italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Dear all,
We'd like to remind you of our CFPs for AAIS 2014 which will be held May
23-25 at the University of Zurich. Please consider sending us an abstract,
coming to the conference, and supporting the Queer Studies Caucus. Also,
feel free to circulate this to anyone who might find it interesting or
relevant to their work.* The deadline for submission has been extended to* *10
December 2013*. If you're interested, or have questions, suggestions or
comments, please do feel free to get in touch with SA Smythe (QSC
President) and Julia Heim (QSC Secretary) at
[log in to unmask] The full abstracts are below, for the
following proposed panels:
*- Queer/Italian/Film*
*- Regulating Queerness in Italy*
*- Libertini, Sodomiti, Froci and Finocchi: Sexual Identity and the Sex Act*
*- A Reflection on the present and future of Queer Italian Studies
(Roundtable)*
*-----------*
Title: *Queer/Italian/Film*
Chair: Dom Holdaway, University of Warwick
Taking inspiration from Carla Freccero's *Queer/Early/Modern*, this panel
attempts to open up new understandings of queer Italian film that offer a
productive challenge to film and media studies. Papers are welcomed that
focus on the spaces between the terms, thus they might include
considerations of the limits of the applicability of the term 'queer' in
the case of Italy's cinema (the term's translatability, or possible Italian
equivalents); the transcendence of national borders in queer film
('Italian' films not 'made in Italy', such as *Mambo Italiano*); the modes
through which queer Italian subjects find expression that go beyond
traditional film (camera phones, social media, photography, etc.); the
representation of queer characters by straight actors; or the shifting
spaces of queer aesthetics in traditional Italian cinema.
-----------
Title: *Regul**ating Queerness in Italy*
Chair: SA Smythe, University of California, Santa Cruz
One of the frameworks for Jasbir Puar’s *Terrorist Assemblages* is the
critique of “queer as regulatory,” that is, a controlled or directed
expectation of queer identity or expression according to a predefined rule,
principle, or law (such as homonormativity and/or secularity). With this
framework in mind, this session focuses on those regulations and
predefinitions that have been central to shaping the limits of queer
Italian identity and have created or prevented forms of interplay between
all groups and intersections of those considered to be “others” throughout
Italy's social, political, and literary landscape.
Questions addressed in this panel include, but are not limited to:
- Where do identitarian and political categories of Black and Italian meet?
- How do queerness or other non-normative sexual identities and the process
of racialization interact in Italy’s current social climate?
- Where and to what end does queer meet the postcolonial?
- How has homonormativity--a decidedly Anglo-American concept--been
portrayed or introduced in Italian culture?
- How have answers to these questions changed along with the shifting
status of immigration, queer visibility, class difference, and global
accessibility to knowledge?
-----------
Title: *Libertini, Sodomiti, Froci and Finocchi: Sexual Identity and the
Sex Act*
Chair: Julia Heim, CUNY Graduate Center
This panel will discuss portrayals and receptions of LGBT sex acts in
Italy. What role do representations of LGBT sex play in Italian literature,
film, television, politics, and other cultural media? What is the
importance of the physical act in an age when political correctness can
lead to an erasure of difference? Have the intersections of identity and
action promoted or prohibited representations of queer experience? When
considered from a historical perspective, has a lack of terminology
increased or decreased the potential for the recognition of queerness in
Italian society and culture? Papers that consider all forms of
performativity and its relationship to identity and perceived identity are
particularly encouraged.
-----------
Title: *A Reflection on the present and future of Queer Italian Studies*
This roundtable will focus on the role of queer studies in academia today,
in the United States, in Italy, and in Europe more broadly. How has queer
studies been institutionalized? What is the impact/role of queer studies in
Italian Studies? Scholars interested in discussing issues concerning the
differences and convergences between Italian queer Italianists, Italian
queer studies in the United States and queers within the Italian and Anglo
cultural contexts should submit short proposals discussing their specific
areas of interest regarding these topics, and include specific questions
they would like to pose to the group more generally.
-------------------
Papers are welcomed from all disciplines in Italian studies (e.g., film,
visual studies, literary criticism, history, social sciences) and can be in
Italian or English. Presenters do not need to be members of the QSC, but
are encouraged to join. Please submit a short description (250 words) to
[log in to unmask] by December 10, 2013 *(note extended
deadline)*.
We look forward to your participation,
SA Smythe Julia Heim
QSC President QSC Secretary
History of Consciousness Comparative Literature
(Italian)
University of California, Santa Cruz CUNY Graduate Center
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