This volume covers a range of subjects drawn from Italy and abroad to study the historical and contemporary formations of Italian national identity. In doing so, the work illuminates Italy past and present as well as the local and global dimensions of national identity in general. Whether considering opera or Ninja Turtles, the essays reveal how cultural identity is constructed and manipulated - an issue made urgent by the influx of African, Indochinese, and eastern European immigrants into Italy today. Exile, nationalism, and imagined communities are the topics of several essays, including Antonio Negri’s reflection on his own experience of political and exile. Others focus on Italy’s colonial unconscious , Mussolini’s adventures in north Africa, and racism from the late 19th century to the present. By analyzing Italy’s European and Mediterranean identities, its highly regional character, its north-south economic imbalance, and its ethnic complexity, this interdisciplinary volume should inform and redirect our understanding of what constitutes Italy .