In the heated political climate of 1970s Italy, the first and longest-lived underground journal—Re nudo—aimed to link American radicalism with Italian extra-parliamentary politics.An arbiter of underground culture until the late 70s, Re nudo embraced the liberation of the individual from capitalism’s yoke by promoting psychedelics, sexual liberation, gay rights,feminism, and the revision of the institution of the family. Its audience was a new class in the making: a marginalized suburban proletariat made up of wage laborers, absentee students, and disaffected, angry youth. Its project went beyond the page: it even organized the largest music festival in Italian history. This talk will address the uses and limits of underground culture in creating a class aware of its revolutionary potential.

Informal meet-and-greet with students:
Friday, April 26 at noon in Klarman K164

Events sponsored by Romance Studies & the Institute for European Studies