Lita Crociani-Windland is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Fellow of the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of the West of England, where she also gained her MSc and PhD.

List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1. Introduction; Chapter 2. Learning, Identity, Duration and the Virtual; Chapter 3. Siena and its Province – An Overview; Chapter 4. Siena and the Palio – War and State Machine – Identity and Becoming; Chapter 5. Montepulciano’s Bruscello Theatre – Rupture, Continuity and the ‘Refrain’; Chapter 6. The ‘Problem/Idea’ of Montepulciano – How to be Autonomous in the Face of Overwhelming Force; Chapter 7. Montepulciano’s Bravio Delle Botti – A Festival in the Making; Chapter 8. Sharecropping and Modernity; Chapter 9. Monticchiello – A Community Under Siege; Chapter 10. A Tree with its Roots in the Air – Monticchiello’s Theatre of the ‘Virtual’; Chapter 11. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index

‘Crociani-Windland offers an incisive analysis of the intersection of politics, memory, social history and the unconscious in the formation of subjectivity. Combining attunement to the ancestral echoes of her own being, sophisticated psychosocial analysis, and carefully grounded ethnography, the author challenges the dichotomy of past and present, and offers hopeful evidence that in a homogenizing and materializing world, everyday rituals offer powerful potential for the reclaiming of agency and the reclaiming of genealogy and identity in communities.’ —Professor Michael O’Loughlin, Adelphi University, New York, Co-chair of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society

‘A brilliant book! With extensive ethnography, Lita Crociani-Windland captures Siena’s famous Palio and other colourful community festivals in Tuscany. As she shows convincingly, an understanding of the festivals benefits from a Deleuzian perspective. This book will attract a wide readership.’ —Professor Helena Wulff, Stockholm University

‘This is a highly original piece of work, centring upon a theoretical framework which is innovative to say the least – one might even call it adventurous. It combines painstaking and meticulous ethnography with considerable theoretical sophistication and reflexivity in an engaging way that makes the book not only very readable, but immensely enjoyable.’ —Professor Ullrich Kockel, University of Ulster