CfP: Postcolonial Italy: between Assimilation and Integration Symposium

Flinders University and the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) will host a one-day symposium, Postcolonial Italy: between Assimilation and Integration, convened by Luciana d’Arcangeli and Laura Lori, in Adelaide on Wednesday, 23 November 2016 at Flinders in the City, 182 Victoria Square, Adelaide, South Australia.

The keynote speaker will be Kaha Mohamed Aden. Her documentary, La quarta via, will be screened free and open to the community at 6.30pm. The conveners are now calling for paper proposals.

Italy’s colonial heritage virtually disappeared from public representation after the Second World War and the fall of Fascism, denying the nature of Italian imperial responsibilities and promoting the myth of ‘Italiani brava gente’. In recent years, however, research in the field of historical, literary and postcolonial studies, prompted by the work of Angelo del Boca and Nicola Labanca, has begun the rethinking of the colonial era and the coming to terms with the consequences of Italy’s imperialist past for its postcolonial present. The symposium is designed to contribute to this process by addressing the issues that a full acknowledgement of Italy’s colonial responsibilities and their consequences raise.

Possible topics for papers

• Representation of Otherness in Italian literature, theatre, cinema and TV series
• Postcolonial and post-imperial literature
• African artists on the Italian cinema and theatre scene
• Second-generations in Italy
• Italian postcolonial national identity
• The cultural, economic and political consequences of immigration

Submissions containing 250 – 300 word abstracts, with a brief bibliography (3-4 titles) and a brief author bio, are invited for 20 minute papers (in English or Italian).  Please send an email with the title “Postcolonial Italy Abstract Submission” to Dr Laura Lori lnlori@hotmail.com and in copy to Dr Luciana d’Arcangeli luciana.darcangeli@flinders.edu.au by 15th May.

Abstracts should contain, in this order:

a) author(s)

b) affiliation,

c) email address

d) title of abstract

e) body of abstract,

f) bibliography (3-4 titles)

We will acknowledge the receipt of all paper proposals submitted. If you have not received a reply within two weeks of submission, please contact us in case it has gone astray.

Conference registration: free

Postgraduate students are especially welcome. A contribution towards the costs of attendance will be available to students whose papers are accepted. Please contact Laura Lori for details.

Please note that this symposium is part of Dr Laura Lori’s ACIS HRA Project ‘There ain’t no black in the Tricolore’ and will be followed in the same venue by the international conference ‘An Eye on Italy: Continuities and Transformations in Italian Visual Culture’ (24-25 November 2016).

For further information please refer to the website:

Sponsors: The Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS), Flinders University, Istituto Italiano di Cultura (Melbourne), Consolato d’Italia (Adelaide), Dante Alighieri Society of S.A. Inc.