[Commlist] Passeurs. International Conference in Buenos Aires: Italian Culture Beyond Italian Shores (1945-1989). Reception and Imagination

*International Conference***

**

*/Passeurs/**. Italian Culture Beyond Italian Shores (1945-1989). 
**Reception and Imagination*

**

*Literature – Cinema – Media***

**

*26-28 August 2020*

**

*Universidad de Buenos Aires*

*Premise: Reception and Imagination ***

**

Beginning in the year 2018, a group of Italianists hailing from various 
European universities— including Caen Normandie (France), Humboldt zu 
Berlin (Germany), Mons (Belgium), Compultense de Madrid (Spain), Siena 
Stranieri (Italy), and UCLondon (United Kingdom)—organized several 
seminars on the topic of “Italian Literature of the Second Half of the 
Twentieth Century (1945-1989): Reception and Imagination”.

By “reception” we mean the set of processes and channels through which 
Italian culture (and particularly, literature) of the period being 
studied, was received, translated, disseminated, read, interpreted and 
also challenged in national and linguistic-cultural contexts outside of 
Italy. Reception, therefore, has been studied using the latest 
methodological approaches – from the history of reading to the new 
studies on publishing and translation – in European and extra-European 
contexts. Starting with a “material” research on works that originated 
in Italy and circulated in the rest of the world, such an approach 
provides a critical insight into what Italian culture ended up 
representing outside of its national borders.

By “imagination” the research group intends a mental mechanism which 
utilizes images and associations of images – textual and iconographic – 
to affirm the power of “poetic thought”, as conceived by the French 
philosopher Gaston Bachelard against the absolutism of rationality. The 
imagination is thus seen not as a “function” but as a “space” of 
exchange, of freedom and of tensions. This concept was successively 
adopted by Gilles Durand in his studies on “mythocriticism” in which the 
imagination is affirmed as a dynamic force of “polarization of images”: 
a recomposition of reality which includes (with no hierarchical 
divisions) symbolic, mythical, oneiric, fantastical elements, etc. (with 
explicit reference also to psychoanalysis). In light of this 
interpretation, the role of the /passeur/ is not limited to the 
traditional function of a simple mediator but should also be seen as the 
activity of the person—intellectual, artist, scholar, novelist or 
poet—who wanted to freely reconfigure an Italian cultural imagination 
through “lyrical thinking”. To give an example, our attention will be 
directed towards non-Italian writers who chose to set their narrations 
in a significantly reinvented Italy, reinterpreted as a reservoir of 
sensitive and poetic images or as a screen on which to project their own 
concerns.

The period of time chosen (1945-1989) finds its justification in an 
assumption of methodological coherence that refers to the two historical 
ruptures of the century: the end of the World War II, on one side, and 
the Fall of the Berlin Wall, on the other. Both events entail 
socio-political reorganizations at the European level, which were in 
turn marked by corresponding events more or less regarding the main 
technological, social and cultural changes which (starting in 1945 after 
the reconstruction phase) marked the beginning and the end of an 
exceptional period of socio-economic development. As for 1989, instead, 
it is noted that the Fall of the Berlin Wall imposed coincident and 
radical political changes with the end of a certain vision of Europe and 
the world. From that moment onwards, the digital culture began and 
proceeded to develop, such that, within a few decades, digital culture 
imposed itself on all intellectual and cultural players. The two dates 
therefore appear to be concurrently symbolic and representative of a 
clearly defined Italian culture of the second half of the twentieth century.

*Conference macro-sections and locations in Buenos Aires***

**

The conference, scheduled on 26-28 August, 2020, will take place in 
various venues of the University of Buenos Aires. The conference, open 
to the whole scientific community related to it, is divided into two 
macro-sections: Literature and Cinema & Media.

The choice of the Argentine capital as the venue for the conference is 
not accidental, but is rather the result of extensive planning which 
aspires to conclude the meetings on the /Passeurs/ in one of the 
symbolic locations imbued with a widespread Italian spirit. Buenos 
Aires, a metropolis of 16 million inhabitants, is composed of a mixed 
social and cultural fabric, a high percentage of which holds Italian 
origins. The Universidad de Buenos Aires, on the other hand, boasts one 
of the best positions in international rankings and is always among the 
top five academic-learning centers in Latin America.

For these reasons, the three days of the Conference will also include a 
guided visit of the city in search not of a “Little Italy”, but rather 
of a widespread Italian spirit present in many material and immaterial 
traces (buildings, domes, popular districts, coffee shops, signs, 
writings) of a “city-world” that, international and cosmopolitan, 
jealously preserves its historical ties to Italy and Europe.

The languages of the conference are: Italian, Spanish and English.

**

*Literature ***

**

*/Passeurs/**. Italian Literature Beyond Italian Shores (1945-1989). 
Reception and Imagination***

*Scientific Committee***

Marco Carmello (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)

Alejandro Patat (Università per Stranieri di Siena, Italy)

Brigitte Poitrenaud-Lamesi (Université de Caen Normandie, France)

Thea Rimini (Université de Mons, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)

Beatrice Sica (University College of London, United Kingdom)

Nora Sforza (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Roberto Ubbidiente (Universität Humboldt zu Berlin, Germany)

The questions posed, as well as those yet-to-be pondered,  revolve 
around the characteristics of the reception of literature and culture, 
focusing on the transmission methodologies and instruments (texts, 
publishing, series, anthologies, journals, projects, foundations, 
institutions), which either aided, selected or hindered the 
dissemination of Italian culture outside of Italy: furthermore, this 
section will consider the various figures of “passeurs” – editors, 
intellectuals, writers, translations, journalists etc. – who had a 
central role in defining an Italian cultural imagination beyond the Alps.

The *Literature* section, therefore, aims to engage with the issue of 
cultural mediation with the objective of creating a map of Italian 
culture during the second half of the twentieth century outside of 
Italy. The section will be divided by the scientific committee in panels 
based on themes, authors and issues.

The proposed themes are:

·The /Passeurs/ as protagonists in both the reception and the 
imagination of Italian literature of the second half of the twentieth 
century outside of Italy.

·Reception,dissemination, and translation of a work by an author of the 
second half of the  twentieth century outside Italy.

·Anthologies of Italian literature of the second half of the twentieth 
century in other languages.

·Monographic issues of magazines or magazines on the debates and texts 
of Italian literature of the second half of the twentieth century.

·Critical texts on Italian literature of the period in question written 
and published outside Italy.

·Essays and fictional texts on Italy ofthe second half of the twentieth 
century published in other literary systems that restore, reinvent or 
reinterpret contemporary Italy.

Please submit proposals (maximum 250 words) in Italian, Spanish or 
English, together with a biographical note (maximum 150 words) to the 
Presidents of the selection committee "Literature" section—Prof. 
Alejandro Patat ((patat /at/ unistrasi.it) <mailto:(patat /at/ unistrasi.it)>) and 
Prof. Brigitte Poitrenaud ((brigitte.poitrenaud /at/ orange.fr) 
<mailto:(brigitte.poitrenaud /at/ orange.fr)>)—no later than 31 January, 2020. 
The selection of the proposals will be made by the Scientific Committee 
on the basis of scientific quality and originality as well as the 
thematic relevance. The outcome of the selection process will be 
communicated by the first week of March 2020. Plans are in place for the 
publication of a selection of the papers in a single volume.

**

*Cinema and Media *

**

*Intersections Between Italian and Latin-American Cinema and Media: 
1945-1989*

*Scienfitic Committee*

Flavia Brizio-Skov (University of Tennessee, United States)

Milly Buonanno (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy)

Monica Jansen (Utrecht University, Netherlands)

Inge Lanslots (KU Leuven, Belgium)

Flavia Laviosa (Wellesley College, United States)

Mariano Mestman (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Cristina Perissinotto (University of Ottawa, Canada)

Antonio Traverso (Curtin University, Australia)

Maria Bonaria Urban (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Italian cinema and media are translational and transnational. They have 
been imported and exported, transferred, translated, adopted, adapted 
and re-interpreted. The lure of Italian cinema’s legends and the 
interest in revisiting its genealogy create bridges across global 
artistic languages. With the intent//to revisit the history of Italian 
cinema and media, we are committed to trace the evidence of their 
international polysemy and polycentrism, to define the extent of their 
inspirational force and to examine other cinemas and media artistic 
innovations resulting from their osmosis with the Italian productions. 
Italian cinema and media have moved in many directions constantly 
intersecting with other cinemas and media in particular with Latin America.

Latin American and Italian cinemas enjoy a long tradition of exchange 
which is best manifested in the influence of Neorealism on the Latin 
American social and political cinema and also in the works of a 
generation of Latin American filmmakers who studied at the Centro 
Sperimentale di Cinema in Rome in the 1950s. Furthermore, the work of 
Italian filmmakers on Latin American politics and literature is of 
considerable interest. It is also worth remembering that, since its 
inception, the Latin American film industry employed directors and 
actors of Italian origin while Latin American stars acted in Italian 
films. More generally, all spheres of popular culture turned out to be a 
fertile ground for the relations and exchanges between the television 
series and the soap operas, between the /commedia all’italiana /(comedy 
Italian style) and the /spaghetti western/ set in Latin America.  
Lastly, throughout the years many transnational co-productions of film 
and television works took place, which contributed to strengthen the 
links between Italian and Latin American visual and media cultures.

Within such transnational framework, scholars are invited to engage in a 
methodological tension between studying national cinema and media and 
transnational critical approaches thus recovering these overlooked 
connections and re-composing them in a historic and aesthetic map, 
marked by cross-national dialogues and trans-generational exchanges in 
particular in the 1945-1989 period of European and world history.**

*Topics include, but are not limited to:***

·Global Neorealisms: dialogues between Latin-American and Italian cinemas.

·The Centro Sperimentale di Cinema and Cinecittà: Latin American 
filmmakers and writers in Rome.

·Links between Italian political cinema and Latin America.

·Popular genres between the two continents: the Western, the /commedia 
all’italiana/, the soap operas, the television show, the photo comic, 
cartoons.

·Italian films belonging to the tradition of Meridionalism/melodrama 
which see the participation of Latin American actors.

·The reception of Italian cinema in Latin America and the reception of 
Latin American cinema in Italy.

· “Traveling filmmakers” in Latin America.

·The Cosmopolitanism of the Latin American film industry: filmmakers and 
actors of Italian origins.

·Transnational stardom in cinema and television.

·The use of stereotypes and exoticisms in the Italian and Latin American 
collective imaginations.

·Audiovisual representations of Italian migration towards Latin America 
and of return migrations.

·Transnational co-productions and the adaptation to the needs of the 
respective national markets of film and television productions.

Please submit proposals of 250 words (in Italian, English or Spanish) of 
original and unpublished papers together with a bio-note of about 150 
words to Prof. Flavia Laviosa ((flaviosa /at/ wellesley.edu) 
<mailto:(flaviosa /at/ wellesley.edu)>), Presidentof the selection committee of 
the Cinema and Media section by 31^January 2020. The selection criteria 
of the papers will be their scientific quality and their relevance to 
the themes of the section. The outcome of the selection process will be 
communicated by the first week of March 2020. Selected articles will be 
considered for publication in a special issue of the /Journal of Italian 
Cinema and Media Studies/.

*Conference sites*

The conference will be held at**the Centro Italo-Argentino de Altos 
Estudios and Facultad de Filosofía y Letras dell’Universidad 
de Buenos Aires.

**

*Registration***

Registration will take place after acceptance of proposals following the 
review of the Scientific Committee. The registration fee is US$30 for 
Latin American speakers, and US$50 for speakers from the rest of the 
world. The payment method and deadline will be indicated in a subsequent 
communication.

**

*Sponsors*

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras - Universidad de Buenos Aires

Centro Italo-Argentino de Altos Estudios – Universidad de Buenos Aires

Università per Stranieri di Siena

Ambasciata d’Italia in Argentina

Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Buenos Aires

Museo de la Inmigración de Buenos Aires (Universidad de Tres de Febrero)

**

**






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