Writing Together in Italy. An Analysis of Community-Collectives

Abstract

The thesis investigates the phenomenon of writing together, which has become recently more and more popular, especially in Italy. Starting with theoretical considerations about different practices of writing together, the thesis focuses on collective writing (i.e. writing collectively for literary purposes). In particular, a new category of collective writers is coined, i.e. “community-collectives”. Such a term combines sociological, psychological, and literary features as well, and designates those groups of writers who combine creative writing and democratic authorship. Four “community-collectives” are detected within the Italian cultural landscape, and it seems that no international counterparts can be found at the moment. These collectives — i.e. Wu Ming, Kai Zen, Paolo Agaraff, and Pelagio D’Afro — are thus analyzed in order to highlight community-collectives’ poetics, paying attention both to their experimental style and their democratic political tendency.