Storytelling Philosophy and Self Writing—Preliminary Notes on Elena Ferrante: An Interview with Adriana Cavarero

Abstract

In this interview, Italian feminist thinker Adriana Cavarero discusses the complexity of Elena Ferrante's narratives. Connecting Cavarero's storytelling philosophy and Foucault's concept of self writing, the exchange between Cavarero and the young scholar Isabella Pinto shows how the materiality of Ferrante's identity emerges from the philosophical landscape of the "narratable self" and the "relationality in a concrete situation," thereby establishing a new "pact with the reader." Furthermore, the interview shows how Italian feminist thought can be used to reread literary tradition, to critique academic methods of transmission of knowledge, and to criticize the subduing effect of social networks on writing the self.