Giovanni Messina (International) assertion Giovanni Messina i(A134877 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 A ‘National Beverage’ : The ‘Sugary’ Tea-ritual in Nancy Cato’s Brown Sugar Giovanni Messina , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 16 no. 2 2016; 'In this paper I will deal with the re-interpretation of the tea-ritual and the sugar metaphors in Nancy Cato’s Brown Sugar from a symbol of exclusion and purity to one of hybridity. In the same way the vehicle speaks of the tenor, so the past in the novel enlightens the present. Moreover, I will start by focusing on Cato’s literary works underlying two of the many important themes unfolded in them; then, I will analyse these themes in Brown Sugar and focus on the situation of South Pacific Islanders and women to unveil the cracks in the myth of the nation or, in other words, what was believed to be a pluralistic and egalitarian society at the time of her writing Brown Sugar. ' (Publication abstract)
1 'A Comfortable Distance' : Weird Melancholy and Escapism in Casella’s 'The Sensualist' Giovanni Messina , 2015 single work
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 6 no. 1 2015;

This article deals with Casella's re-reading of the representation of Sicily as a bucolic land. In his novel The Sensualist, he interprets the pastoral and picturesque representation of the Island as a form of escapism from the sterile and dead centre of the outback on which feelings of weird melancholy are projected. Deeply melancholic, its characters have a double feeling of hate towards a colonial past that continues to haunt them due to the lost innocence of the Australian colonial dream which turned into a discourse of violence, and love due to the hope of recreating that lost innocence and optimism and wash away the polluting memories of the past. However, there is no possibility of recreating such an innocence and for the melancholic subject the only way out is to search for it in a land which is spatially and temporally distant. By drawing on Freud and Kristeva, it will also be suggested that Casella seems to suggest that the white subjects of the novel, but also Australia's society, will always be haunted by their loss of innocence unless they rethink their white identity as fragmented and acknowledge the polluting memories of the past. And as a consequence, they will always need a place like Sicily as a fetish that recreates their fantasy of superiority. [From the journal's webpage]
1 Hoaxing Jokes : Unveiling (Un)canny Ethnic Hoaks Giovanni Messina , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association of Studies on Australia, , vol. 3 no. 2 2012; (p. 90-104) 'This article deals with two ethnic hoaxes - O'Grady's They're A Weird Mob and Demidenko's The Hand that Signed the Paper - examining their reception in the Australian literary market through the lens of Freud's theory of the comic and the joke. Focusing on etymological implications of the comic and the joke, their respective containing and rupturing effects and how these interlink colonial, assimilationist and multicultural discourses in Australia will be pointed out. Apart from revisiting the social and literary backgrounds of the novels this will cast light on their similar perpetuation of binary oppositions which de-aestheticise the inferior "other" in favour of the superior "White" subject. On the other hand, the comic-joke relationship will be useful in order to interpret the psychoanalytical reasons for the diametrically opposite reception the novels received after the hoaxes were unveiled. This reception was due not merely to the different content of the novels but also to the locus of the comic. In They're a Weird Mob the comic is embedded inside the text, thus containing the rupturing effect of the joke, which reveals the mimicral relationship between the two subjects of the above binary opposition and, thus, the post-colonial/post-multicultural "similarity" between them, even after the hoax was revealed. However, in Demidenko's case the locus of the comic is to be found in its epitextual elements which meant that, once the hoax was discovered, the joke with its psychoanalytical meanings and fears haunted the "White" subject in the open, rupturing such a subject's putative superiority. It is with the latter meaning that the neologism "hoaks" is used in this article; that is, to sum up the idea that ethnic hoaxes play on the slippery psychoanalytical ground of the comic and the joke, of superiority and its opposite, uncanny fears.' (Author's abstract)
1 y separately published work icon Unveiling Absences, or Unsettling Multiculturalism, in Antonio Casella's The Sensualist and Venero Armanno's Romeo of the Underworld and The Volcano Giovanni Messina , Sicily : 2012 Z1885040 2012 single work thesis This study investigates the relationship between the Gothic topoi present in the three novels analysed and the possible liminality of first and second migrant generations. Besides, it explores how this affects the narrative architecture of these novels dismantling their common interpretation as authentic and mimetic . In other words, as sociological and ethnographic documents. The parodic and sublime effects of both Gothic topoi and uncanny intertextuality, read as semiotic elements of a literature of the arrivant, deconstruct the monological narrations of the multicultural discourse in Australia. In brief, Whiteness , ethnocentrism and identity. Such an approach unveils those Lacanian absences , which support the narcissistic image of the white subject, thus paving the way for hybridity. Scopo di questo studio è stato quello di analizzare gli elementi gotici presenti nei romanzi in esame al fine di evidenziarne il rapporto con il concetto di liminality delle varie generazioni di migranti e come la stessa venga veicolata dalla stessa struttura narrativa. Dunque, un rapporto tra forma e contenuto tendente a scardinare qualsiasi discorso di autenticità e mimesi che confina tali opere ad una sfera esclusivamente sociologica ed etnografica. L effetto parodico e sublime di questi topoi gotici e dell intertestualità, interpretati nella letteratura dell arrivant dei due autori come elementi semiotici, decostruiscono le narrazioni monologiche del multiculturalismo australiano. In breve, della Whiteness , dell etnocentrismo e dell identità. Tale approccio decostruttivo svela quelle assenze lacaniane fondanti l immagine narcisista del soggetto bianco e permette un discorso di soggettività ibrida .
1 An Interview with Antonio Casella 'On Leased Land' : The Sensualist by Antonio Casella Giovanni Messina (interviewer), 2010 single work interview
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 55 no. 1 2010; (p. 76-90)
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