This book introduces the Neapolitan 'femminielli', their customs and practices through essays originally published in Italian and newly translated into English. Scholars and students of Cultural Anthropology, Psychology, Gender Studies, History, Performance, and Literature will all find something engaging and timely in this collection.
This book introduces the Neapolitan 'femminielli', their customs and practices through a series of essays originally published in Italian and newly translated into English. Historically present in the city of Naples, Italy and surrounding provinces, femminielli express their social identity in a form that is neither masculine nor feminine but contains both, and has liminal characteristics. Contributors weave historical, socio-cultural, literary, iconographic, and artistic traces to explore different facets of this human experience and demonstrate the extreme complexity of what they observed. Their efforts show the femminielli to be a very articulated and at the same time fluid reality, multifaceted and dynamic, in relation to its contextual dimensions.
Scholars and university students of Cultural Anthropology, Psychology, Gender Studies, History, Performance, and Literature will all find something engaging and timely in this collection.
Foreword
JACK DRESCHER
Preface to the English Edition
PAOLO VALERIO, AMELIA ROSA, TUNDO AND EUGENIO ZITO
Preface [ 2019]: On the Neapolitan femminielli
EUGENIO ZITO AND PAOLO VALERIO
Preface [ 2013]: The Neapolitan femminielli, through historical reality,
imagination and memory
LUIGI MARIA LOMBARDI SATRIANI
Introduction
EUGENIO ZITO AND PAOLO VALERIO
1. And I came across [ an effeminate] one in Naples. Femminielli, traces in
history, and mythography
EUGENIO ZITO, NICOLA SISCI, AND PAOLO VALERIO
2. Femminielli: The history of a term, from jargon to anthropological
communication
PATRICIA BIANCHI
3. The Neapolitan femminielli: Some anthropological considerations
GABRIELLA DAGOSTINO
4. Gender crossings and new paths in identity
GIANFRANCA RANISIO
5. Neapolitanness and post-modern identities: New cultural shapes for the
femminiello in Naples
ANNALISA DI NUZZO
6. A wedding in the Bay of Naples?
GENNARO CARRANO AND PINO SIMONELLI
7. I/WE; masculine, feminine/transgender: On the revival of the juta ritual
FRANCESCA VERDE
8. Femminielli, rivals in seduction: Feelings, identity, and sexuality in
Naples and in Campania
CORINNE FORTIER
9. Femminielli: A singular sociocultural limbo of fortune and death
MARINELLA MIANO BORRUSO
10. Text and context of the femminielli: Socio-anthropological considerations
on a gender-related study
EUGENIO ZITO
11. In nomine femminielli: Ethnographic research on gender variant people
living in contemporary Naples
MARZIA MAURIELLO
12. The femminiello is dead! long live the femminiello! Patrimonialization
and rebirth of Naples own social figure
MARIA CAROLINA VESCE
13. In my dream I was always opening a massive doorway: Self-narration and
construction of gender variant identity in Naples
EUGENIO ZITO
14. Traces on Cybeles path: Historical antecedents and ethnographic findings
NICO STAITI
15. A photograph, a case, and an alley named femminelle: Searching for
third-gender identities in 19th-century Naples
AMELIA ROSA TUNDO
Paolo Valerio, honorary professor of Clinical Psychology at Naples Federico II, advanced the wellbeing of transgender and gender diverse persons. As President of the National Observatory on Gender Identity and the Fondazione Genere, Identità, Cultura ETS, he advocates sexual minorities rights. His extensive publications regard gender Identity, homo-bi-transphobia, intersexuality.
Amelia Rosa Tundo is an independent researcher and translator. Her roles in Being Third Gender, Being Neapolitan Culture, History and the Femminielli reflect her background in the Humanities (B.A., University of Detroit; M.A., Wayne State University; AbD, Indiana University) and her Neapolitan experience. She is a published translator and co-author.
Eugenio Zito, Gender Studies PhD, is associate professor of Cultural Anthropology at Naples Federico II and full member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, the Italian Society of Cultural Anthropology and the Board of the Italian Society of Medical Anthropology. His extensive publications regard gender, embodiment, subalternity, chronic illness.
