«L’INTERA MASSA QUALIFICATA»: FLAIANO E L’UNIVERSITÀ DILATATA

Abstract

This article focuses on the concept of the “enlarged” University proposed by
Ennio Flaiano in some of his journalistic writings describing the contradictions
of Italy during the years of the economic boom. Flaiano produces biting
criticism of social phenomena that characterised Italy as it strove to establish
its identity in the post-war period of reconstruction rendered all the more
complicated and ambitious by the advent of mass cinema and television. This
contrarian arch-critic of the Italian “Dolce Vita” sarcastically slates both
cultural and educational figures in exposing the limits of and the issues to
University education in the new inter-relational and productive scenarios of
the postmodern era.