CFP 2011: Italian

Cultural Studies and Film: “Italian ‘famiglia’ Representations in Cinema and Television”

Italian: “Il ‘900 sommerso italiano”

Transnational Literatures: “The Art of Villainy: Machiavelli and the Creation of the Fictional Villain”

1861-2011: Reflecting on Italian Unification in Literature and Cinema (Roundtable): Italian identity, the Italian nation, Risorgimento, and Italian Unification have been issues widely debated in written literary works – novels or poems – and on the screen through films by Italian filmmakers. The roundtable seeks to investigate the meaning of the Italian nation and identity from the XIX to the XXI century to reflect critically upon 150 years of Italian history. Please send 150-200 word abstracts in English or in Italian to Chiara De Santi, SUNY Fredonia, chiara.desanti@fredonia.edu
Across Millennia: Italian Poetry in Limen: This panel will accept papers dealing with the poetry production in Italian published in the last 25 years. Aspects of interest are: the inference of media in poetry; the relationship (or lack thereof) between contemporary poetry and tradition; the attention of culture and publishers toward poetry; the concept of body and objectification; the survival of lyric poetry and consequent changes in the concept of language. In case of an adequate number of valid papers the panel will move to a round table. Please, email papers to: mabenass@yahoo.com.
Anna Maria Ortese: la passione della scrittura (Roundtable): The Roundtable welcomes scholars working on different aspects of Ortese’s oeuvre, analyzed from a variety of critical perspectives. Send abstracts to abaldi@rci.rutgers.edu
Booting the ‘Boot’: Teaching Contemporary Italy with Technology: This panel offers the opportunity to discuss projects focusing on the use of technology in teaching and learning Italian culture. Papers may be theoretical or descriptive. Topics could include: using technology to present cultural issues; technology as a tool for student research into culture; employing and managing technology to promote cross-cultural awareness inside and outside the classroom. Papers on blogs, chat rooms, podcasts, wikis, imovies, and social networks are welcome. Please send 250-word abstracts to Cristina_Abbona@brown.edu
Calvino and the city: new critical perspectives (Roundtable): In Italo Calvino’s fiction and non-fiction the city is an urgent theme. Experienced or imagined, cities are places of exploration and places of memory; journeys of speculation through smog or through crystalline utopia; stages on which the everyday merveilleux parades; spaces of confrontation with alterities that question our beliefs. This roundtable invites original interdisciplinary explorations on the city in Calvino’s oeuvre. Send proposals for 5-7 minute interventions to Letizia Modena, Villanova University, letizia.modena@villanova.edu
Charting the Circulation of Italian Culture, 1660-1800: This panel seeks papers on the movement of cultural material during the long eighteenth century, with a focus on Italian culture. We will be investigating the production/ circulation of Italian art and literature beyond limits of language and nationality. Please send 300-500 word abstracts and brief biographical statements to Matthew Rusnak rusnakm@rci.rutgers.edu.
Corporeality: Italian Literary Bodies of the XX and XXI Centuries:: This panel examines the body as literary corpus and/or as representation in literature. That which concerns us is the “topic of the body, its mediatization, its modification, and even its disappearance” (G. P. Renello) in a post-human society. Is identity in the body or elsewhere? Is the body itself ‘textual’? Please submit 250-400 word abstracts (in English or Italian) about the representation of the body in modern or contemporary Italian literature to Gregory Pell at gregory.pell@hofstra.edu.
Dante’s Journey to God. Spiritual Poetics in the Divine Comedy: This panel seeks to investigate the interaction of poetry and spirituality in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Papers should focus on issues of poetics highlighting the spiritual matrix of the text. Contributions dealing with more general issues of poetics will also be considered. Organizer Alessandro Vettori, vettori@rci.rutgers.edu
Defining Society: Representations of Food in Italian Literature and Culture: In this panel the socio-political and literary implications of food will be discussed in the ambient of Italian literature and culture. It will be open to all centuries and genres and may focus on the alimentary necessity for subsistence on the individual or social level, as well as food as a tool for societal and political definition, or as a medium for art. Please send a 300-400 word abstract to ddefeo@rci.rutgers.edu
Didattica 2.0: Teaching Italian With a Web 2.0 perspective: The goal of this session is to present some of the most innovative practices to teach Italian using the Web 2.0 technologies and tools. Panelists should talk about their experiences and case studies about the use of forum, chat, blog, social network, VOIP, wiki. Other experiences could be examinated and would be welcome. Send 250-500 word abstracts to giglio.alessandra@gmail.com
Diseased Imaginations: Illness in Modern Italian Fantastic Fiction: This panel will investigate the role that illness (whether physical or mental) plays in modern and contemporary Italian fantastic fiction. Contributions might address the influence of medical advances on the fantastic imagination, distrust of the medical system and its bureaucracy, disease as metaphor in gothic tales, the ailing human body as uncanny, the fear of contagion, etc. Papers discussing theoretical approaches are encouraged. Email 250-word abstracts (in Italian or English) to Amelia Moser, amelia.moser@gmail.com or moser@bard.edu.
Early Italian Literature: Text within Its Material Context: This session seeks to explore any aspects of Italian medieval and early modern texts within their material contexts (including, but not limited to manuscripts and printed editions). Send abstracts to Jelena Todorovic, email: jtodorovic@wisc.edu.
The Ecogothic in Italian Literature and Culture: The fear of disintegrating species boundaries has engendered panicked visions of the human, natural, and animal worlds that manifest themselves vividly in Gothic literature of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This panel addresses the Gothic and allegories of monstrosity in Italian literature and culture, especially as they intersect with issues of ecocritical concern, such as species identity, food, nature, and consumption. Send one-page abstract by e-mail to: David Del Principe, delprinciped@mail.montclair.edu
Fashion and Costume as Mirrors of Society and Time in Italian Literature/Cinema (Roundtable): Fashion is intended as code of communication and mode of expression. It changes significantly along the years leaving behind an unquestionable trademark which helps identify the historical, social and political background. This topic can be studied in relation to all periods of Italian literature and Art as well Cinema. Send a 250 word abstract to Daniela Antonucci <daniela.antonucci@gmail.com>
Fra parola e immagine: (ri)scritture umanistiche: Il panel riflette sui canoni di una solida tradizione erudita, rinnovata però dalla sicura conoscenza di una cultura letteraria, storiografica, filosofica, teologica, filologica, sulla cui ‘fortuna’ riflettono gli intellettuali umanistiti. Il panel prende in esame interventi paratestuali, documenti, lettere, commenti, immagini, traduzioni che additano l’intrinseca connessione fra lo sviluppo del metodo filologico e la figura dell’umanista. Abstracts a Roberta Ricci: rricci@brynmawr.edu
From Cavour to Berlusconi: 150 Years of Italian History in Cinema: Retelling history through the written word is the usual format for interpreting events or understanding society, but when motion pictures are put to the service of decoding them, readers are transformed into spectators who are directly drawn into the events (re-)produced on the screen. The panel seeks to investigate history and society from the Italian unification onward in the light of cinema. Please send 200-300 word abstracts in English or in Italian to Chiara De Santi, SUNY Fredonia, chiara.desanti@fredonia.edu
Futurism and Science: This panel will explore the impact of the new sciences and technology on Futurism. Papers may focus on single authors or on specific groups, either in Italy or in other countries. Please send 300-400 word abstracts, biographical notes and requests for special equipment to Paola Sica (psica@conncoll.edu).
Guido Cavalcanti and His Legacy: Through Rime, a major rhetorical achievement, Guido Cavalcanti claims that the individual soul is defined by the operations of the senses, but has no access to abstractions. The Italian tradition apparently dismissed his claim to follow, instead, the ‘spiritual’ dimension shaped by Dante’s Paradiso and by Petrarch. This panel seeks papers that examine authors who incorporate Cavalcanti’s material into their works, outlining a tradition of matter yet to be fully discovered.A bstracts to anichini@tcnj.edu EXTENDED TO OCT. 10/10
Homosexual Women in Italian Literature, Cinema and other Media: Expressions of female homosexuality have only recently begun to enter the mainstream of Italian writing and culture. Following last year’s extremely successful sessions, this panel reviews selected topics addressing the past, present or likely future of all or any lesbian depictions or expressions in various Italian media, and may focus on their literary, sociological, erotic or other implications. Please send enquiries or abstracts to Erika Papagni erikapapagni@gmail.com
Human Rights in the Italian Theatre: Trenta sono gli articoli di cui si compone la Dichiarazione Universale dei Diritti Umani adottata dall’Onu nel 1948. Ma in una società dilaniata dalle violazioni di tali diritti, cosa fa e cosa può fare il Teatro? Come può provocare e agire? Questa sessione offre l’occasione di esplorare il ruolo del teatro in riferimento al tema sempre più urgente della denuncia e della difesa dei diritti umani nella nostra società e in quella internazionale. Please send 250-word abstracts in English or Italian to annacafaro@hotmail.com.
Il ‘900 sommerso italiano: This panel wants to analyze all those forgotten authors from the XX century Italian literature who, though they managed to publish at least one work, didn’t get the public recognition they deserved. Particular attention will be given to those writers who for biographical reasons were denied better and wider success. Papers are welcome in English and Italian. Please send a 250-word abstract to Alessandro Cavalieri, Universita’ di Genova, mail: samigli@hotmail.com EXTENDED TO 10/10
Il Caso Saviano (Roundtable): Roberto Saviano is currently one of the most famous and read Italian. This round table wants to explore the figure and the works of Saviano. Papers in English and/or in Italian on his books, on his journalistic works, on his collaboration with cinema, theater and TV are welcome. Interdisciplinary and innovative approaches will be well accepted. All the papers will be considered for a publication dedicated to “Il caso Saviano.” Samuel Ghelli, York College / CUNY, sghelli@york.cuny.edu
Il folklore nel cinema e nella letteratura Italiana: This panel seeks papers that investigate and elaborate how folklore entered into Italian literature and movies: how it is presented and used by the authors. Is addressed to a specific genre or public? Where can we find folklore in Italian literature and film? How is it used in children’s literature and in other literary mediums? Can folklore validate or explain cultural aspects of a country? Does it help to incorporate morals and values into a society? Please send an abstract of 150-200 words in Italian or in English to egrianti@gmail.com
‘Il sentimento del contrario’: l’Umorismo nella Letteratura Italiana: A partire dalla definizione del concetto di ‘Umorismo,’ data da Pirandello, la sessione si propone di individuare e discutere le opere umoristiche di autori italiani piu` o meno noti. Quali sono gli scrittori in grado di riconoscere ‘i lati dolorosi della gioja e i lati risibili del dolore umano’ e quali le strategie da loro utilizzate? Please send 250-word abstracts in English or Italian to martina.di_florio_gula@uconn.edu EXTENDED TO 10/10
Immagine e Forma nell’ Estetica Barocca: This panel invites proposals for interdisciplinary papers focusing on the re-examination of the Baroque Aesthetics. The renewed interest in the ‘emblemistica’ and renovated interpretation of metaphor, along with the new sensibility inspired by the scientific discoveries of the 17th century, contributed to the development and re-thinking of the concepts of ‘immagine’ and ‘forma’ that have been at the center of a lively debate ever since. Please send 500-word abstracts and a brief biography to Marino Forlino (mforlino@eden.rutgers.edu).
Is There an Italian-American Novel?: A dispute still exists as to whether there really is an “Italian-American novel,” seeing it as simply a variation within the American novel tradition. Those who believe that it does exist point to its beginning in the early ‘20s, holding that these novels reveal a sub-discourse, which deserves exploration within Italian language studies. The session welcomes papers that help to reach conclusions on this novelistic tradition. Paul Whitehill and Vincenzo Bollettino <paulwhitehill@yahoo.com>
Islam in Contemporary Italy: Increased immigration to Italy in the last decades has brought with it both demographic and cultural change. Immigrant communities are reshaping the social landscape of the peninsula and introducing new traditions that challenge the notion of a homogeneous Italian culture. This session aims to look at the growing Muslim community in particular, and the ways in which literature, film, theater and media perceive Islam and the Islamic world in Italy. Please send 250 word abstracts and short bios to Johanna Rossi Wagner at jrwagner@rutgers.edu.
Italian and Anglo-American Literature: A Dialogue through Translation: This panel intends to explore the various facets of translation of Italian and Anglo-American literature from all time periods. Topics can include the representation of Italian and Anglo-American literature, culture and civilization through translations, mis-translations and re-translations, and specific issues in translating Italian literature into English and Anglo-American literature into Italian. Presentations may be in Italian or English. Please e-mail 250-word abstracts to Marella Feltrin-Morris, Ithaca College, mfeltrinmorris@ithaca.edu
Italian Media Socialization. Between Private, Public and On-line Narratives: And how much the communication process is strongly connected with social and modernity changes? Papers addressing the role of social media (Twitter, Facebook, wikis, blogs, tags and more) in communicating, researching, analyzing, and writing in Italy are welcome. Presenters may discuss specific applications, case-studies, or general theories about online communication, collaboration and research. Please send your 500 word abstract to sonia.massari@gmail.com
Italy in WWII and the Transition to Democracy: Memory, Fiction, Histories: The fall of the Fascist regime and the birth of the Republic still represent today a ground of contrasting political and ideological narratives. Italy’s intervention in the war and the Liberation is a problematic terrain where private memories do not integrate with historical interpretations, where literary and cinematic re-enactments do not match political narratives. This panel seeks multidisciplinary contributions investigating representations of the period. Please send 300 words abstracts in English or Italian to Franco Baldasso, fb591@nyu.
Italy’s 150th. Norms, Forms and Storms (and Some…Stress): from 1861 to WWI: This panel examines the relation(s) between the developing ‘questione sociale’ and the evolving ‘questione nazionale’ in the aftermath of the Risorgimento, and therefore the new forms of nationalism that were developing prior to the rise of fascism, the new forms of regionalism, as exemplified in their linguistic and literary correlatives, from the ‘Scapigliatura’ to the rise of ‘verismo’ and the various forms of Italian ‘decadentismo’ and experimentation that took place up to the birth of the first ‘avanguardie.’ <mwepstein@verizon.net>
L’Altro Tasso: A Discussion of Tasso’s ‘Not-So-Minor’ Works (Seminar): This seminar will discuss Torquato Tasso’s less-studied, so-called ‘Minor’ works such as his Dialoghi, his literary-theoretical writings, his plays, his letters and the Gerusalemme Conquistata (among many others). Papers are welcomed on a variety of topics which examine these works and help situate them within the broader context(s) of Italian (and European) Literature(s), Literary Criticism and Intellectual History. Please send 250-300 word abstracts and biographical statements (in English or Italian) to bryan.brazeau@nyu.edu.
Language(s) and Politics in/of Italian Theatre: This panel focuses on the verbal as well as non-verbal languages Italian playwrights and librettists in the past five centuries have used to comment on the politics of their time. Directorial choices in the XX and XXI centuries have made relevant past political concerns. Papers that show the relationship between text, staging, and politics in theatre and opera are welcome. Please send a 200-word abstract to Gloria Pastorino <gloria.pastorino@gmail.com> and include: name, affiliation, and short bio.
Literature and the Arts: An Exemplar of Multicultural Understanding: The panel welcomes interdisciplinary papers (in both Italian and English) that consider the interplay between two or more of the following: literature, music, theater, cinema and the visual arts. Please submita 300-word abstract and the related bibliography to Marco Cerocchi, La Salle University, email: cerocchi@lasalle.edu
Migrant Writers: New Frontiers in Contemporary Italian Literature: This panel invites papers that aim to the discussion of issues of diasporic and in-between identities in Italophone writings. Suggested topics include but are not limited to: Questions of identity and belonging/home; Otherness/sameness; Memory of the past; Language. Please send 200-300 word abstracts in English or in Italian to Giusy Di Filippo, University of Wisconsin-Madison <difilippo@wisc.edu>
Misteri di carta: il Giallo Italiano oltre la letteratura di genere: One of the characteristics of the ‘giallo italiano’ is that it occupies spaces concerning the ‘highbrow’ literature . Gadda, Sciascia, Tabucchi, Eco are examples of this tendency. Today many writers (Camilleri, Lucarelli, Carlotto, Fois) achieved a great success, renewing the genre and contaminating it with sociological or postmodernist elements. Papers – in Italian or in English – on any aspect of Italian detective story are eligible. Submit 250 word-abstracts, via e-mail to Andrea Pera, andrea.pera@hotmail.it
Narratives by and about Migrants in Italy’s New ‘Multiculturalism’: This panel explores new migrant voices in Italy using a range of narrative forms, from oral narratives in Italian immigration movies and in conversational discourse to literary narratives in texts. The purpose of the session is to use these narratives as a window onto Italy’s new multiculturalisms. These discursive artifacts are considered as fragments of large-scale debates over cultural difference that take place in various media such as Italian cinema. Papers from all disciplines are welcome. Send abstracts sperrino@umich.edu
New Trends in Teaching Italian with Technologies: The goal of this panel is to present some of the most innovative methodologies available today in teaching Italian language and culture by integrating technology. The panelists should exemplify those practices they have found in their experience to be the most useful and effective. Papers that will also address strategies related to interaction, execution, infrastructure, course design, implementation of material, and tools for self-assessment are also welcome. Send 250-500 word abstracts to: Antonella Ansani, QCC-CUNY, aansani@qcc.cuny.edu
Our Vietnam: Terrorism and Contemporary Italian Cinema (Roundtable): The roundtable explores a recurrent tendency in contemporary Italian cinema to represent the traumatic past of ‘anni di piombo’ and the political violence that characterized them. The roundtable will examine the historiographical need of recent Italian cinema to deal with an uncomfortable past that has been defined as ‘our Vietnam.’ Chiara Ferrari <cfferrari@csuchico.edu>
Petrarch, Petrarchism and Beyond: This panel welcomes papers on Petrarch, but especially those focusing on Petrarch’s influence in Italian literature and beyond. Topics can include, but are not limited to, Petrarch’s influence on Italian authors (i.e. Boiardo, Poliziano, Bembo, Gaspara Stampa, Foscolo, Leopardi, Ungaretti); however, papers on foreign authors (i.e. Chaucer, Góngora, Camões, Shakespeare) will also be considered. Papers should be in English or Italian. Send a 300-word abstract to James McMenamin at jfmcmenamin@gmail.com. EXTENDED TO OCT. 10/10
Popular Italian Cinema: from Ubalda to Er Monnezza (Roundtable): After Neorealism’s peak, Italian cinema developed, in addition to internationally acclaimed art films, a widely popular commercial cinema. The Italian film industry always oscillated between films focused on popular entertainment and directors trying to deal with of authorship in mainstream cinema. Given a renewed interest of producers and academics in popular cinema, this roundtable investigates the evolution and the repositioning of the genre framework within the Italian film industry. Abstracts to: orsitto@gmail.com or forsitto@csuchico.edu
Post-National and Trans-National Italian Cinema: After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Italian films have started to exceed the previously privileged space of the nation, in order to explore the transnational sites where cultures intertwine and crisscross. Recording the complexities of a renewed socio-political and cultural context, contemporary Italian cinema is marked by an ever growing process of investigation, problematization, and negotiation of national identities and communities. This session focuses on films of the last two decades. Abstracts: orsitto@gmail.com or forsitto@csuchico.edu.
Representations of Dante’s Inferno in the Visual Arts and in Literature: This panel focuses on the reception of the Dantesque Inferno from the perspective of figurative representation, as presented in the literary and cultural realms throughout the centuries since the poem’s inception. The topics of the panel include, but are not limited to: comparative studies of the Inferno illustrations; graphic novels pictures, paintings and architecture works related to Dante’s Inferno. Send 250-300 word abstracts to Giovanni Spani (GSPANI@HOLYCROSS.EDU)
Representations of the Self in the Italian Middle Ages: This panel seeks papers discussing the idea and representation of the self and the representation of an author’s own life in various ways: either as an exemplum for the posterity, as a confessional excusatio, as the affirmation of the lyrical “I” of the poet. This panel should lead to discussion about of self-confession and self-representation, debate on the meaning of what Rico called sub specie autobiographiae in the Middle Ages, and attempts to answer Zumthor’s title question, Autobiographie au Moyen Age? Roberto Pesce <ropesce@gmail.com>
Representations of Women and War in 20th Century Italian Literature and Film: This panel will explore various representations of Italian female experiences of war in the twentieth century and seeks to promote a dialogue and bring into discussion how war is experienced by women, and how women and their participation are represented, or misrepresented in filmic, literary, and historical texts. Papers on all aspects of women and war in the twentieth century are encouraged. Please send abstracts (250-500 words, MSWord or PDF attachments) to drlevy1@gmail.com
Representing the City in Italian Modernity: The panel welcomes papers on the representation of urban space in Italian culture, in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, in different media and genres, from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Send abstracts to abaldi@rci.rutgers.edu
Revolutionary Theater: This panel invites proposals that discuss the role of political theater in Italian culture in the 20th and 21st century, though papers from other time periods will be considered. How have different historical situations influenced the type of theater that was performed? What was the reception at the time of the performances? Have some methods or styles remained consistent through the ages? What is the influence of the media? Please send a 250 word abstract to Mary Ann Mastrolia, mmastrol@eden.rutgers.edu
Something Old, New, Borrowed, True: Italian Literature from ‘900 to Present: This panel analyzes Italian literature from the early Novecento to the most recent publications and authors, taking into special consideration, but not being limited to, foreign influence on Italian works and those writers who have been accused, correctly or not, of plagiarism. All genres (novel, poetry, short stories, etc) are welcome. Papers are accepted in English and/or Italian. Please send a 250-word abstract to Giovanni Migliara, U.N.E.D. University of Madrid at galiba@hotmail.com
Thinking (of) Women in the Italian Renaissance: This panel seeks papers on the place of women in the Italian Renaissance, in literary representations, as participants in the construction of the female, or as part of material culture. This panel seeks to illuminate the variety of female representations in this period in answer to the question: where are the women in the Italian Renaissance? Submit abstracts to Maryann Tebben, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, mtebben@simons-rock.edu.
Traveling in and out of Italy: The panel seeks to address the experience of Italian travelers both in Italy and/or outside. Papers should explore the various interpretive difficulties posed by travel-writing (travel accounts, guidebooks, diaries and letters), the relation between travel and writing, and/or the comparison of the experience in Italy and in foreign countries. Papers in Italian or English are welcome. Send a brief abstract to: eocchipi@drew.edu
Twentieth-Century Italian Lyrical Landscape: La sessione si propone di discutere alcune delle principali e piu’ significative espressioni poetiche del ventesimo secolo, approfondendo tematiche di carattere esistenziale, filosofico, politico e sociale. Si accettano anche proposte su manifestazioni poetiche contemporane. Contributors may send a 200-word proposal to: laura.baffoni-licata@tufts.edu
‘Voglio morire’: Suicide in Italian Literature of the XIX and XX Centuries: The panel seeks to investigate the theme of suicide in Italian literature of the XIX and XX centuries. Many authors personally commit suicide, or consider doing so, or represent a character’s suicide in their works. The focus is not on single biographical motivations, but rather on the significance and manifestation of suicide within Italian literature. Please send abstracts of 250-300 words (in English or Italian) to Anita Virga, University of Connecticut, anita.virga@uconn.edu
Writing and Screening Images of Men. Masculinities in Italian Studies: The objective of the present panel will be to examine authors who contributed to produce (and reproduce) the image of Italian masculinity, how such an image has been created, imagined, constructed, de-constructed, and contested through literature and cinema. Send abstracts to Renato Ventura: ventura.renato@gmail.com
Writing the Self: Italian Women Autobiography: This panel welcomes papers dealing with theoretical issues or analyzing aspects and themes pertinent to the autobiographical genre (i.e. memory, identity, experience) in one or more Italian female authors, as well as works considered particularly controversial as they are at the border between the autobiographical genre and fiction (i.e. ‘Cosima’ by Grazia Deledda). Please send a 250-300 word proposal in Italian or English to Ioana Larco at: ilarco@indiana.edu

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