Motherhood, Fatherland,
and Primo Levi
The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Series in Italian Studies
General Editor: Dr. Anthony Julian Tamburri,
Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies is devoted to the publication of scholarly works on Italian literature, film, history, biography, art, and culture, as well as on intercultural connections, such as Italian-American Studies.
On the Web at http://www.fdu.edu/fdupress.
Recent Titles
Robert Pirro, Motherhood, Fatherland, and Primo Levi: The Hidden Groundwork of Agency in His Auschwitz Writings (2017)
Theodora D. Patrona, Return Narratives: Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature (2017)
Ursula Fanning, Italian Womens Autobiographical Writings in the Twentieth Century: Constructing Subjects (2017)
Gabriella Romani and Jennifer Burns (eds.), The Formation of a National Audience in Italy, 17501890: Readers and Spectators of Italian Culture (2017)
Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka (eds.), Pirandellos Visual Philosophy: Imagination and Thought across Media (2017)
Elena Borelli, Giovanni Pascoli, Gabriele DAnnunzio, and the Ethics of Desire: Between Action and Contemplation (2017)
Gregory M. Pell, Davide Rondoni: Art in the Movement of Creation (2016)
Sharon Wood and Erica Moretti (eds.), Annie Chartres Vivanti: Transnational Politics, Identity, and Culture (2016)
Flavio G. Conti and Alan R. Perry, Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania: Allies on the Home Front, 19441945 (2016)
Graziella Parati (ed.), Italy and the Cultural Politics of World War I (2016)
Susan Amatangelo (ed.), Italian Women at War: Sisters in Arms from the Unification to the Twentieth Century (2016)
Alberica Bazzoni, Emma Bond, and Katrin Wehling-Giorgi (eds.), Goliarda Sapienza in Context: Intertextual Relationships with Italian and European Culture (2016)
Tommasina Gabriele, Dacia Marainis Narratives of Survival: (Re)Constructed (2015)
Tullio Pagano, The Making and Unmaking of Mediterranean Landscape in Italian Literature: The Case of Liguria (2015)
Ernest Ialongo, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: The Artist and His Politics (2015)
Francesco Pascuzzi and Bryan Cracchiolo (eds.), Dreamscapes in Italian Cinema (2015)
Anthony Julian Tamburri, Re-reading Italian Americana: Specificities and Generalities on Literature and Criticism (2013)
Graziella Parati (ed.), New Perspectives in Italian Cultural Studies (Volume 2): The Arts and History (2012)
Barbara Pezzotti, The Importance of Place in Contemporary Italian Crime Fiction: A Bloody Journey (2012)
David Aliano, Mussolinis National Project in Argentina (2012)
Graziella Parati (ed.), New Perspectives in Italian Cultural Studies (Volume 1): Definition, Theory, and Accented Practices (2012)
Shirley Ann Smith, Imperial Designs: Italians in China, 19001947 (2012)
Motherhood, Fatherland,
and Primo Levi
The Hidden Groundwork of Agency
in His Auschwitz Writings
Robert Pirro
FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Madison Teaneck
Published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB
Copyright 2017 by Robert Pirro
Chapter three originally appeared in From The Sex Is Out of This World: Essays on the Carnal Side of Science Fiction, copyright 2012, edited by Sherry Ginn and Michael G. Cornelius, series editors Donald E. Palumbo and C. W. Sullivan III. Reprinted by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640. www.mcfarlandpub.com.
Chapter four originally appeared as Robert Pirro, Wartime Resistance and Republican Political Agency in Primo Levis Partisan Novel, Forum Italicum 2016 (50:3), pp. 11091129, copyright Robert Pirro. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. DOI:10.1177/0014585816669939.
In chapters one through six, 917 words were translated from Il sistema periodico by Primo Levi (Einaudi, 1994), 1,704 words were translated from Se questo e un uomo by Primo Levi (Einaudi, 2005), and 1,226 words were translated from Se non ora, quando by Primo Levi (Einaudi, 1992) [good faith effort].
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pirro, Robert Carl, author.
Title: Motherhood, Fatherland, and Primo Levi : the hidden groundwork of agency in his Auschwitz writings / Robert Pirro.
Description: Madison : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; Lanham, Maryland : Copublished by the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2017. | Series: The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press series in Italian studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026285 (print) | LCCN 2017038067 (ebook) | ISBN 9781683930860 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781683930853 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Levi, Primo--Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC PQ4872.E8 (ebook) | LCC PQ4872.E8 Z826 2017 (print) | DDC 853/.914--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026285
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For Julia and our boys
Acknowledgments
This work has had a long gestation period, going back to my first efforts in 2011 to get a grip on Levis uses of metaphors of infantile relationship to maternal presence in his science fiction stories. Those efforts eventually resulted in a piece published under the title, The Evil Wet Nurse: Preoedipal Development and Primo Levis Science Fiction, in the Sherry Gin and Michael G. Cornelius co-edited volume, The Sex Is Out of This World (2012). That piece, significantly augmented with new material, became chapter three of this book. My thanks to McFarland & Company, Inc, for permission to re-use this chapter. Thanks are also due to Sage Publishing and the editors of Forum Italicum for allowing me to use my article, Wartime Resistance and Republican Political Agency in Primo Levis Partisan Novel, as the basis for a greatly expanded analysis of the republican dimensions of Levis writings in chapter four of this work.
Translations of all direct quotations from four of the Primo Levi texts used in this bookSe non ora, quando? (published in English under the title, If Not Now, When?), Se questo un uomo (