Genealogy of an Absence
The Historical Weakness of the Bourgeois Narrative and the Popular Hegemony of Neapolitan Cinema
Keywords:
Neapolitan visual imagery, Visual culture, Urban narrativeAbstract
Neapolitan visual culture is marked by a representational fracture, the near-total inconsistency of the bourgeois narrative and, in parallel, the extraordinary vitality of popular representation. Within this asymmetry, rooted in historiographical evidence, the Neapolitan bourgeoisie has never exercised a hegemonic role in the production of signs. Lacking political continuity, a shared urban project, and an imaginary capable of sedimenting over time, the middle class has not generated recognizable lifestyles nor its own iconography. The result is a representational void that spans centuries, the bourgeoisie exists sociologically, but without any real representational force.
References
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J. Derrida, Gli spettri di Marx. Stato del debito, lavoro del lutto e nuova internazionale, Cortina Editore, Milano 1996.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Fausto Cianciullo (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
