Hospitality Within: Migrant Literature and the Translation Effect

About This Event

In an ever-changing interconnected world, what does it mean to investigate (and teach) Italian Studies? Are Italian Studies still tied in a hierarchical and centripetal mode that privileges its literary canon? A trans-national approach suggests going beyond the political and cultural confines of the Italian language and its literary canon. Polezzi observes the still strong grasp of the linguistic prestige that the Western intellectual centers exercised over the literary productions of sub-represented linguistic groups, that, in turn, can acquire literary ‘citizenship’ only thanks to translations. With this seminar we aim at showing current critical engagement with the idea of a world literature from an Italian perspective that stresses the importance of geographical and cultural proximities open to fruitful linguistic and cultural intersections where differences work together to show how to accept reality.

Featured Guests

• Presenter: Loredana Polezzi, Alfonse M. D’Amato Chair in Italian American and Italian Studies, Department of Languages and Cultural Studies, Affiliated Faculty, Department of English, Center for Italian Studies & Center for Multilingual and Intercultural Communication, Associated Faculty, Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Stony Brook University; Honorary Professor, School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University; Fellow, The Learned Society of Wales
• Respondent 1: Marella Feltrin-Morris, Professor of Italian; Chair, Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Ithaca College
• Respondent 2: Robert T. Valgenti, Professor of Liberal Arts and Food Studies, The Culinary Institute of America; Desk Editor, Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies