“ESSERE CORPO”: THE ROLE OF THE BODY (AND ITS IMAGINARY) IN THE GREAT WAR.

“Essere Corpo” is a volume edited by Tancredi Articoand published by Lint in 2016. It was developed as part of the research project “The body of human memories”, a work concerning the role of the body in literature, philosophy, visual arts and photography. It was financed by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, sponsored by the University of Trento, by the “Struttura di Missione” of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers and by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. “Essere Corpo” has obtained the high recognition of Unesco, and is composed of sixteen contributions, by as many authors, which provide an overview of the testimonial value of the body, taking as its object of study the First World War.

The book spans the five-year period of bloody thanks to essays on the history of literature, contemporary history, sociology of communication and history of art. The purpose of the book is to probe, in a transversal way, the testimonial experience of the Great War, conceiving the body not only as the starting point for its content but also and above all as the vehicle for human communication.

“Essere Corpo” tries to take stock of The First World War daily journals in an innovative way, through a transverse rather than historicist approach, but also looks at other forms of witness production, related to art history and propaganda. The cover crowns its path: it emblematizes the choice to avoid a rigid historical-mathematical approach and to bring the book into the contemporary through what is a modern reinterpretation of an experience of pain: hereby the artwork of Paolo Patelli, Glue Zebra, was chosen as the icon of the book.