“The Form of a City”: Pasolini and the Poetic Ecology of the Sign

Abstract

This article examines the potential contributions of Pasolinian anthropology to urban studies. Pasolinian anthropology aims to articulate a historical moment (i.e., the acceleration of the second industrial revolution in Italy between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s) with environmental and urban transformations. The authors sketch a portrait of Pasolini as a primitive theoretician who supported that which would become known as landscape urbanism. The authors mainly consult Pasolini’s journalistic writings published in two anthologies ( Lettere luterane, Scritti corsari) and an incomplete pedagogical manual ( Gennariello). The authors also refer to four of his documentary films ( Comizi d’amore, Appunti per un film sull’India, Appunti per un Orestiade Africana, and Pasolini e la forma della città) and tangentially to two of his novels ( Racconti romani and Petrolio) as well as to his correspondence and poems (particularly Gramsci’s Ashes).