[Ryan Calabretta-Sajder]

• 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 

Upload/submit proposals to Submittable:https://italianamericanstudies.submittable.com/submit Submission Deadline: March 15, 2019

“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 oldcountry.”                 “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, like African Americans, were a group 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: http://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 multiplepresenters;
• Performance, reading, or screening of creativework;
• Presentations may be in English or Italian.

Proposals must include: 

• Proposal title and a brief description of no more than 250words;
• Suggested topic category (see listbelow);
• 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 75words);
• AV requirements (provided in each room are a computer [PCnot MAC], a projector, speakers). Speakers should bring their clips and/or PowerPoint presentations on apen

drive and, as we draw closer to the date of the symposium, email the files to the conference committee at: IASAsymposium@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 broadlyimagined;
• Women pioneers, in professions, activism, innovation; women activists (abolitionism, anti-lynching, temperance, child labor, reform, animalrights);
• Female networks and sisterhoods—of writers, journalists,travelers;
• Women travelers and their descriptivegaze;
• Fictional and realistic descriptions of places, people, andsocieties;
• The effects and consequences of bi-racial or homosexual relationships (including how these impact social and religiousstructures);
• 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 Italianwomen);
• The intersections and disconnections among poor, middle class, and affluentimmigrants;

 

• The role of the Catholic Church in Italy and abroad in the negative or positive treatment of poorimmigrants;
• Representations of Italian Americans in ItalianCinema;
• Cinematic portrayals of women in Italian and/or Italian/American films;
• Italian-American theater: respected art form or lowbrow popularculture?;
• The Italian-American presence in the figurativearts;
• Italian Diasporic Food-ways: The Transformation of Italian Cuisine in the NewLand(s);
• Repatriation: The (In)voluntary Return to Italy from DestinationCountries;
• Circular Migration. Or, The Repeated Travel between Italy and Destination

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This topic was also posted in: 2018 MLA Convention, 2019 MLA Convention, CLCS 20th- and 21st-Century, CLCS Mediterranean, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society, LLC 20th- and 21st-Century Italian, LLC Medieval and Renaissance Italian, LSL Language and Society, MS Screen Arts and Culture, TC Race and Ethnicity Studies, TC Sexuality Studies, TC Women’s and Gender Studies, TM Language Theory, TM Literary Criticism, TM The Teaching of Literature, LLC Italian American.

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