The Last Avant-Garde

The underground magazines of the seventies were innovative, provocative and often made with limited resources. In the second half of the 20th century, they represented a fertile laboratory for experimenting. They came about in the wake of the 1968 protests, fostered by the common drive for a sort of revolt, and seemed to anticipate some of the trends that would fully develop with the advent of the digital era: from an innovative definition of the boundaries of the public sphere to a more original structure of hierarchies between producers and consumers.
A rich and multifaceted array of experiences paying particular attention to the renovation called for by a number of social stakeholders – from the fierce, second-generation feminism to the most extreme fringes of extra- parliamentary political action – is here explored by scholars from different fields of study through the analysis of the single cases and/or specific genres.
Such an array has inevitably drawn the renewed attention of periodical studies: indeed, while it should be said that such a period was short lived, the results it produced, the traces and the problematic legacy it left are now to be found in the ambitious, perhaps utopian project of a shared, polyphonic culture, fuelled by constant dialectics between the one and the many.

Andrea Chiurato is a research fellow in the Department of Communication, Arts and Media at IULM University in Milan. His scholarly research focuses primarily on comparative literature (Italian, French, English, American), media studies and literary reception. He has published a several books and papers on these issues, including: La retroguardia dell’avanguardia (2011), Là dove finisce la città. Riflessioni sull’opera di J.G. Ballard (2013); La metropoli ai margini. Alterità, diversità ed esclusione tra Otto e Novecento (2016).