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y separately published work icon The Sensualist single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1991... 1991 The Sensualist
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Works about this Work

'A Comfortable Distance' : Weird Melancholy and Escapism in Casella’s 'The Sensualist' Giovanni Messina , 2015 single work
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 6 no. 1 2015;

This article deals with Casella's re-reading of the representation of Sicily as a bucolic land. In his novel The Sensualist, he interprets the pastoral and picturesque representation of the Island as a form of escapism from the sterile and dead centre of the outback on which feelings of weird melancholy are projected. Deeply melancholic, its characters have a double feeling of hate towards a colonial past that continues to haunt them due to the lost innocence of the Australian colonial dream which turned into a discourse of violence, and love due to the hope of recreating that lost innocence and optimism and wash away the polluting memories of the past. However, there is no possibility of recreating such an innocence and for the melancholic subject the only way out is to search for it in a land which is spatially and temporally distant. By drawing on Freud and Kristeva, it will also be suggested that Casella seems to suggest that the white subjects of the novel, but also Australia's society, will always be haunted by their loss of innocence unless they rethink their white identity as fragmented and acknowledge the polluting memories of the past. And as a consequence, they will always need a place like Sicily as a fetish that recreates their fantasy of superiority. [From the journal's webpage]

y separately published work icon Unveiling Absences, or Unsettling Multiculturalism, in Antonio Casella's The Sensualist and Venero Armanno's Romeo of the Underworld and The Volcano Giovanni Messina , Sicily : 2012 Z1885040 2012 single work thesis This study investigates the relationship between the Gothic topoi present in the three novels analysed and the possible liminality of first and second migrant generations. Besides, it explores how this affects the narrative architecture of these novels dismantling their common interpretation as authentic and mimetic . In other words, as sociological and ethnographic documents. The parodic and sublime effects of both Gothic topoi and uncanny intertextuality, read as semiotic elements of a literature of the arrivant, deconstruct the monological narrations of the multicultural discourse in Australia. In brief, Whiteness , ethnocentrism and identity. Such an approach unveils those Lacanian absences , which support the narcissistic image of the white subject, thus paving the way for hybridity. Scopo di questo studio è stato quello di analizzare gli elementi gotici presenti nei romanzi in esame al fine di evidenziarne il rapporto con il concetto di liminality delle varie generazioni di migranti e come la stessa venga veicolata dalla stessa struttura narrativa. Dunque, un rapporto tra forma e contenuto tendente a scardinare qualsiasi discorso di autenticità e mimesi che confina tali opere ad una sfera esclusivamente sociologica ed etnografica. L effetto parodico e sublime di questi topoi gotici e dell intertestualità, interpretati nella letteratura dell arrivant dei due autori come elementi semiotici, decostruiscono le narrazioni monologiche del multiculturalismo australiano. In breve, della Whiteness , dell etnocentrismo e dell identità. Tale approccio decostruttivo svela quelle assenze lacaniane fondanti l immagine narcisista del soggetto bianco e permette un discorso di soggettività ibrida .
An Interview with Antonio Casella 'On Leased Land' : The Sensualist by Antonio Casella Giovanni Messina (interviewer), 2010 single work interview
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 55 no. 1 2010; (p. 76-90)
Recent Perceptions of Rural Australia in Italian and Italian Australian Narrative Gaetano Rando , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: FULGOR , November vol. 3 no. 3 2008;
The publication in 2008 of the English translation of Emilio Gabbrielli's novel Polenta e Goanna based on Italian migrants in the West Australian goldfields brings into focus the themes of the bush, the outback and migration that since the mid 1850s (Raffaello Carboni, Rudesindo Salvado) have emerged as a constant thread in texts produced by Italian Australian writers. Italian settlement in rural and outback areas of Australia during the late 1800s and early 1900s has remained a largely unsung saga while most Italians migrating to Australia after 1947 ultimately settled in urban areas. Among the few who have written creatively about their experiences even fewer have engaged in themes related to the bush and the outback. Only four narrative writers - Giovanni Andreoni, Giuseppe Abiuso, Ennio Monese and Franko Leoni - have written about non-urban Australia in substantially social realist terms. More recently, this trend had taken a post-modern perspective in a few Italian Australian (Emilio Gabbrielli, Antonio Casella) and Italian writers (Stanislao Nievo, Dario Donati, Paolo Catalano) who depict the Australian outback as providing a solution to the protagonists' life quest and promote a discourse on nature as a dynamic, positive and vital element that contrasts with man's static negativism. This paper proposes to explore this latest trend and the resulting temporal and spatial dislocations that arise from the mapping of two overlapping cultural and geographical contexts. [Author's abstract]
Images of Sicily and Australia in the Narratives of Venero Armanno and Antonio Casella Gaetano Rando , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 22 no. 2 2008; (p. 155-161)
The article explores themes related to Sicily and Australia in the narratives of Armanno and Casella.
Untitled Shane McCauley , 1992 single work review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , August/September vol. 7 no. 8 & 9 1992; (p. 13)

— Review of The Sensualist Antonio Casella , 1991 single work novel
Revisiting the Past with Irony, Not Innocence Helen Elliott , 1991 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 21 December 1991; (p. 7)

— Review of Prophesying Backwards Penelope Nelson , 1991 single work novel ; The Sensualist Antonio Casella , 1991 single work novel
Tall Tales and Blue - with a Twist Dennis Davison , 1992 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 February 1992; (p. rev 5)

— Review of Flamingo Gate : A Novella and Stories Garry Disher , 1991 selected work short story ; A Twist in the Tale : Three Novellas Hugh Atkinson , 1991 selected work novella ; The Sensualist Antonio Casella , 1991 single work novel
Sicilian Sybarite Claire Mills , 1991 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Bookseller & Publisher , October vol. 71 no. 1020 1991; (p. 22)

— Review of The Sensualist Antonio Casella , 1991 single work novel
Muddled Lives Written in Similar Style Josephine Barcelon , 1991 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January (1991-1992) no. 137 1991; (p. 21-22)

— Review of The Sensualist Antonio Casella , 1991 single work novel
Literature of Nostalgia Antonio Casella , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literary and Social Diasporas : An Italian Australian Perspective 2007; (p. 39-50)
Images of Sicily and Australia in the Narratives of Venero Armanno and Antonio Casella Gaetano Rando , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 22 no. 2 2008; (p. 155-161)
The article explores themes related to Sicily and Australia in the narratives of Armanno and Casella.
An Interview with Antonio Casella 'On Leased Land' : The Sensualist by Antonio Casella Giovanni Messina (interviewer), 2010 single work interview
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 55 no. 1 2010; (p. 76-90)
y separately published work icon Unveiling Absences, or Unsettling Multiculturalism, in Antonio Casella's The Sensualist and Venero Armanno's Romeo of the Underworld and The Volcano Giovanni Messina , Sicily : 2012 Z1885040 2012 single work thesis This study investigates the relationship between the Gothic topoi present in the three novels analysed and the possible liminality of first and second migrant generations. Besides, it explores how this affects the narrative architecture of these novels dismantling their common interpretation as authentic and mimetic . In other words, as sociological and ethnographic documents. The parodic and sublime effects of both Gothic topoi and uncanny intertextuality, read as semiotic elements of a literature of the arrivant, deconstruct the monological narrations of the multicultural discourse in Australia. In brief, Whiteness , ethnocentrism and identity. Such an approach unveils those Lacanian absences , which support the narcissistic image of the white subject, thus paving the way for hybridity. Scopo di questo studio è stato quello di analizzare gli elementi gotici presenti nei romanzi in esame al fine di evidenziarne il rapporto con il concetto di liminality delle varie generazioni di migranti e come la stessa venga veicolata dalla stessa struttura narrativa. Dunque, un rapporto tra forma e contenuto tendente a scardinare qualsiasi discorso di autenticità e mimesi che confina tali opere ad una sfera esclusivamente sociologica ed etnografica. L effetto parodico e sublime di questi topoi gotici e dell intertestualità, interpretati nella letteratura dell arrivant dei due autori come elementi semiotici, decostruiscono le narrazioni monologiche del multiculturalismo australiano. In breve, della Whiteness , dell etnocentrismo e dell identità. Tale approccio decostruttivo svela quelle assenze lacaniane fondanti l immagine narcisista del soggetto bianco e permette un discorso di soggettività ibrida .
Recent Perceptions of Rural Australia in Italian and Italian Australian Narrative Gaetano Rando , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: FULGOR , November vol. 3 no. 3 2008;
The publication in 2008 of the English translation of Emilio Gabbrielli's novel Polenta e Goanna based on Italian migrants in the West Australian goldfields brings into focus the themes of the bush, the outback and migration that since the mid 1850s (Raffaello Carboni, Rudesindo Salvado) have emerged as a constant thread in texts produced by Italian Australian writers. Italian settlement in rural and outback areas of Australia during the late 1800s and early 1900s has remained a largely unsung saga while most Italians migrating to Australia after 1947 ultimately settled in urban areas. Among the few who have written creatively about their experiences even fewer have engaged in themes related to the bush and the outback. Only four narrative writers - Giovanni Andreoni, Giuseppe Abiuso, Ennio Monese and Franko Leoni - have written about non-urban Australia in substantially social realist terms. More recently, this trend had taken a post-modern perspective in a few Italian Australian (Emilio Gabbrielli, Antonio Casella) and Italian writers (Stanislao Nievo, Dario Donati, Paolo Catalano) who depict the Australian outback as providing a solution to the protagonists' life quest and promote a discourse on nature as a dynamic, positive and vital element that contrasts with man's static negativism. This paper proposes to explore this latest trend and the resulting temporal and spatial dislocations that arise from the mapping of two overlapping cultural and geographical contexts. [Author's abstract]
Last amended 15 Oct 2001 17:59:09
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