L'aspetto della nazione. Divenire, tempo e storia in un caso di negazione nazionale

This essay aims, on the one hand, to clarify the ways in which aspectuality, temporality, and history are related and, on the other hand, to investigate the role of aspectuality in the constitution (or distruction) of a nation. Aspectuality should be regarded as a fundamental means-if not the core means-for the production of the image of a historical process. That becomes particularly clear in situations of crisis or during cultural explosions. The tensions between aspectuality and temporality in specific semiotic formations translate and reveal the tensions between the ongoing historical events and the bodies that are called to imagine a particular nation and act for or against its realization. So as to demonstrate the actual unfolding of these semiopolitical processes, the essay analyses two crucial moments in the highly paradoxical controversy concerning the existence of the Sardinian nation.