Creating the Ideal Posthuman Body? Cyborg Sex and Gender in the work of Buzzati, Vacca, and Ammaniti

Twentieth-century Italian literature offers a rich, if underexplored, array of cyborg characters which both echo those to be found in Anglophone texts and can be been seen to embody and exemplify concerns emanating from a specifically Italian cultural context. Focusing on cyborg figures in three texts--Dino Buzzati's "II grande ritratto" (1960), Roberto Vacca's "II robot e il computer" (1963), and Niccolò Ammaniti's short story "Ferro" (1996)--this article identifies and analyses approaches to a series of sex/gender issues and attempts to trace the positions assumed by the authors in question back to earlier influential works. More specifically, I question the degree to which these works can be read as encouraging progressive rather than normative attitudes. I argue that despite purporting to convey futuristic innovation that challenges conventional notions of gender roles and identity, these narratives show the influence of problematic ideologies proposed by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century figures such as the Futurists and the criminologist Cesare Lombroso.