Category Archives: Interviews, memoirs and other contributions (editorial review)

Regaining Iceland for the Catholic Church in the mid-19th Century

In the late 1850s, the Church of Rome sent missionaries to Iceland; to begin with, a Catholic priest and an assistant. The proclaimed purpose of their stay was to service the thousands of French seamen that were fishing for cod in Icelandic waters. However, although the official and most visible purpose of the Catholic mission was to attend to the French sailors, the mission was also meant to reclaim Iceland to the Catholic faith. This essay contains the first account of the experiences of father Bernard, the priest who was in charge of this mission.

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The Activist, the Ideologist and the Researcher. On “Guesstimates” and Trafficking in Women

A few months ago, an old and well-respected friend of mine invited me to join the local branch of ATTAC. He introduced me to the philosophy of the movement, which is based on a true understanding of economic mechanisms and their consequences. I must admit that I do not understand much about the world’s economic situation and this lack of understanding paralyzes my ability to judge and therefore to take sides. Therefore, I told him that I would begin by following the movement’s courses given to its new members.

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Winning the War of the World

The global corporate experiment has failed. Existence on earth is in rapid decline on every level of life organization. The air, soil and water cumulatively degrade and disappear; the climates and oceans destabilize without connection; species become extinct at a spasm rate across continents; pollution cycles and volumes rise endangering life systems on all planes in synergistic despoliation; the world’s forests, meadows and fisheries are cumulatively destroyed by the profit drivers of globalization; food pollinators, songbirds, coral reefs and large animals crash  in unconnected response; public sectors and services are defunded and privatized as tax evasion by the rich multiplies; the global food system produces more and more disabling junk and wastes; non-contagious diseases multiply to the world’s biggest killer; the global financial system issues money out of control while collapsing in productive investment; the vocational future of the next generations is erased across the world; official lies and corruption are normalized as public relations. All the trends are one-way, degenerate, and undeniable.

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The Sardinian Literary Spring: An Overview. A New Perspective on Italian Literature

This article aims at presenting today’s Sardinian literary scene and how some novelists (Sergio Atzeni, Giulio Angioni, Salvatore Mannuzzu, Salvatore Niffoi, Marcello Fois, Giorgio Todde, Milena Agus, Francesco Abate, Flavio Soriga and Michela Murgia), during the last few decades, drawing their narrative subjects directly from the regional and local culture, are contributing to a new development in Italian literature. These authors’ novels often contain references to Sardinian linguistic, social, anthropological and historical facts. Their success has led literary critics to talk about a Sardinian Literary Spring or Sardinian Nouvelle Vague, i.e. a literary phenomenon, which is the expression of a deep-rooted Sardinian identity.

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