Published: 2018-06-30

Walls that Bridge; or, What We Can Learn from the Roman Walls

Giorgio Mariani

Website: https://web.uniroma1.it/seai/?q=it/persone/mariani-giorgio

Abstract

Giorgio Mariani
University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Italy

Walls that Bridge;
or, What We Can Learn from the Roman Walls

Abstract: When, during the latest US electoral campaign, Pope Francis criticized Trump’s idea of building a wall between Mexico and the US, reiterating his favorite  point that “we do not need to build walls, but bridges,” the Trump camp retorted that the Pope lives in a city state surrounded by walls, in a city itself surrounded by other walls dating back to ancient Roman times. Why wasn't he concerned with those walls? As one can see, even though Roman walls have completely lost their original function and survive mainly as tourist sites, they also remain powerful political and cultural symbols. The scope of this essay is to offer, from the perspective of an Americanist who was born and raised in Rome, some comparative reflections on  what we can learn today from the history of Roman walls, as well as from their symbolic afterlives.

Keywords: Roman walls, walls as rhetoric, US literature, walls as bridges, walls as dividers

JEL Codes

American Studies, American Literary History, Western Cultural History

Citation rules

Mariani, G. (2018). Walls that Bridge; or, What We Can Learn from the Roman Walls. Review of International American Studies, 11(1). Retrieved from https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/RIAS/article/view/6384

Walls, Material and Rhetorical: Past, Present, and Future—RIAS Vol. 11, Spring–Summer (1/2018)

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2018)
Published: 2018-08-21


eISSN: 1991-2773
Ikona DOI 10.31261/RIAS

Publisher
University of Silesia Press

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