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Iuliu Maniu (1873–1953) was a prominent Romanian politician known for his unwavering integrity and honesty. Maniu's legacy as a champion of Romanian patriotism and his close ties to the Greek-Catholic Church are celebrated. The narrative delves into his pivotal role in the union of Transylvania with Romania, alongside figures like Cardinal Iuliu Hossu and Patriarch Miron Cristea. sheds light on the challenges Maniu faced under the communist regime, culminating in his unjust imprisonment and tragic passing. The paper also examines Maniu's early life, education, and political career, highlighting his instrumental role in the Great Union of 1918. His leadership in the National Peasants' Party (Partidul Naţional Ţărănesc) and his efforts to create a thriving middle class in Romania are explored. The test emphasizes the stark contrast between the pre-and post-World War II political landscapes in Romania, marked by the rise of the Romanian Communist Party and the subsequent suppression of traditional parties. The grim reality of political trials and the harsh treatment of dissenting voices, including Maniu, are vividly depicted. The article concludes with reflections on Maniu's enduring legacy, underscoring his continued admiration for his contributions to Romanian nationhood and democratic ideals. Despite the efforts to erase his memory during the communist era, Maniu's impact remains an indelible part of Romania's history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we will explore the possibility of tracing a different version of the beginning of modernity throughout Dante's works. In opposition to the theological-political devices of secularisation, Dante provides us with opportunities to reframe the vision of modern society, neither separating nor hierarchising the different dimensions of the human, but recomposing heaven and earth, soul and body, thought and action. Dante's Purgatory testifies to the overcoming of the binary structure of medieval society and reflects the rise of a new civilization under the banner of the values and interests of the nascent bourgeoisie. The Earthly Paradise becomes the figure of a human happiness that can be drawn hic et nunc in the earthly world. It helps to create an alternative to the tendency to separate life into two zones of different values, of which the material and worldly one is morally and ontologically subordinate to the spiritual one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase of income inequality, begun in the '70s in the US and the UK, and since then extended to almost all developed countries, as well as the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the ensuing debt crisis, have put the issue of socio-economic inequalities under the spotlight of both public debate and scholarly research. In this process, inequality research has seen a convergence of substantive issues and technical tools over disciplines, and a general increase in the interest on wealth inequality, an issue for long neglected, not only for lack of data. This paper contributes to this debate by studying income and wealth in a social class perspective, thus building a bridge between macro-economic inequality research and sociological stratification research. Using income, wealth and occupation data from the Bank of Italy survey (SHIW), the paper looks at the levels and trends of income, net wealth and economic security (as measured by the ratio between net disposable wealth and monthly consumption) over social classes, from 1991 to 2016. Results show that (i) wealth inequality is much wider than income inequality; (ii) the between-classes component of both has been increasing over time; (iii) the class who lost more in the process is the working class, while the distances between the upper class and the middle classes has been substantially stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Altreitalie is the property of Centro Altreitalie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In their introduction to the anthology Cosmopolitanisms, Breckenridge et al. describe cosmopolitanism as “ways of living at home abroad or abroad at home” (2000: 587). Cosmopolitanism, in these two dimensions, is enacted in Satyajit Ray’s film Agantuk (1991) as well. While the dominant tendency in the film’s reception has been to draw a dichotomy between parochialism and cosmopolitanism – with each proclivity identified with a different branch of the same family tree – this paper shall attempt to problematize this binary. Rather than articulating a tension between the home and the world, this paper proposes that Agantuk illustrates two different cosmopolitanisms – a way of “living at home abroad” and a way of “living abroad at home”. While both cosmopolitan approaches diverge significantly, the film makes a strong case that they emanate from a common space of middleclass privilege and access, by contextualizing them against the economic liberalization reforms of 1991 India. Globalization is seen as fostering a banal, consumerist variety of cosmopolitanism – a means for a financially stable middle class to garner cultural capital, and to produce itself as “modern” on a global scale. It is this consumption-oriented cosmopolitanism that bears the brunt of the film’s critical as well as recuperative efforts. Melted and recast, it has the potential to produce a “thicker”, more inclusive form of local, everyday cosmopolitanism – a cosmopolitanism that is equipped to resist the impulse to flatten and commodify alterity, and to open itself to plural, co-existing modes of inhabiting modernity.

This paper proposes an analysis of Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884). In particular, it focuses on the first section of the novel, This World, which is interpreted as a satire of the Victorian society. In fact, the fictional world of Flatland appears to have been built exactly upon the middle class ideological standpoint. This is ironically translated into a series of strategies - both at a territorial and at a relational level - through which this group tries to maintain its hegemonic social position and, at the same time, to distance all those elements that may deviate from its image of respectability. This is investigated with special regard to the characters of the Irregular and of the isosceles triangle, towards which the middle class shows an attitude of closure. Such behaviour is nothing else but the satirical depiction of its ambiguous relationship with Otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The culture of consumption of Italian products in the United States, built within a wide system of transatlantic exchanges started in the late 19th century, played a key role in the rearticulation of Italian and American identity after World War II. If the diffusion of modern goods and advertising worked as a significant "transcultural mediator", the promotion of Italian products encouraged the American middle class to experience the Italian lifestyle by consuming its exports. In this sense, the history of the American trades of the so-called "Italian aperitif" - product, brand and consumerist ritual at the same time - represents an exemplary case study. In fact, since the early 1910s, the alliance between Italian artists and liquor producers pioneered a modern "artistic sentiment of promotion" which reshaped the international cocktail culture with a peculiar blend of Italian drinks, made with vermouth and bitter, and Italian styles, flourished in the modern domain of "la dolce vita". Combining the production and promotional history of the Italian aperitif with the iconographic analysis of some historical printed ads, the article proposes a first genealogy of an "aperitif visual culture" stemmed in the United States since the early 20th century. Subsequently, the post-war American campaign "Out of this world" by Austin, Nichols & Co. for Campari bitter is examined as a "social iconic act", analysing the illustrated material found in the Galleria Campari archives. From this first observation, the promotional blending between Italian spirits and its cultural "spirit" seems to have a major role in the diffusion of a consumerist culture based on the cosmopolitan values of versatility, conviviality, pleasure, and sophistication which, together with other expressions of Made in Italy, have influenced the social and cultural customs of post-war America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has two objectives. First of all, the article outlines the structural changes that have reconfigured the features of the public administration in the last decades in Italy and in the South in particular, and the related effects on the middle class. Second, it analyses the impact of these transformations on the citizenship gaps in Italy, between North and South. Overall, the reforms of the public administration, and the contextual cuts in employment and public spending, have increased the social vulnerability of the middle classes, leading to a decisive decline in status, especially in the South of Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scienza & Politica is the property of University of Bologna, Department of Political & Social Sciences Alma Mater Studiorum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract – This paper proposes an analysis of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions (1884). In particular, it focuses on the first section of the novel, This World, which is interpreted as a satire of the Victorian society. In fact, the fictional world of Flatland appears to have been built exactly upon the middle class ideological standpoint. This is ironically translated into a series of strategies – both at a territorial and at a relational level – through which this group tries to maintain its hegemonic social position and, at the same time, to distance all those elements that may deviate from its image of respectability. This is investigated with special regard to the characters of the Irregular and of the isosceles triangle, towards which the middle class shows an attitude of closure. Such behaviour is nothing else but the satirical depiction of its ambiguous relationship with Otherness.Sommario – Questo saggio propone un’analisi di Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) di Edwin Abbott Abbott. Nello specifico, esso si sofferma sulla prima sezione del romanzo, This World, interpretata quale satira della società vittoriana. Difatti, il mondo fantastico di Flatland sembra essere stato costruito proprio sulla base dell’ideologia della middle class, che è ironicamente tradotta in una serie di strategie – su un piano sia territoriale sia relazionale – tramite le quali questo gruppo tenta di mantenere l’egemonia della sua posizione sociale e, al contempo, di allontanare tutti quegli elementi che potrebbero deviare dalla sua immagine di rispettabilità. Ciò è esaminato con particolare riferimento ai personaggi dell’Irregolare e del triangolo isoscele, verso i quali la middle class mostra un atteggiamento di chiusura. Tale comportamento non è altro che la satirica raffigurazione del suo ambiguo rapporto con l’Alterità.