The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society
© 2018
The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society is the first English collection of writings by Italian jurist, sociologist, cultural and literary critic Scipio Sighele. Sighele is largely responsible for providing post-unification Italy with a new outlook on issues ranging from the blurring line between individual and collective accountability, the role of urbanization in the development of criminality, and the emancipation of women.
This work draws a multifaceted portrait of a provocative thinker and public intellectual caught between tradition and modernity during the European fin de siècle. Containing a comprehensive introduction by the editor, The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society includes Sighele’s seminal work, The Criminal Crowd, as well as his formative studies on group behaviour. Nicoletta Pireddu contextualizes Sighele’s contribution to the so-called ‘age-of crowds,’ from the fierce polemic with his French rivals Gustave LeBon and Gabriel Tarde to the scientific, literary, and cultural developments of his conceptualization of mass behaviours as a legitimate object of psychological investigation into a new century.
Product Details
- Series: Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library
- Division: Scholarly Publishing
- World Rights
- Page Count: 496 pages
- Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.0in x 9.0in
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Reviews
“Sighele’s work translated here into English for the first time offers a valuable contribution to the study of crowds, criminality, and the woman question at the turn of the twentieth century. It is a crucial text for anyone interested in the ways in which Italian intellectuals negotiated the social dynamics that emerged after the unification of Italy at the end of the nineteenth century.”
Elena Coda, Associate Professor of Italian, Purdue University
“Nicoletta Pireddu removes the false lights that have obscured the pioneering studies of crowds by Scipio Sighele and places his rich contribution in its historical and intellectual context, successfully reviving an important stream of thought for his time and ours.”
Filippo Sabetti, Professor of Political Science, McGill University
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Author Information
Scipio Sighele (1868-1913) an Italian sociologist and criminologist, was born in Brescia on June 24, 1868. After finishing the course in Law University of Rome, in 1892-1902 he taught at the Free University of Brussels.Tom Huhn is the chair of the Art History and BFA Visual & Critical Studies Departments at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He received a PhD in Philosophy from Boston University, and has been a visiting professor at Yale University and the University of Graz, Austria.
Nicoletta Pireddu (Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UCLA; Dottorato, English and American Literatures, Ca' Foscari University, Venice) is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on European literary and cultural relations, intellectual history, critical theories, and translation studies, and has been supported by NEH, Howard Foundation, and Borchard Foundation fellowships. She received the American Association for Italian Studies book prize (2002), the "Mario Soldati" award for criticism, the Georgetown FLL Distinguished Service Award, and the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Andrew Robbins is a PhD candidate in Italian at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, and owns an MA in Italian Studies from Georgetown University. His research focuses on intersections of science and culture in early 20th-century Italy.
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Table of contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Tom Huhn
Introduction: "Alchemies of the Collective Soul: Scipio Sighele’s Crimes and Punishments" By Nicoletta Pireddu
A Note on the Texts and their Translations
The Criminal Crowd. An Essay on Collective Psychology
From The Criminal Couple. A Study in Morbid Psychology
From Sectarian Criminality
From The Intelligence of the Crowd
From The New Woman
From Modern Eve
From Tragic Literature
From In Art and in Science
Index
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Subjects and Courses