Paola
Bono has been on DWF's editorial board since 1986. She is also on
the editorial board of "The European Journal of Women's Studies",
and on the international advisory board of "Signs. A Journal of Women
in Culture and Society". A founding members of the "Società
Italiana delle Letterate", she was its first President. She teaches
English Theatre at the Università of Roma Tre.
Reviews for DWF
LALITHA GOPALAN, Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema
Books reviewed by DWF
Translations for DWF
Articles for DWF
The other word of Angela Carter, 1986, n. 2, pp. 87-104
The text is a critical forward to Angela Carter's long interview, and also, a short independent essay on reading as a metaphor of the relationship with the world. The author recognizes in herself two attitudes, both "partisan" and clearly subjective: an oppositive reading and a positive one.
Oppositive to "the identification of one self in symbolic forms that require the blindness of my intelligence, the disregard of my experience, my investment in images based on the denial of myself"; positive because it rejects hurried judgements on women's thought and work, in order to investigate what, on the other hand, an initial refusal really means. Paola Bono investigates the ambiguity of the fascination/refusal of this particular work: The Passion of the New Eve.
She verifies once more that the interview - in her illusion of authenticity - says nothing more about the project which is by now totally said in this book and she traces out the allegorical writing of the English author concluding that The Passion raises the question on the being and the becoming of oneself, on identity and representation: "Reading it another time The Passion of the New Eve became my possible passion, and the answers that I thought I had found in it became questions I asked myself beyond the text".
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Debate [Trial: let's listen: two meetings on politics], 1992, n. 16, pp.
7-23
Two encounters took place in December 1991 and February 1992 in the review's headquarters. The debate occurred in two moments, of which an account is given here synthetically but, on the whole, accurately. Elena Gentili, Ida Dominijanni, Annamaria Crispino, Maria Luisa Boccia, Annalisa Biondi, Roberta Tatafiore, Alessandra Bocchetti, Paola Masi, Vania Chiurlotto, Paola Bono, Marina Pivetta, Tilde Capomazza, Mariella Gramaglia, Rosanna Marcodoppido, Luciana Viviani, Rosetta Stella took part in the debate.
The principal issues were: the relation between social change and the creation of a female symbolic, in the connection of political practice and political action; the importance of language and of the reached, possible, necessary levels of comunication; the problem of the collective subject's possible residual quality, with the reasons which may create it and the ways of avoiding it by once more extending confrontation within the feminist community and beyond.
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BONO Paola - CHIURLOTTO Vania, An end and a beginning, 1993, n. 17, pp. 2-8
The collective who has acted as editorial board since 1986 traces the story of the last year: of the political crisis and of the discussions - on the internal dynamics of the group and on its position in the context of women's politics - which have resulted in a new series of the journal. We have taken stock of our differences and analysed our conceptions of the journal: as a consequence, not all the members of the collective are staying on.
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Leaving the happy island, 1993, n. 20, pp. 28-32
Once again, also in relation to the present situation of crisis and (hopefully) renewal of Italian society, there is much talk about the state of the University. Appeals and proposals have been appearing in newspapers and journals, often put forward by prestigious names of Italian culture.
Expressing her disillusionment with, and lack of trust in, comprehensive plans of reform, the author explains why she is on the contrary attracted by a proposal such as the one recently discussed in a national meeting of professors, lecturers and students; instead of asking for new rules at a legislative level, the lever of change is here personal responsibility.
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The hidden question, 1994, n. 22-23, pp. 21-24
Is there a time when the exigencies of democracy call women to redefine their priorities? Ought we to experience the demise of the left in the recent elections as our own defeat? We cannot pretend that nothing has changed, but neither can we subsume our politics to the electoral results; female freedom is not a matter of votes, and the construction of female authority can and must proceed even in a political situation which might seem to put other problems in the forefront.
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BONO Paola - MASI Paola, Rafts of Desire, 1995, n. 28, pp. 4-12
With a mix of personal memories and general observations and reflections, the authors look al the ways in which the geographical imaginary - the sites of desire - have changed in the last decades.
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GIOVANNONI Monica (introduced by BONO Paola), Lucrezia: ancient history,
an old story, 1996, n. 29, pp. 26-40
In this section of the journal, a feminist scholar of some standing [Paola Bono] introduces a younger scholar; this paper, by a very young scholar indeed (Giovannoni is only 23 and still an undergraduate), analyses Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece making use of both a linguistic and an historicist perspective.
The author highlights the construction of femininity through metaphors (wax, soil) assigning women a subordinate position, and she links such a construction to the social and legal organisation of the Roman world.
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(edited by), Mae West, or Goodness had nothing to do with it, 1997, n. 33,
pp. 5-14
A choice of Mae West's delightful, naughty and bizarre quotes, taken from her movies, accompanied by a short biographical note. Mae West always wrote her own dialogue, and was often the author of the story and/or the screenplay, creating a powerful 'persona', a female figure who both fulfilled and subtly ridiculed all male dreams, wishes and fears about women's sexuality.
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An unruly life, 1997, n. 33, pp. 28-36
The author looks at the autobiographical Narrative of the life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, showing the ways in which Charke, an actress and the daughter of actor, playwright and theatre manager Colley Cibber, plays her - female and male - roles both on the stage and in life, both sustaining and subverting the theatrical and social practices of eighteenth century England.
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BONO Paola - TESSITORE M. Vittoria, Dido Queen of Carthage: Transformations
of a Myth, 1997, n. 34-35, pp. 92-126
With a changing focus and through many means of expression, the story of Dido, princess of Tyre, widow of Sychaeus, unlucky lover of Aeneas, who died of her own choice on a sacrificial pyre, has been told and retold for more than 2000 years. Its transformations have accompanied the very making and transformations of European culture.
The authors partially retrace this multiform narration in its historical-geographical journeys and in its passages from one to another genre, thus inquiring into a play of variants and invariants linked to different aesthetical-literary, as well as political-ideological contexts.
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A necessary step, 1997, n. 36, pp. 29-32
Have passions and dreams disappeared from the political scene? Passions as personal involvement, as putting oneself at stake in and for a transformation of the world; dreams not as consolatory fantasies but as the capacity to see beyond and to think differently, without accepting "reality".
For years passionately concerned with politics, the author admits now to a feeling of confusion and discouragement, to a need to recover (redefine) the meaning of politics in order to be once more able to believe that change is possible and act accordingly, without experiencing a gap between her daily life and the great, often tragic, events of our present times.
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Potentially subversive,
1999, n. 41, pp. 6-13
A personal and political reflection on same aspects of theatrical activity: the itinerary of loss and gain of the self in order to be an actor/actress; the power of the theatre to reveal the constructed nature of supposedly immutable identities and roles; the female spectator as a decoder of both theatrical and everyday "reality".
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For Annarita Buttafuoco, 1999, n. 42-43, pp. 2-6
On the 26th of May, Annarita Buttafuoco, feminist historian and founder of "DWF", died in young age. She is remembered and mourned on behalf of the whole editorial board by those who shared the review's new project with her since 1985 and who still work in it: Annalisa Biondi, Paola Bono, Patrizia Cacioli, Vania Chiurlotto, Paola Masi.
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Writing (from) the world, 2000, n. 45-46, pp. 3-4
The authors, members both of DWF's editorial board and of the steering committee of the SIL, briefly tell the reasons for the collaboration resulting in this issue.
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BONO Paola - FORTINI Laura, Disloyal lovers, 2001, n. 4, pp. 6-14
With reference both to Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas and to Adrienne Rich's "Disloyal to Civilisation", in this dialogue Bono and Fortini propose and explore "disloyalty" as a position for women of different culture, race, ethnic group, class, religion. Being disloyal each to one's own culture, race, ethnic group, class, religion, while recognising their relevance to one's life, is a way of underlining sexual difference without cancelling the differences between women.
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Editorial note, 2003, n. 1, pp. 2-4
A presentation of the nine articles collected in this issue, each a reflection and/or a narration related to a single word. In fact, the issue - focussed on the multifaceted idea of "movement": energy, transformation, displacement, imagination … - took its present form throug the playful identification of these nine words, associated to that central concept by the members of the editorial board.
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Avant-garde, 2003, n. 1, pp. 10-16
A reflection on the military origins of the term - inevitable in a period marked by war - intertwines on the one hand with considerations on the role of women journalists in reporting the recent U.S. - Iraq conflict, and on the other with references to innovative writers such as Woolf, Stein, Richardson; the meaning of the term and the criteria of its application are also questioned using the example of the British suffrage movement and of its use of advertisement and spectacular techniques.
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Diatribe, 2004, n. 1-2, pp. 26-32
Modelled on Jovenal's "Satire I", this bitter divertissement is a furious indictment of advertising and of its pervasive and perverse presence in politics as well as in everyday life.
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Reviews for DWF
BAERI EMMA, I lumi e il cerchio, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1992
rev. by Paola Bono, 1992, n. 16, pp. 54-56
MARIANI Laura, Sarah Bernhardt, Colette e l'arte del travestimento,
Bologna, Il Mulino, 1996
rev. by Paola Bono, 1997, n. 34-35, pp. 127-129
MILLER J., Women Writing about Men, London, Virago Press Ltd., 1986
rev. by Paola Bono, 1986, n. 2, pp. 141-142
MURARO Luisa, L'ordine simbolico della madre, Roma, Editori Riuniti,
1991
rev. by Paola Bono, 1992, n. 16, pp. 60-61
ROSE Jacqueline, Sexuality in the Field of Vision, London, Verso, 1986
rev. by Paola Bono, 1986, n. 4, pp. 94-95
RUSS Joanna, How to Suppress Women's Writing, Austin, University of Texas
Press, 1983
rev. by Paola Bono, 1986, n. 1, pp. 132-133
WARNER Marina, Monuments and Maidens. The Allegory of the Female Form, London,
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985
rev. by Paola Bono, 1986, n. 2, pp. 140-141
LALITHA GOPALAN, Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian
Cinema, London, British Film Institute, 2002
rev. by Paola Bono, 2005, n. 1
Books reviewed by DWF
BONO Paola (edited by ), Questioni di teoria femminista. Un dibattito internazionale
a Glasgow, Luglio 1991, Milano, La Tartaruga, 1993
rev. by Franca Chiaromonte, 1993, n. 18-19, pp. 91-92
BONO Paola (edited by), Esercizi di differenza. Letture partigiane del mondo
e dei suoi testi, Genova, Costa & Nolan, 1999
rev. by Donatella Alesi, 1999, n. 44, pp. 85-88
BONO P. - KEMP S. (eds.), Italian Feminist Thought-A Reader, Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1991
rev. by Anna Rossi Doria, 1992, n. 16, pp. 61-67
Translations for DWF
FLAX Jane, Postmodernist thought and gender relationships in feminist theory
tran. by Paola Bono, 1989, n. 8, pp. 101-119
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MELLENKAMP Patricia, Troubling feminism. Cecilia Condit's exquisite corpses
tran. by Paola Bono, 1989, n. 8, pp. 11-29
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BLAU DUPLESSIS Rachel (edited and translated by BONO Paola), For the Etruscans,
2004, n. 3-4, pp. 58-84
The Italian translation of the famous lecture held by DuPlessis 25 years ago and published in The Pink Guitar. Writing as Feminist Practice, New York and London: Routledge, 1990. In the introduction, Paola Bono reflects on such delay trying to outline its reasons.