School of (ir)reality: forms and representations of the prison school in the testimonies of Italian teachers and writers

Abstract

The ‘prison school’ chronotope assumes the dual meaning of ‘school as prison’ and ‘school in prison’. The latter is investigated in this essay, focusing on the narrative strategies, forms, motifs and topoi from which the reality of the Italian penitentiary school is represented, above all through the point of view of writers who have been inside the prison environment in the role of teachers and educators. It also traces the history of this prison school writings particular subgenre, exploring its connections with the political, legal and cultural context, from the Unification of Italy to the present time, integrating literary criticism and the sociology of prison, special education and the pedagogy of deviance, the history of penitentiary law, educational and critical prison studies. Starting from De Amicis and Andreani, among others the works of Invernizzi, Valeriani, Malvezzi, Grimaldi, Albinati, Balzano, Tagliani, Verdone, Trovato, Parrella are studied, finally confirming the prevalence of short and hybrid forms that increasingly characterizes this literary genre.