Overview

In 1996, with the publication of Southern Thought, Italian writer Franco Cassano became widely recognized as one of the most important voices in the contemporary Italian and European intellectual scene. In this engaging and provocative book, which ranges effortlessly between the fields of sociology, political science, philosophy, cultural anthropology, and literature, Cassano offers a critique of normative models of modernization derived from Eurocentric and North Atlantic paradigms, while claiming that autonomous paths to modernity exist in the Mediterranean and the so-called Global Souths. Cassano's rethinking of the South seeks nothing less than to reverse the North-South relationship: ""not to think of the South in light of modernity, but rather to think of modernity in light of the South."" In this work, the South is no longer a belated, imperfect, incomplete, and not-yet North but the space of a differential, autonomous identity to be recovered and rediscovered. Thus, Southern Thought not only exemplifies a brilliant critique of Occidentalism but represents a valiant attempt to restore agency and dignity to the heritage and legacies of Southern civilizations and cultures. Four additional essays supplement this English translation of the original Italian book.

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Reviews

<br>Cassano's book furnishes a theoretical and sociohistorical map whereby marginality, silence, difference, and other forms of cultural suppression can finally articulate a discourse aimed not solely at deconstructing Northern European modernity, but at shaping a new understanding of the complex relation between peoples, cultures and the environment. These perspectives have long been locked up in the Souths of the world, and in the Mediterranean in particular.-Peter Carravetta<p><br>Franco Cassano Il pensiero meridiano was a pioneer work of today's talks and debates on the Global South. His insightful thoughts and clear prose remind us that the Southern Question includes Europe and the US and not only the ex-Third World. From Gramsci's Southern Question to Cassano's Il pensiero meridiano and to Roberto Dainotto Europe (In Theory), a powerful genealogy of geopolitics of knowledge is a trade mark of Italian de-colonial thinking. This translation is a welcome and needed contribution to enlarge the spectrum of European critical thoughts.-Walter Mignolo<p><br>This remarkable translation of Franco Cassano's Southern Thought, supplemented by other essays on the Mediterranean, offers to theEnglish speaking world the long awaited and much needed access to one of the most original and provocative minds of our times. Written with verve, intelligence and passion against all fundamentalisms, religious and economic alike, Cassano's pages are as invaluable to scholars inthe growing field of Mediterranean Studies as they will be stimulating to the general reader.-Roberto Dainotto<p><br>

Franco Cassano's Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, finally available to an English-language audience thanks to this long-overdue translation, represents an important contribution to the cultural and philosophical critique of modernity. Cassano's essay traces a Southern agenda to thinking and learning about the world. In doing so, Cassano, professor of sociology at the University of Bari in southern Italy, also seeks to unsettle the orthodox topography of Europe and the latter's position within narratives about modernization and development. The text, which originally appeared in Italian in 1996 and was reprinted with a new preface in 2005, has a cult book status within Italian academic and public debates. - Nick Dines (Roma Tre University), H-SAE

Franco Cassano Il pensiero meridiano was a pioneer work of today's talks and debates on the Global South. His insightful thoughts and clear prose remind us that the Southern Question includes Europe and the US and not only the ex-Third World. From Gramsci's Southern Question to Cassano's Il pensiero meridiano and to Roberto Dainotto Europe (In Theory), a powerful genealogy of geopolitics of knowledge is a trade mark of Italian de-colonial thinking. This translation is a welcome and needed contribution to enlarge the spectrum of European critical thoughts. -Walter Mignolo, Duke University Cassano's book furnishes a theoretical and sociohistorical map whereby marginality, silence, difference, and other forms of cultural suppression can finally articulate a discourse aimed not solely at deconstructing Northern European modernity, but at shaping a new understanding of the complex relation between peoples, cultures and the environment. These perspectives have long been locked up in the Souths of the world, and in the Mediterranean in particular.-Peter Carravetta Franco Cassano Il pensiero meridiano was a pioneer work of today's talks and debates on the Global South. His insightful thoughts and clear prose remind us that the Southern Question includes Europe and the US and not only the ex-Third World. From Gramsci's Southern Question to Cassano's Il pensiero meridiano and to Roberto Dainotto Europe (In Theory), a powerful genealogy of geopolitics of knowledge is a trade mark of Italian de-colonial thinking. This translation is a welcome and needed contribution to enlarge the spectrum of European critical thoughts.-Walter Mignolo This remarkable translation of Franco Cassano's Southern Thought,supplemented by other essays on the Mediterranean, offers to theEnglish speaking world the long awaited and much needed access to one of the most original and provocative minds of our times. Written with verve, intelligence and passion against all fundamentalisms, religious and economic alike, Cassano's pages are as invaluable to scholars inthe growing field of Mediterranean Studies as they will be stimulating to the general reader.-Roberto Dainotto

<br>Cassano's book furnishes a theoretical and sociohistorical map whereby marginality, silence, difference, and other forms of cultural suppression can finally articulate a discourse aimed not solely at deconstructing Northern European modernity, but at shaping a new understanding of the complex relation between peoples, cultures and the environment. These perspectives have long been locked up in the Souths of the world, and in the Mediterranean in particular.-Peter Carravetta<p><br>Franco Cassano Il pensiero meridiano was a pioneer work of today's talks and debates on the Global South. His insightful thoughts and clear prose remind us that the Southern Question includes Europe and the US and not only the ex-Third World. From Gramsci's Southern Question to Cassano's Il pensiero meridiano and to Roberto Dainotto Europe (In Theory), a powerful genealogy of geopolitics of knowledge is a trade mark of Italian de-colonial thinking. This translation is a welcome and needed contribution to e

""Franco Cassano's Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, finally available to an English-language audience thanks to this long-overdue translation, represents an important contribution to the cultural and philosophical critique of modernity. Cassano's essay traces a ""Southern"" agenda to thinking and learning about the world. In doing so, Cassano, professor of sociology at the University of Bari in southern Italy, also seeks to unsettle the orthodox topography of Europe and the latter's position within narratives about modernization and development. The text, which originally appeared in Italian in 1996 and was reprinted with a new preface in 2005, has a ""cult book"" status within Italian academic and public debates."" - Nick Dines (Roma Tre University), H-SAE

Author Information

Valerio Ferme (PhD, comparative literature, UC Berkeley) is Dean of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Cincinnati. His books include Tradurre è tradire: La traduzione come sovversione culturale sotto il fascismo (Longo, 2002); Women, Enjoyment, and the Defense of Virtue in Boccaccio's Decameron (Palgrave, 2015); and, with coauthor Norma Bouchard, Italy and the Mediterranean in the Post-Cold War Era (Palgrave, 2013). He is also coeditor of From Otium to Occupatio in Italian Culture, Annali d'Italianistica (2014) and Mediterranean Encounters in the City (2015), and cotranslator of Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean (Fordham University Press, 2012). He has published over fifty articles and reviews.

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