University College London
UCL SELCS-CMII World Literatures and Cultures and Italian Studies,
with the Society for Italian Studies Networking Scheme

Research seminar
“Modernist Reflections on Ecology and Masculinity between Italy and Austria”

20 May, 2026, 4.00-7.00 pm
in person: 9 Garwood LT in South Wing; and remotely https://ucl.zoom.us/j/96618627103

 

Dr Frey Kalus (Cambridge)
Rilke’s Dante: Italy, Ecology, Elegy

Abstract:
This talk will explore the reception of Dante by Austrian modernist poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
Conceived at the castle of Duino on Italy’s Adriatic coast in 1912, Rilke’s Duino Elegies are marked
by a profound engagement with Italian culture. The poet began the cycle after abandoning a
translation of the Vita Nuova into German, which he had attempted in collaboration with his
patron Marie von Thurn und Taxis. Despite this, the relationship between the two poets remains
neglected by critics in both Italian and German studies. Addressing this gap, my talk, which marks
the centenary of Rilke’s death, will reevaluate the importance of Dante for an understanding of
Rilke’s oeuvre. Reading the two poets through an ecological lens, it will focus on the image of the
rose, proposing a possible genealogy between Dante’s rose of the Empyrean and the rose in Rilke’s
Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. The rose is one of the most important and prolific motifs in
Rilke’s poetry, even appearing in the poet’s epitaph. Whilst the influence of French Symbolism,
the poetry of Baudelaire in particular, upon Rilke’s floral imagery has been widely documented,
this talk will suggest that botanical imagery in Dante’s Paradiso provides an important model for
Rilke’s representation of plants. Ultimately, the talk will demonstrate not only what our reading of
Rilke stands to gain from an understanding of the ecology of Dante’s Paradiso, but also the new
meanings that are brought to light in the Divine Comedy through a comparison with Rilke.

Speaker:
Dr Frey Kalus currently holds a MHRA Research Scholarship in the Modern European Languages
at the University of Cambridge. They completed a PhD in German and Italian Literature at
Cambridge in 2024 and subsequently spent a year as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Freie
Universität Berlin, attached to the Cluster of Excellence 2020 “Temporal Communities: Doing
Literature in a Global Perspective”.

 

Dr Marco Ruggieri (Edinburgh)
Fractured Virilities: Gramsci, Gadda, and Masculinity in Fascist Italy

Abstract:
This seminar examines critical engagements with hegemonic masculinity in Fascist Italy (1922–
1945). While the First World War fostered across Europe ideals of heroic masculinity aimed at the
militarisation of national identities, Fascism in Italy transformed the male-soldier-hero into an
institutionalised model regulating gender roles and bodily norms as well as political life.
Focusing on two Italian male intellectuals positioned at opposite ends of the political
spectrum – Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) and modernist writer Carlo Emilio
Gadda (1893–1973) – the seminar explores how they engaged with dominant ideals of heroism,
physical strength, and masculinity. Despite the extensive critical attention devoted to both authors,
their works have rarely been analysed through the lenses of gender, corporeality, disability, and
sexuality. By reading Gramsci’s reflections on heroism and revolution alongside his lived
experience of non-normative corporeality, and Gadda’s representations of the male body in
relation to homosexuality and his early adherence to Fascism, the seminar highlights forms of
masculinity that simultaneously internalise and question hegemonic norms.
The seminar argues that both authors articulate ‘fractured’ representations of masculinity
that expose the ableist and heteronormative foundations of the male-soldier-hero without fully
escaping its conceptual framework. By challenging binary narratives of masculinity and
foregrounding male ambiguity within Fascist culture, the seminar opens new perspectives for
understanding masculinity, a task made urgent by the current resurgence of authoritarian and
nationalist discourses and the continued appeal of ideas of ‘strong masculinity’.

Speaker:
Marco Ruggieri holds a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Edinburgh (2023). He
completed an MHRA-funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 2023–24 and is currently an
ECDS (Early Career Development Scheme) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
His book Mysterious Flames: Fascism, Identity, and Mass Culture in Umberto Eco was published in April 2026. His research examines questions of Fascism and identity in the works of Umberto Eco,
Antonio Gramsci, and Carlo Emilio Gadda, and investigates literary and media representations of
Southern Italy through the lenses of gender studies and postcolonial theory