Delirious Naples ― A Cultural History of the City of the Sun

This book is addressed to “lovers of paradoxes” and we have done our utmost to assemble a stellar cast of Neapolitan and American scholars, intellectuals, and artists/writers who are strong and open-minded enough to wrestle with and illuminate the paradoxes through which Naples presents itself. Naples is a mysterious metropolis. Difficult to understand, it is an enigma to outsiders, and also to the Neapolitans themselves. Its very impenetrableness is what makes it so deliriously and irresistibly attractive. The essays attempt to give some hints to the answer of the enigma, without parsing it into neat scholastic formulas. In doing this, the book will be an important means of opening Naples to students, scholars and members of the community at large who are engaged in “identity-work.” A primary goal has been to establish a dialogue with leading Neapolitan intellectuals and artists, and, ultimately, ensure that the “deliriously Neapolitan” dance continues.

Stanislao G. Pugliese (Edited By)
Stanislao G. Pugliese is Professor of Modern European History and the Queensboro Unico Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies at Hofstra University. His most recent book is Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone, winner of the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. He is the author of Answering Auschwitz: Primo Levi's Science and Humanism after the Fall (Fordham).

Pellegrino D'Acierno (Edited By)
Pellegrino D'Acierno is Professor of Comparative Literature and Languages at Hofstra University.