Call For Papers
Transmissions and Transformations of Italian Culture
Society for Italian Studies Interim Conference

Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, 
University of London, 25-26 April 2008

Organizers: Dr Guyda Armstrong, Department of Italian, University of
Manchester, and Dr Rhiannon Daniels, Department of Italian, University
of Leeds.

Deadline for submission of individual abstracts and panel proposals: 17
December 2007

The shift within literary studies from author- and text-focused analyses
to material and historicist readings has produced valuable new
theoretical approaches, whose practical application has yet to be
explored fully. A newfound emphasis on the (willed or accidental)
inter-relations between texts, authors and readers has given rise to a
theory of intertextuality focusing on networks of textual association,
alongside which scholars have begun to plot networks of actual
dissemination and association. Concern for the text (understood in the
broadest sense) within its historical, cultural, social, and economic
contexts has also highlighted issues relating to the way in which texts
are 'reconstructed' and/or 'preserved' through editing, both in print
and digitally. In this context, the text is viewed as an unstable,
mobile entity, and the locus of meaning is constructed within aspects of
the text's material manifestation and its consumers' readings, as much
as within authorial intent. 

With this in mind, the aim of the conference is to consider the
processes by which literary and other texts (non-literary, visual, audio
etc) have been transmitted, received, and reproposed within (and beyond)
Italian culture. 

We invite submissions which explore how texts are transformed through
their movement into different cultural, linguistic and geographical
contexts, historical periods, or media. We particularly welcome
interdisciplinary and extra-literary approaches to the topic, and aim to
involve those working not only in Italian Studies but also in cognate
disciplines such as history, visual studies, screen studies, and
translation studies. 

Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to:
* Influence and intertextuality: the uses and transformations of themes,
characters, motifs, texts, genres; the mechanisms through which texts
are reproposed and transformed.
* Translation: translation as reception; translation between Latin and
vernacular cultures, between different linguistic or national cultures,
translation between oral, written, and/or visual cultures.
* Cross-media transformations: film adaptation and beyond:
appropriations, digitization, transformations and circulation of film
and media texts.
* Cultural production and its susceptibility to political influence and
ideologies; the ways in which literary culture interacts with other
forms of cultural production. 
* Oral, manuscript and print history; history and mechanics of
performing, reading and viewing; literary histories and
historiographies. 
* Theoretical approaches to the mechanisms of transformation.

Deadlines: 
We invite proposals of either individual 20-minute papers or full
sessions of three papers. Please submit a title and 150-word abstract
for each paper, including speaker's name and affiliation, to reach the
organizers by Monday 17th December. Organizers of full sessions are
requested to submit the names of all participants, titles and abstracts
at the same time. Papers may be given in either English or Italian.

A provisional programme will be published in February 2008 on the SIS
website (www.sis.ac.uk) and circulated to the Italian Studies mailing
list.

All participants must be members of the Society for Italian Studies. For
further details of how to join, please visit the Society's webpage:
www.sis.ac.uk.

All proposals and enquiries should be directed to the organizers:
Dr Guyda Armstrong, [log in to unmask] 
Dr Rhiannon Daniels, [log in to unmask]