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Please note that the Call for Papers for this conference closes on 31 July 2009. Call
for Papers:
Leonardo
Sciascia’s Defiance
Literature,
History, Politics
University College London
6-7 November
2009
This
interdisciplinary conference investigates Leonardo Sciascia’s deep
influence on contemporary Italian culture, his significance as a public
intellectual, and the lasting ethical and political importance of his essays
and novels. As we hope to show, Sciascia’s swift canonization raises
important questions about the perception of literature, the discursive
possibilities of political protest and the relationship between high culture
and politics in present-day Italy. Sciascia’s drastic exposure of social
injustice, organized crime and state violence mark a challenge that goes to the
heart of Italy’s ethical and political identity. This explicit political
dimension, however, cannot be separated from Sciascia’s creative
inventiveness: his political critique of contemporary society frequently
explores formal devices that disrupt the realistic surface of his writing,
reminding the reader forcibly of the conventionality of literary genres and
fictional world-making. Sciascia’s engagement with history and his resistance
to political and social orthodoxy must therefore be understood as complex,
public gestures, which demand interpretation and which contrast simplistic
ideas of political rebellion. The force of his essays and fictions –
mediated by the complex codes and conventions of literature – lies in
their political and ethical relevance, but also in Sciascia’s concern
with contingency and singularity, against the universalizing pretensions of
political discourse. Twenty years after Leonardo Sciascia’s death, it is
our intention to illustrate the richness and complexity of his legacy. By
bringing together historians, political scientists, scholars of Italian
literature from Italy and Britain, as well as creative writers, we wish to
underline Sciascia’s importance to the present and for the future.
Confirmed
keynote speakers Prof Joseph Farrell (University of Strathclyde)
Prof Salvatore Lupo
(Universitą di Palermo)
Conference organizers Dr
Lucia Rinaldi ([log in to unmask])
Dr
Florian Mussgnug ([log in to unmask])
The organizers
invite proposals on any aspect of Sciascia’s work – literature,
history and politics – and on his influence on contemporary Italian
culture.
Titles and
abstracts (max 300 words) for proposed papers (approximately 20 minutes) in
either English or Italian should be sent to Lucia Rinaldi at [log in to unmask] by Friday 31 July
2009.
---------------------------------
Dr Lucia Rinaldi
Teaching Fellow
Department of Italian
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
email [log in to unmask]
Tel +44 (0) 20 7679 3022
Fax +44 (0) 20 7209 0638