italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
CALL FOR PAPERS - DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS MAY 31
SCONTRO/INCONTRO: THE 'HYBRID' EXPERIENCE OF ITALY AND ITS COLONIES
December 2-3 2005
The Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies
University of London
Scholars of Italian colonialism have sometimes been reluctant to
acknowledge the influence that local populations and their modes of social
practice had on Italians and on the ways in which they settled and
administered the territories they occupied. This tendency reinforces the
notion that the European domination of Africa was total culturally and
politically. Conversely, it has also been suggested that in every sphere of
colonial life, the relationship between colonizers and colonized was more
dynamic and complex, pointing to the need for more research to be done to
illuminate this area.
In the broader field of colonial/postcolonial studies, this proposition
would not be startling. For example, the concept of the 'contact zone,' the
potent and unpredictable space where colonizers and colonized interact has
been well-explored. Even more extensively adopted is the term 'hybridity'
that occurs frequently in the language of colonialism and the discourse of
postcolonialism. Its meaning is not fixed. It is often used quite loosely
to refer to more or less any form of cultural fusion so displacing the
term's origins in post-Enlightenment anxieties about sexual reproduction.
Some commentators see hybridity as a good thing, challenging fixed
categorisations. Others worry that its hasty deployment promotes a lack of
attention to local difference and offers an unexamined celebration of
multicultural diversity. The question remains whether hybridity is a
consciously chosen state, one that is arbitrarily imposed, or one that
inevitably results from the scontro/incontro of two (or more) cultures. Who
wants hybridity is also a question that needs to be asked.
The aim of this conference is to attempt to address the gap noted in
Italian colonial scholarship by examining the value of 'hybridity' in its
many formulations as a critical tool that helps to understand the specific
nature, circumstance and practice of the Italian colonial or postcolonial
condition. Areas for consideration might be the nature of the Italian
colonial intervention itself; modes of social organisation and practice;
relationships of power; forms of cultural production; identity formation in
both colonizer and colonized; colonialist intention and the praxis of
colonialism; border culture. These are listed only as possible areas of
inquiry that might be looked at synchronically and/or diachronically to
explore what happened when colonialism brought cultures into contact and to
gain some sense of colonialism's lingering presence in the contemporary
world.
Contributors are invited to reflect both on their own adoption of some
notion of 'hybridity' and the particular purchase it gives in the contexts
where they use it.
Contributions are invited from any discipline, although the organizers
would anticipate that participants would embrace to some degree the hybrid
practice of interdisciplinarity itself.
Proposals for 20 minute papers should be submitted to the organizers by May
31 at the latest. Please send proposals simultaneously to Jacqueline Andall
([log in to unmask]) and Derek Duncan ([log in to unmask]). Please
include a short biographical note.
Jacqueline Andall (University of Bath)
Derek Duncan (University of Bristol)
----------------------
Dr Derek Duncan
Senior Lecturer in Italian
Department of Italian
University of Bristol
19 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TE
tel. 0044-117-9287587
fax. 0044-117-9288143
[log in to unmask]
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