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2nd IASA International Symposium in Italy

2nd IASA International Symposium in Italy

June 20-22, 2019

Roma Tre University

Via Valco di San Paolo, 19

Rome Italy

Roma Tre Symposium Program FINAL VERSION

Hotels near Roma Tre University

Saint Paul Hotel Rome

Via Vito Volterra 43, Rome, Italy

San Paolo Guest House

Viale Giustiniano Imperatore 7, Rome, Italy

Hotel San Paolo Roma

Via Colossi 50, Rome, Italy

Pulitzer Hotel Rome

Viale Guglielmo Marconi 905, Rome, Italy

Hotel Pyramid Rome

Via dei Magazzini General 4, Rome, Italy

 

Keynote Speaker: Martino Marazzi

Martino Marazzi

Università degli Studi di Milano

Keynote title: Transposing Landscapes and Identities in the Italian Diaspora: Visual and Verbal Representations

Abstract

In recent years, Italian American studies have gone global, at least methodologically, recognizing the diasporic nature of Italian historic migrations, and more in general advocating for a wider inquiry of their manifold cultural and social phenomena. This poses a challenge that Italian literary studies should welcome and embrace–finally moving beyond old geo-historical fixations, and re-appreciating the pluralistic dynamism punctuating, oftentimes with dramatic energy, the canonical field of Italian creativity. In times of unprecedented complexity and renewed nation-centrism, Italian American studies and Italian studies can only benefit from more and more cross-fertilization. The presentation offers–mostly in chronological order–some revealing testimonies of such an uninterrupted dialogue.

Short bio

Martino Marazzi teaches Italian Literature at the University of Milan and has been Tiro a Segno Visiting Professor in Italian American Culture at New York University, and a Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. His most recent books are Italexit. Risorgimento, disunione e scritture del cambiamento, forthcoming with Cesati; Danteum. Studi sul Dante imperiale del Novecento (2015); Voices of Italian America. A History of Early Italian American Literature with a Critical Anthology (2012); A occhi aperti. Letteratura dell’emigrazione e mito americano (2011). He is also the author of two novels, Sbagli (2019), and La finta (2015), and of two collections of short stories: La fine del Purgatorio and Filogenesi (2008 and 2010). His nonfiction essay Amelia has been listed in The Best American Essays 2017. He is currently working on a collection of his American essays.

IASA Submittable Link for Abstracts and/or Panel Proposals

IASA International Symposium in Italy

Submittable Link

Deadline Extended to Friday, March 29

Call for Papers for the 2nd IASA International Symposium in Italy

2nd IASA International Symposium in Italy 

CALL FOR PAPERS

June 20-22, 2019

Roma Tre University Via Valco di San Paolo, 19

Rome, Italy

Transposing Landscapes and Identities in the Italian Diaspora: Visual and Verbal Representations

Deadline Extended to Friday, March 29

“A few years ago, I decided, like everyone else, to explore my ethnic roots. It lasted a very short time. I bought a pasta machine. Learned how to combine the ingredients for pasta…. Purists insist that if the sacred pasta dough is touched by metal pasta machines, it becomes slightly slippery—a quality in pasta that is akin to infidelity in wives. Oh yes, I now remember what women who do anything without their husbands are called. Puttane. Whores. I remember hearing stories in my childhood about how women like that were stoned to death in the old country.”

“A Portrait of the Puttana as a Middle-Aged Woolf Scholar” (1984)

Louise A. DeSalvo (1942-2018)

The focus of the Symposium is Italian/Italian-American and Italian diaspora crosscurrents of the 19th, 20th, or 21st century on immigrants who were engaged in refuting as well as perpetuating stereotypes and racist beliefs that disturbed Italian diasporic relations. Notions of class, gender, and cross-ethnic contamination undergird the intentions of this symposium. Italian immigrants and their progeny often repelled certain offensive imagery that categorized them as second-class citizens if not petty criminals. On the other hand, some Italian immigrants and their descendants actually embraced certain stereotypes regardless of their overall negative effects.

Pertinent to such internal attitudes is the century-plus long interactions with other U.S. ethnic/racial groups. Let us also remember, for example, that during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Italians and blacks were two groups often excluded from employment: “No Italians or Negroes Need Apply” was often listed at the bottom of ads for jobs. Gender and sexuality, on the other hand, are, and remain, a much more complicated issue. Initially, women were relegated to the home: cleaning, cooking, and caring for children. The independent woman, instead, often found herself on the margin and, depending on the degree of her “rebellion,” ostracized. Sexual identity beyond “hetero” has also been met with resistance within an Italian-American milieu; gay, lesbian, and, especially today, transgender people are often in constant negotiations with hetero-thinking mainstream.

IASA encourages proposals in diverse formats, including round tables, debates, workshops, teaching sessions, and performances. We prefer fully formed sessions, although we also encourage people to submit individual presentations. As well, we encourage submission of individuals who would prefer to moderate or to comment. If this is your interest, please submit a

CV and statement of areas of interest and expertise. We are especially interested in linking scholars across fields and we welcome participants from multiple disciplines, roles, and backgrounds. The conference committee will consider proposals that do not specifically address, but may complement this year’s conference theme.

Conference fee: €70; €50 (adjuncts); €30 (students). Fees include coffee breaks and reception. Payment to be made via PayPal at the following website: www.italianamericanstudies.net.

 

Guidelines for Proposals:

Sessions will be 75 minutes; each presenter must limit her/his remarks to 15-20 minutes each (inclusive of film clips and PowerPoint presentations) in order to allow ample time for Q&A and discussion. Proposals may be for one of three forms:

  • Individual presentation, paper, or talk;
  • Panel session or workshop, featuring multiple presenters;
  • Performance, reading, or screening of creative work;
  • Presentations may be in English or Italian.

Proposals must include:

  • Proposal title and a brief description of no more than 250 words;
  • Suggested topic category (see list below);
  • Brief biographical statement, affiliation, and e-mail, as well as contact information and bios of all those in a proposed panel (bios no more than 75 words);
  • AV requirements (provided in each room are a computer [PC not MAC], a projector, speakers). Speakers should bring their clips and/or PowerPoint presentations on a pen drive and, as we draw closer to the date of the symposium, email the files to the conference committee at: IASAConference2019@gmail.com

 

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Recovering Italian diasporic voices (e.g., Italian North Americans, Italian Latin Americans, Italian Australians, Italian Europeans);
  • Struggles of immigrant women broadly imagined;
  • Women pioneers, in professions, activism, innovation; women activists (abolitionism, anti-lynching, temperance, child labor, reform, animal rights);
  • Female networks and sisterhoods—of writers, journalists, travelers;
  • Women travelers and their descriptive gaze;
  • Fictional and realistic descriptions of places, people, and societies;
  • The effects and consequences of bi-racial or homosexual relationships (including how these impact social and religious structures);
  • Treatment of bi-racial children; the psychological results of being a bi-racial child in a dominant White culture (including, but not limited to, the children of Black American soldiers and Italian women);
  • The intersections and disconnections among poor, middle class, and affluent immigrants;
  • The role of the Catholic Church in Italy and abroad in the negative or positive treatment of poor immigrants;
  • Representations of Italian Americans in Italian Cinema;
  • Cinematic portrayals of women in Italian and/or Italian/American films;
  • Italian-American theater: respected art form or lowbrow popular culture?;
  • The Italian-American presence in the figurative arts;
  • Italian Diasporic Food-ways: The Transformation of Italian Cuisine in the New Land(s);
  • Repatriation: The (In)voluntary Return to Italy from Destination Countries;
  • Circular Migration. Or, The Repeated Travel between Italy and Destination Countries.

Registration

All presenters (except graduate students) must register and be members of IASA for the year 2019.

Conference Registration Fee

70.00

Adjunct Faculty Registration Fee

50.00

Graduate Student Registration Fee

30.00

Friday Night Cena

50.00

Graduate student registration fee will include a one-year gratis membership with IASA. Please email Vice-President of Communication and Marketing, Courtney Ruffner, in order to be added to the Members List:

ruffnec@scf.edu

SYMPOSIUM DINNER

Friday, June 21
8:30-11:00 PM

at

Via di Monte Testaccio 97

00153 Roma

Space is limited. Reserve sooner than later!

$50 via PayPal