The Culture of Consent
Mass Organisation of Leisure in Fascist Italy

A portrait of the dopolavoro, or leisure-time organization, the largest of the regime's mass institutions.

Victoria De Grazia (Author)

9780521526913, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 July 2002

324 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.48 kg

The efforts of fascism to form a 'culture of consent,' or shape depoliticized activities, in Italy between the world wars, make a unique portrait of fascist political tactics. Professor de Grazia focuses on the dopolavoro or fascist leisure-time organization, the largest of the regime's mass institutions. She traces its gradual rise in importance for the consolidation of fascist rule; its spread in the form of thousands of local clubs into every domain of urban and rural life; and its overwhelming impact on the distribution, consumption, and character of all kinds of recreational pursuits - from sports and adult education to movies, traveling theaters, radio, and tourism. The author shows how fascism was able, between 1926 and 1939, to build a new definition of the public sphere. Recasting the public sphere entailed dispensing with traditional class and politically defined modes of organizing those social roles and desires existing outside the workplace.

Preface
1. The organization of consent
2. The politics of after-work
3. Taylorizing worker leisure
4. The penetration of the countryside
5. Privileging the clerks
6. The nationalization of the public
7. The formation of fascist low culture
8. The limits of consent
Notes
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]