This paper examines the aesthetic construction of organized crime in contemporary Italian media and literature, focusing on the tension between fascination and civic responsibility. Through a comparative analysis of the television series Il capo dei capi (2007) and Gaetano Savatteri’s novel La congiura dei loquaci (2007), the study investigates how different narrative forms shape the symbolic configuration of the mafia within the public imagination. While serialized audiovisual storytelling tends to centralize the criminal figure and produce an aura of dramatic intensity that risks aestheticizing violence, the literary text develops a strategy of narrative disenchantment, reframing the mafia as a structural phenomenon of social and political degradation. Drawing on cultural studies and theories of symbolic power, the paper explores how formal choices—such as focalization, narrative hierarchy, and temporal structure—contribute to legitimizing or destabilizing collective representations. Rather than adopting a moralistic stance, the analysis seeks to understand how narrative forms participate in the production of meaning and in the construction of interpretative frameworks through which violence is perceived, normalized, or contested. By foregrounding the responsibility embedded in aesthetic configurations, this study situates narrative as a crucial site of cultural negotiation in contemporary Italy.

Authors:
Simone Giuseppe Verace, Université de Lille, France

About the Presenter(s)
Simone Giuseppe Verace is an Italian language teacher and Master’s student in Italian Studies at the University of Lille. His research focuses on the relationship between narrative forms, symbolic power, and contemporary media representations. He is

See this presentation on the full schedule – Friday Schedule

Bookmark