UCLA

This dissertation is an investigation of the local/global tensions shaping the aesthetics of three Italian authors born in the 20th century: Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975), and Gianni Celati (b. 1937). I argue that the relational coexistence of different geopolitical spaces operates in their literary and cinematic aesthetics. In particular, local/global tensions become evident in the ways the aesthetics of Pavese, Pasolini, and Celati expose their understanding of rootedness and uprootedness, locality and universalism, and access to mobility and sense of place. The study presents the changing relationships and tensions between the local and the global as a paradigm of research while also contributing to spatial studies in the humanities.