Rosetta Stella is an essayist. She is on DWF's editorial board, and is a member of the Roman group "Balena".
Articles for DWF
Reviews for DWF
Books reviewed by DWF
Articles for DWF
Muting in progress, 1988, n. 7, pp. 19-30
The author examines two theorical and practical problems specific to Udi - Unione Donne Italiane -, the oldest women's organization in Italy. The problems are: the relationship to the Italian Comunist Party: women's power and power among women. The XI Conference of Udi in 1982 decided in favour of a complete autonomy and identified the need for a separatist women organization.
Now, after the XII Conference (1988), the author goes beyond that, focusing on the necessity of individual responsibility in the making of the organization's political project. Moreover the author identifies the need to acknowledge the new forms of power in Udi despite the absence of the old hierarchical structure.
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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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The eye and the foot, 1996, n. 30-31, pp. 23-31
Nuns today are "women outside those stereotypes which still linger in the imaginary about them": Stella gives examples, referring to a number of nuns who "have taken advantage of the changes authorised by the Concilio Vaticano in order to go somehow further". In the second part of her paper, the author discusses the concept of "authority", and "the relationship between authority and obedience, in a Church which is still imbued of a hierarchical culture".
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Misunderstanding and Fetishes, 1997, n. 34-35, pp. 25-35
The author retraces the misunderstandings which in her opinion have characterised the relationship between the Left and feminism, looking at some key-concepts such as the idea of "movement" in the Italian context. The very concept of "community" takes on a different meaning: "We need a flexible network of women who, though not doing the same things, would nevertheless be the point of reference and the yardstick of judgement on how and how much sexual difference is finding a signification".
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STELLA Rosetta - GIARDINI Federica, Exploring new lands, 2001, n. 2-3, pp.
6-15
Stella and Giardini discuss the issue of a reciprocal acknowledgement between women of the others significance, authority, capacity, importance and acknowledgement that may result in consequences different from the original intention. Both underline that women are concerned about the forms and expressions of women's liberty.
Giardini remarks that for a younger woman approaching new themes, daring to pose new questions, may produce confusion if she hasn't a fruitful exchange with a woman whose authority she acknowledges.
Stella points to an additional problem, i.e. the difficulty of opening up a conflict with other women; anyway, what is certainly important is that a political relation with another woman should have a decisive weight in all situations.
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God and the flat roof of the Kabul's houses, 2001, n. 4, pp. 15-24
A lecture for a Seminar on the "feminine question" for Muslims and Christians, held in Modena (16 November 2001) and organised by ACLI, is the occasion to question the meaning of faith, tolerance, God for women and men of different religions after the events of September 11, 2001. The author dismantles the opportunistic interpretations of a war between religions.
Since it is impossible to justify of any war by the fundamental texts of any religion, the traumatic events of this war question our every day life of women and men and represent an extraordinary occasion, kairós, to revive politics. The asymmetric condition of women in western culture - always 'an imperfect belonging', infidels to father's law - gives them the possibility to build a new perspective, to conceive the unknown, the transcendent in every day life.
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The fury and grace of prophecy, 2003, n. 4, pp. 5-11
Commenting a passage from John's Gospel (XXI,18) about being lead where one would not wish to go, in the perspective of today's preventive obsession, the author sees in the protagonism of the many kamikaze who kill themselves in killing - the suicide bombers, several of them women - the unforeseeable and uncontrollable event which escapes any controlling attempt.
The anxiety to control destiny which marks our Western society and its culture of overbearing power, also signals its decline; but in a crisis prophecy becomes possible if one is able to look at things differently …
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STELLA Rosetta - GIARDINI Federica, Starting from the canto, 2004, n. 3-4,
pp. 5-8
Canto 5 of Dante's Inferno is a classical locus of both women's and men's sentimental education. Here it is a pretext to play with its wise poetry, to be moved by it but also to question it, to poke unrespectful fun at it with an irony born of the comparison with our own lives or to follow its meanings to then give them an unexpected turn.
Looking for words on the border of a wild interpretation, among women. First three women (Stella, Giardini, Chiaromonte, Fiori) discuss the Canto, then they ask some other women (Rossi, Tatafiore, Mambro, Vantaggiato, Scaraffia) to do the same; the resulting reflections outline a picture of love as it is experienced today.
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Reviews for DWF
Simone Weil, la provocazione della verità, introduzione di G.
Fiori, Napoli, Liguori, 1990
rev. by Rosetta Stella, 1990, n. 12, pp. 94-95
BOCCIA Maria Luisa - ZUFFA Grazia, L'eclissi della madre, Milano, Pratiche,
1998
rev. by Rosetta Stella, 1999, n. 42-43, pp. 119-122
Books reviewed by DWF
STELLA Rosetta, D'un tratto del tutto. Una femminista alle prese con Dio,
introduced by Romana Guarnieri, Genova, Marietti, 2002
rev. by Luisa Muraro, 2002, n. 3-4, pp. 151-154
STELLA ROSETTA (edited by), Sul Magnificat, Genova, Marietti 1820, 2001
rev. by Fulvia Serra, 2001, n. 50-51, pp. 92-95