The battle of Turin, 1933–1936: Carlo Rosselli,Giustizia e Libertà, OVRA and the origins of Mussolini's anti‐Semitic campaign

This study draws attention to the intensity of the conflict between Carlo Rosselli and Giustizia e Libertà (the Italian liberal‐socialist anti‐Fascist organization) and the highest ranks of Italian Fascism, including Mussolini and OVRA ‐ the Fascist secret police ‐between 1933 and 1936. The activities of Rosselli and Giustizia e Libertà can be considered in the light of their secret attempts to organize the assassination of Mussolini and their efforts to disseminate broader anti‐Fascist sentiment in Italy. The militants of Giustizia e Libertà in Turin were key figures in the second of these operations. But the success of agents of OVRA in infiltrating Giustizia e Libertà resulted in three waves of arrests in Turin (in 1934, 1935 and 1936). However, Rosselli and GL showed a great capacity for recovery. By focusing on the struggle between Giustizia e Libertà and Fascism which had all the features of a civil war, and on the events in Turin in the period 1933–6, this research shows that the conflict between Fascism and anti‐Fascism was a central feature of the history of Italian Fascism even at the height of the regime's power. The article also offers a specific but incomplete study of the activities of OVRA. Since many of the members of Giustizia e Libertà in Turin were Jews, it also shows how OVRA's efforts to dismantle Giustizia e Libertà in Turin were closely linked to Mussolini's first anti‐Semitic campaign in 1934.     

Space agents: anti‐racist feminism and the politics of scale in Turin,Italy

This article discusses racialized politics among women in Turin, Italy, utilizing and expanding Neil Smith's concept of the spatial politics of scale specifically in relation to an anti‐racist organization, Alma Mater, that emerged during the early 1990s. International migration is relatively recent in Italy, and popular responses over the past decade have been both supportive and hostile. Overt and implicit expressions of racism and intolerance toward migrants have become apparent throughout the country. Migrant and Italian women have retaliated by engaging in a politics of space and scale to effect local and national labor and cultural practices. Through an examination of every day cultural–ideological practices and their links to broad political and economic processes I examine the relative success of Alma Mater in its ability to challenge scales and add to an understanding of the social production and reproduction of power relations at all scales.     

Multi‐level order,friction and contradiction: the evolution of Australian film industry policy

Cultural policy studies have previously highlighted the importance of multiple logics, friction and contradiction in cultural policy. Recent developments in institutional theory provide a framework for analysing change in cultural policy which explores movement between these multiple and sometimes contradictory logics. This paper analyses the role of friction in the evolution of Australian film industry policy and in particular the tension between competing logics regarding nationalism, commercialism and the state. The paper is suggestive of the relevance of institutional theory as a framework for understanding cultural policy evolution.     

Iran and the emergence of information and communications technology: the evolution of revolution?

This study examines the emergence of information and communications technology (ICT) in facilitating political protest in the Middle East, with a focus on the Iranian experience. With the rise of ‘emancipating technology’ to mobilise popular support, many had hoped that the incumbent regime in Iran would be steered towards a more democratic and less authoritarian path. At the same time, the Iranian regime itself has shown an increasingly sophisticated technical nous, constructing a centralised censorship network and using available technology to proliferate propaganda and control and subdue cyber-protest. As such, ICT has acted as a complex dual-edged sword in both mutually supporting and suppressing political activism in modern-day Iran.     

Representation and identity ‐ convergence of brain research and mind‐brain philosophy

Abstract

The localization or representation of mental abilities in the brain have always been considered as key questions for understanding the organization of the human nervous system. Particularly with the advent of modern electrophysiological and imaging techniques that provide maps of electromagnetic fields and metabolic processes on the living central nervous system, the representation theory is experiencing a scientific renaissance in neurology, but is only one theory, however, in the succession of a long philosophical tradition dealing with the possible identification of mental phenomena and brain processes. This dichotomy was formulated at the latest in the Cartesian dualism of res cogitans and res extensa of the mind‐body problem. Nowadays philosophical discussion, on the contrary, is dominated by monistic concepts that attempt to explain the mental realm on an organic foundation in order not to succumb to the problem of a psychophysical dualism. Of these, the identity theory offers a philosophically plausible concept postulating that the identity of brain conditions and mental phenomena is based on organic foundations. In this theory, the efforts of brain research converge on the representations of mental phenomena in the human nervous system. In a comprehensive approach, both concepts could complement each other.     

The multi ‐ racial commonwealth: Proceedings of the fifth unofficial commonwealth relations conference,Lahore, 15–27 March, 1954

THE MULTI ‐ RACIAL COMMONWEALTH: PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH UNOFFICIAL COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS CONFERENCE, LAHORE, 15–27 MARCH, 1954. By Nicholas Mansergh. Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1955. Pp. xii plus 1 175. 21/‐.     

The Risiera di San Sabba: Fascism,anti‐Fascism and Italian nationalism

This essay examines the postwar debates surrounding the Risiera di San Sabba, the site of a Nazi death‐camp near Trieste, and explores the deeper conflicts and contradictions in the formation of an Italian national identity in the period since the Second World War.