what I propose here is a few, unoriginal hints, in the hope that they may help others to pursue a fuller answer to the question, On what depends the preservation of transmission of a culture? Using some thoughts by A. MacIntyre and some examples taken from the history of Icelandic literature, I emphasize the role of alternative ways of understanding intellectual property, as well as some contemporary experiments in mythopoiesis, such as the one by the Italian collective of writers-activists known as Wu Ming. (find out more) Giuliano D’Amico, Il signor Erminio Ekdal and the first translation of "The Wild Duck": domesticating Henrik Ibsen for late Nineteenth-Century Italy The article focuses on the first Italian translation of Henrik Ibsen's "Vildanden" ("The Wild Duck") made by Enrico Polese Santarnecchi and Paolo Rindler in 1891. The emphasis is on how the translators domesticated the character of Hjalmar Ekdal, making him look closer to an authoritarian, Italian man rather than the lazy husband Ibsen depicted. This had a clear impact on the way the play was received in Italy, and has its foundations in a cultural milieu which Polese knew well and which he felt was unable to accept the sharpest and most sarcastic aspects of the original play. (find out more) Sigurður Kristinsson, The Rationalist of Aquino: Rescuing Aquinas from Intellective Determinism Aquinas's theory of human action seems to reduce the will to the status of an obedient servant, who can only choose actions that intellect has judged approvingly. So how can Aquinas claim that the will is free? And can his theory account for our apparent ability to make choices that defy the dictates of our own practical rationality? The keys to answering these questions lie in (1) Aquinas' attribution of freedom to reason as a whole, and (2) the role of intention in Aquinas' account. (find out more) |
| Conference proceedings |
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Maurizio Tani, Italo Balbo, Iceland and a Short Story by Halldór Laxness Notes on the Conference "La trasvolata Italia-Islanda del 1933" (Reykjavík, 7 June 2003) (find out more) Ragnar Borg, Framtak Balbos og þróun samskipta milli Ítalíu og Íslands When 24 Italian seaplanes "Savoia-Marchetti", headed by Italo Balbo, arrived to Iceland, stockfish was almost everything that, from the island, had ever reached Italy. The economic relations between Iceland and Italy were almost exclusively about it. Italian companies started to buy Icelandic stockfish in 1895. Since then, Icelandic fishing companies-establishing an agent in Genoa in 1925-traded stockfish regularly with Italy and imported in return Italian textile products to Iceland. Balbo's visit to Iceland launched a new era in the economic relations between the two countries, which expanded to many new sectors (viz. FIAT commercial vehicles). (find out more) Sigurður H. Þorsteinsson, Balboflugið frá sjónarhorni frímerkja söfnunar The article describes how the arrival of Italo Balbo's 24 seaplanes on 5th July 1933 was important in the history of Icelandic philately. Icelanders arranged for the occasion a special postal service between Italy and Iceland, which represented a significant step in the international integration of the nation. (find out more) |
| Interviews, memoirs and other contributions |
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Francesco Milazzo, Teaching Roman Law in Iceland
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