Winter 20112

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2 Winter 2011

CONTENTS

A word from the editors p. 1

EDITORIAL p. 2

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL p. 3

SNAPSHOTS of RECENT EVENTS p. 4

FORTHCOMING EVENTS p. 7

5th AISCLI Conference p. 7

1st AISCLI Essay Prize p. 8

HIGHLIGHTS of UPCOMING EVENTS p.10

AISCLI CREATIVE SELECTION p.12

A word from the editors This is the second issue of the AISCLI Newsletter, for Winter 2011. Thank you to all the people who helped us create it with the material they so generously provided. Our regular appointments will be, from now on, in the Fall and in the Spring. We encourage members and friends to submit materials to be published in the Fall issue by October 15th 2011. We also urge all members to

In memory of Édouard Glissant (Sainte-Marie, 21 September 1928 – Paris, 3 February 2011)

renew their membership and to invite colleagues and students to join our renewed association – the only one with an emphasis on postcolonial studies in Italy.

See you in Naples at the 5TH AISCLI CONFERENCE!

Simona Bertacco and Alessandra Di Maio

Newsletter editors

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EDITORIAL

“Our” 50th Anniversary...

For us, Italians, the awareness of what happened in the colonial age and of being in a different historical and social phase started exactly half a century ago, with Gillo Pontecorvo‟s La Battaglia di Algeri (1961), Luigi Nono‟s Intolleranza 1960 (1961, in collaboration with Angelo Maria Ripellino and Emilio Vedova) and Pier Paolo Pasolini‟s “Preface” to Letteratura negra. La poesia (1961). Some of us were too young, others were not born yet. However, in that year seeds were sown for new amazing growths.

As to the academy, Italian universities started to wake up one decade later: there were no specific theories, no world-wide reputation of writers or artists, no support from other academics or research groups. There were eager students, though. They began to prefer writers from different cultures and histories, being extremely curious about Alterity. In the 1980s some university positions were given to scholars working only on Post-colonial Studies (and this “label” was created). Our fields of research kept growing not only because of the huge reputation of some talents we had contributed to “discover” but also because of new exciting writers and because, on the wake of Cultural Studies, we enlarged our investigations to cover other arts and media coming from the former colonies. Students started to take our interests for granted since, after all, they did grow up in a post-colonial world, had seen some movie, had relatives in some former colony and – above all – had a perception of Europe as no longer the center of the world.

Nobody expected that a Restoration was going to hit also our studies hard in the face.

Since the 1990s, I am afraid, there has been an involution due to the crisis of the Italian educational system and, consequently, to the

intellectual poverty of the majority of our students and to a society becoming more and more selfish and boorish thanks to Berlusconi‟s mediatic success – itself a proof of the majority of Italians‟ deep wish for a Restoration.

1961 seems so far away, now!

The academic situation is very tough again. Young Italian scholars find no openings and are discouraged from following what is not mainstream. The students‟ interest in the Post-colonial has declined. Our societies refocus their attention on entrenched and “endangered” Western identities.

Therefore, now more than ever, there is a strong need to react with renewed enthusiasm and not to take anything for granted or easy. One has to be stubborn and idealistic, as some of us were in the 1970s. In order to recapture a social and political awareness it might be useful to reconsider this past half century, maybe beginning again from 1961, when Europe was losing its colonies and the new awareness started to stir even in Italy. Why was 1961 a watershed? A comparison between what had been going on before and what happened in half a century might re-energize our studies and – who knows? – renegotiations between the remote past and the recent past might be possible: how far has the Post-colonial been really “post”? This is not a new question, of course. However, it might acquire a new light if we consider the complex and un-even history – with its own evolutions, climaxes and involutions – of these past fifty years. Obviously I am not referring now only to Italy, but especially to the former colonies, and to the concept of Alterity in general. We are 50! The best way to fight amnesia – which any Restoration fondly cultivates – is to constantly rebuild history.

Armando Pajalich

former Chair of AISLI

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MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

IMPORTANT REMINDER TO AISCLI MEMBERS

We need your support! By renewing your membership, which we kept at a minimum in these times of crisis, you will:

- be an active part of the Members Assembly

- participate in all AISCLI activities: symposia, meetings, conferences

- receive information on initiatives, events, CfPs, and national and international publications in our field of study through the mailing list

- circulate information and news on your research and events

- receive two Newsletters per year

- receive a € 5 bonus when you join EACLALS (European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies)

- have a discount when you subscribe to the journal Il Tolomeo (only € 20 per year, instead of € 30)

We would like to encourage all current members to inform colleagues, students and all friends interested in Postcolonial Studies about AISCLI, and to direct them to our webpage: http://www.aiscli.it/iscrizioni.php.

MODULO D’ISCRIZIONE 2011

INFORMAZIONI PERSONALI Cognome:

Nome:

Occupazione:

Istituzione:

Dipartimento:

Indirizzo (al quale si vuole essere contattati):

Tel:

E-mail:

TIPO D’ISCRIZIONE ORDINARIA € 36 RIDOTTA € 18 (studente/pensionato/non retribuito)

(indicare con una croce la quota selezionata) MODALITÀ DI PAGAMENTO Bonifico in euro sul conto AISCLI: IBAN: IT25B0622511820041200000196 (indicare il proprio nome e cognome e la causale: “iscrizione AISCLI 2011”) INVIARE IL MODULO D’ISCRIZIONE attraverso la pagina dedicata sul sito associativo: http://www.aiscli.it/iscrizioni.php o per e-mail a: Prof. Marco Fazzini Dipartimento di Studi Europei e Postcoloniali Palazzo Cosulich, Zattere Università Ca‟ Foscari Venezia e-mail: mfazzini@unive.it

NB: le ricevute saranno inviate solo su richiesta.

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L’IDENTITÀ CULTURALE NELLE LETTERA-TURE POSTCOLONIALI. LAVORI IN CORSO Università degli Studi Roma Tre October 14-15, 2010

On the 14th and 15th of October the Department of Comparative Literature of the Faculty of Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, hosted the international conference L’identità culturale nelle letterature postcoloniali: lavori in corso, which ended a six-year project of research coordinated by Alessandra Contenti. John Thieme, from the University of East Anglia, and Stephen Clingman, from the University of Massachusetts, joined the conference from abroad. In his plenary lecture, Postcolonial Mappae Mundi, John Thieme, who is editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Studies and author of many essays on postcolonial literatures and theory, established fascinating links between Mercatore‟s world map and Conrad‟s maps in Heart of Darkness, disclosing new interpretations on the role of maps in Derek Walcott‟s work. Stephen Clingman went back to the concepts of „transnational literature‟ and „borders‟ as outlined in his recent The Grammar of Identity (2009) in order to explore the intertwining of „rights‟, „routes‟ and „refugees‟ in the work of Caryl Phillips. The members of the research team briefly described their individual projects in a round table coordinated by Nancy Isenberg: Giulia Lanciani provided an interesting contribution on Brazilian cultural identity dating back to the first intellectual debates on art, language, culture, ties with the „motherland‟; Marinella Rocca Longo outlined New Zealand‟s colonial history through literary examples; Simona Corso illustrated her project on Robinson Crusoe‟s postcolonial rewritings and migrations; Adriano Elia explained the historical, cultural and social issues at stake in the writings of Mohsin Hamid in the light of today‟s difficult relationships between Pakistan and the Western world; Maddalena

Pennacchia provided a challenging cultural reading of the famous Indian film The Rising. Ballad of Mangal Pandey; Tania Zulli sketched the profile of the new South African artist according to the features of the writer, playwright, painter and academic Zakes Mda; Maria Paola Guarducci discussed the role of Victorian literary models in the work of Renesh Lakhan within the new trends of the contemporary South African novel; Richard Ambrosini offered a postcolonial reading of Graham Greene‟s The Quiet American against the background of the Cold War. The conference also hosted three academics from other Italian universities: Mara De Chiara (L‟Orientale, Napoli), who gave a lecture on Chicano literature and performing arts; Flaminia Nicora (Università di Bergamo), who talked about George Chesney‟s The Dilemma. A Tale of the Mutiny in the context of Nineteenth century sensational and historical novels about India and Jane Wilkinson (L‟Orientale, Napoli), who discussed allegories of identity allowing new readings of Amos Tutuola‟s The Palm Wine Drinkard. Finally, Alesandra Contenti illustrated her interpretation of Rudyard Kipling as author of family sketches, portraits and self-portraits so far attributed to other people. Paola Splendore delivered her lecture on „black London‟, a city she portrayed in its symbolical, contradictory and multifaceted profile starting from the images of the first migrants from the Caribbean up to the disturbing portrait offered in the recent novel Harare North by the Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava. With their participation to this conference both Contenti and Splendore ended their academic career at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, where they taught for many years shaping generations of students also (and especially) on postcolonial literatures.

Maria Paola Guarducci (Università Roma Tre)

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LA SCRITTURA ROMANZESCA NELLA

LETTERATURA INGLESE FIRST ANDA CONFERENCE University of Bari, 5-6 November 2010

The two-day conference “La scrittura romanze-sca nella letteratura inglese” was held in Bari at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures and was organized by ANDA, the Italian association of university professors of English Literature which is aimed at encouraging and supporting the study and the teaching of literature and cultural studies. The conference, which gathered many outstanding and renowned scholars from various Italian universities, was divided into 3 main sessions chaired by Paolo Bertinetti, Laura Di Michele and Angelo Righetti. The first was focused on the representation of the Mediterranean Sea in English and postcolonial literatures, the second on models of narration in popular literature, and the third on forms of narration for and on the stage. The keynote lectures were given by Vito Cavone, Carlo Pagetti and Silvia Bigliazzi. The conference culminated with a lively and participated discussion during the round table coordinated by Maria Teresa Chialant, centred on the perspectives of development of literary studies both in the field of research and teaching. The general meeting of the ANDA members closed the conference with the elections of the new board of directors.

Maria Renata Dolce (Università del Salento)

PRISMA SUDAFRICA: LA NAZIONE ARCOBALENO A VENT’ANNI

DALLA LIBERAZIONE, 1990-2010 One-day Symposium University of Milan, 24 November 2010

On November 24th 2010, Lidia De Michelis, Itala Vivan, Claudia Gualtieri, and Roberto Pedretti organized a one-day symposium on South Africa. Since 1990, the “rainbow nation” has constructed its collective image as a unique example of cultural transformation, civic and interethnic cohabitation, and international projection. 2010 marked the twentieth anniversary of the new South Africa, and also witnessed its designation as host country of the FIFA World Cup. The event turned the nation into an ideal observatory to explore and discuss its new role within a globalized world. The title chosen for the symposium recalls the complexity of the geometrical figure of the prism. It was taken as a metaphor for a nation that attempts to weave into a coherent texture the diverse narratives that constitute its rainbow. A giant Zakumi welcomed the guests at the Polo di Mediazione Interculturale e Comunicazione of the University of Milan. The sessions were organized thematically, focusing on history, cultural studies, visual arts, and literature. The historical section explored memory and heritage; development and safety; and the social re-integration of ex-soldiers. The sessions dedicated to cultural studies and the visual arts offered papers on museums as forms of reconstruction of historical memory, the World Cup, photography, post-apartheid architecture, and representations of identity in the arts. Finally, literary papers focused on the fiction of Zoe Wicomb, Achmat Dangor and J.M. Coetzee. The variety of papers and research fields showcased at the conference well captured the richness and dynamism of the cultural production of contemporary South Africa: a nation that keeps renewing itself in ways that are both exemplary and unpredictable.

Claudia Gualtieri (Università di Milano)

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READING CONFLICT OPEN UNIVERSITY POSTGRADUATE

CONFERENCE London, 19 July 2010

The one-day Postgraduate Conference “Reading Conflict,” which was held at the Institute of English Studies in London, on 19 July 2010, had the aim of encouraging the critical contribution of postgraduate students and early career researchers interested in discussing the many ways in which the concept of conflict can be examined within the multi-faceted context of postcolonial literary studies. The conference, which was brilliantly organised by Ole Birk Laursen (Open University) – who is, amongst the others, the EACLALS Postgraduate Representative – proved an excellent forum for an open exchange of ideas, triggering the emergence of lively debates after the many parallel sessions that filled the very busy schedule of the day. The presentations gave diverse and thought-provoking insights on the complex theme of the conference, addressing numerous questions, regarding for example the relationship between conflict and the creative voice, the fictional narrativizations of historical conflicts, the aesthetic and political relevance of writing, publishing or reading during wartime, and the development of conflict within different disciplines or literary genres. The specific invitation to consider the relationship between the research field of postcolonial studies and other critical disciplines was indeed answered with enthusiasm and, as a consequence, the conference was widely interdisciplinary, demonstrating once again the enriching potentialities of postcolonial approaches to the study of our conflictual modernity. Such attitude characterised also the much-appreciated keynote lecture “Colonial States of Emergency,” delivered by Dr. Stephen Morton (Southampton), who carried out an analysis of

the controversial literary and cultural depictions of the role played by violence and terror in the colonies and in the postcolonies, concentrating particularly on the Kenyan case.

Giulia D'Agostini (Università di Padova)

WORLD WIDE WOMEN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Turin, 11-13 February 2011

On February 11 to 13, 2011 the University of Torino hosted the international conference World Wide Women, organized by CIRSDE (Center for Interdisciplinary Study and Research of/on Women) http://www.cirsde.unito.it. The event saw the presence of both Italian and International scholars, academics, experts and activists in various fields: law, economics, sociology, science, linguistics, literature. The rich panels and parallel sessions dealt with a variety of scientific and critical viewpoints, such as a gender perspective on the crisis in European countries, women scientists tracing the future, gender and culture in European urban spaces, care and gender circuits of migration, violence and the agency of women, feminism, queer studies and postcolonial criticism, migrant writings in North America and in Italy, the migration of gender studies in the francophone context. Paola Zaccaria presented the documentary ALTAR, dedicated to Gloria Anzaldua. The postcolonial perspective was pervasive in at least three sessions, the ones on theory and the ones on migrant writings, where Italophone writers and a range of films on Italian colonial or racial policies were presented. The closing poster session of the conference was mainly based on ideas of symbolic violence in advertisements and in the media, on cultural issues such as the purda, and on care and social assistance for victims of violence.

Carmen Concilio (Università di Torino)

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AISCLI FORTHCOMING EVENTS & CFP This section is generally dedicated to a selection of the Calls for Papers, among the many that circulate through our mailing list, that in our view deserve special attention. In this issue, we give special attention to three important appointments for AISCLI members:

the 5th AISCLI Conference

the 1st AISCLI Postgraduate Essay Prize

the publication of the volume Experiences of Freedom in Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures.

5TH AISCLI CONFERENCE CONTEMPORARY SITES OF CHAOS IN THE LITERATURES AND ARTS OF THE

POSTCOLONIAL WORLD Università degli Studi di Napoli – L‟Orientale Naples, 29-30 September 2011

Here in the „old world‟ – in Europe, in Italy, in Naples, in the Mediterranean – we seem to experience, more than at any other time in recent history, a new season of anomy. There is a sense of the apocalyptic in the air, a feeling of being on the brink of explosion. In other parts of the world – in still struggling post-colonies, in the borderscapes of migrant life, in the non-places of globalized economies, in proliferating war zones – chaos seems to be constitutive of

existence itself. But the Mediterranean is burning, borders are provisional, and categories such as „here‟, „old‟, and „other‟ are precarious.

The AISCLI conference intends to explore a variety of chaotic experiences which have become the object of aesthetic intervention, not only in anglophone literatures, but also in cinema, photography, music, and the performative and visual arts of the postcolonial world.

The focus is on the contemporary: we ask how art registers, reacts to, responds, rebels against, endorses, elaborates, dissects, analyzes, understands, interprets, represents today‟s sites of chaos.

A number of (not necessarily negative) declinations of the term ‘chaos’ are suggested:

Chaos as anarchic synchronicity of the contemporary Chaos as confusion, formlessness, unpredictability Chaos as anomy, normlessness, social and cultural alienation Chaos as death (of the old / birth of the new?) Chaos as emergency Chaos as the emergent Chaos as the post-colony / the postcolonial Chaos as global cultural forms and modes of living Chaos as conflict Chaos as vulnerability Chaos as contact zone Chaos as liminality Chaos as process (of artistic creation, of thinking, of change) Chaos as revolution Chaos as experimentation Chaos as creation Chaos as carnival (the carnivalesque, the subversive, the satiric) We invite you to submit paper proposals (250-300 words) dealing with any of the above thematic inputs and from across the wide spectrum of postcolonial literatures and arts.

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A comparative, interdisciplinary approach is encouraged.

The deadline for submission is 30 April 2011.

Please send all proposals to: info@aiscli.it.

THE FIRST AISCLI POSTGRADUATE

ESSAY PRIZE

The competition is open to any young Italian scholar registered for a postgraduate degree or having recently completed a postgraduate degree in Italy or abroad. It is not compulsory for candidates to be AISCLI members to enter the prize. It involves the submission of an essay in English on the topic of our next conference – “Contemporary Sites of Chaos in the Literatures and Arts of the Postcolonial World” which will be held at the Università degli Studi di Napoli – L‟Orientale, 29-30 September 2011. The essay should be between 5500 and 7500 words long, including bibliographic citations and footnotes, and presented in accordance with the style guidelines of the MLA.

All submissions should be made electronically and include two separate attachments: 1. a completed application form 2. the essay

The author‟s identity should not be identifiable from the essay (candidates must ensure that electronic tags such as those generated by MS Word are removed).

Please submit all entries to info@aiscli.it by 30 June 2011.

A prize of €350 will be awarded to the winner. The winner will be formally notified on 1 September 2011 and the winning essay will be

announced at the next AISCLI conference in Naples. All essays will be evaluated anonymously by a panel of academics selected by the AISCLI board.

APPLICATION FORM Also available at www.aiscli.it. Please supply the following details and email this form, along with your essay, to the following email address: info@aiscli.it

You must ensure that no personal details appear on the essay. Full Name: Email address: Postal address: Telephone number: Institution at which you are registered as a Postgraduate Student / at which you completed your PhD: Name of dissertation supervisor: Email address of dissertation supervisor: Declaration: I confirm that I am registered as a postgraduate student at the above institution / that I completed my PhD at the above institution on (give date). I declare that the essay I have submitted is entirely my own work and that no part of this essay has been published in any form. I accept the rules of the competition, and that all decisions about the competition are made at the sole discretion of the AISCLI Board. Date: Signed:

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AISCLI is pleased to announce the publication of the volume:

EXPERIENCES OF FREEDOM IN

POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES AND

CULTURES EDITED BY ANNALISA OBOE & SHAUL BASSI (ROUTLEDGE 2011) Modern ideas of freedom and human rights have been repeatedly contested and are hotly debated at the beginning of the third millennium in response to new theories, needs, and challenges in contemporary life. This volume offers culturally diverse contributions to the debate on freedom from the literatures and arts of the postcolonial world, exploring experiences that evoke, desire, imagine, and perform freedom across five continents and two centuries of history. Experiences of Freedom opens with an introductory philosophical essay by Achille Mbembe and is divided into four sections that consider: • resisting history and colonialism • the right to move and to belong • the right to (believe in) free futures • imaginative freedom and critical

engagement. Each section contains an original piece of creative writing directly connected to the topics from authors Chris Abani, Anita Desai, Caryl Phillips, and Alexis Wright, followed by a selection of critical essays. Contributors: Chris Abani, Rochelle Almeida, Gil Anidjar, Jogamaya Bayer, Elena Bernardini, Anne Collett, Carmen Concilio, Paola Della Valle, Roberto Derobertis, Anita Desai, Lorna Down, Francesca Giommi, Gareth Griffiths, Dave Gunning, John C. Hawley, Peter H. Marsden, Russell McDougall, Achille Mbembe, Cinzia Mozzato, Kevin Newmark, Berndt

Ostendorf, Mai Palmberg, Owen Percy, Kirsten Holst Petersen, Caryl Phillips, Annel Pieterse, Christiane Schlote, Nermeen Shaikh, Patrick Williams, Alexis Wright, Robert J. C. Young. Editors: Annalisa Oboe is Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Padua and is the current Chair of AISCLI. Shaul Bassi is Associate Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at Ca‟ Foscari University and former Secretary of AISCLI.

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PHOTO EXHIBITION AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME

FSM GALLERY VIA SAN ZANOBI 19R, FIRENZE 18 February- 22 April 2011

OFFICINE FOTOGRAFICHE, VIA G. LIBETTA 1, ROMA, 29 April-30 May 2011

Presented in collaboration with New York University La Pietra Policy Dialogues and NYU Africana Studies, the exhibition will host 36 artists' works and will focus on African postcolonial photography and its global influence on visual language in the representation of Africa and its Diaspora. Curator: Awam Amkpa Vernissage: Thursday 17th February at 7 pm. Info at: www.studiomarangoni.it

1ST EACLALS POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE CHEMNIZ, GERMANY 26-27 March 2011

Info & Programme at: http://www.eaclals.ulg.ac.be/pg-conference/index.html

INCROCI DI CIVILTÀ Venezia, 13-16 April 2011 „Incroci di Civiltà‟, the Venice literary festival promoted by the Comune di Venezia and Ca‟ Foscari University, will hold its fourth edition from 13 to 16 April 2011. You can watch the video presentation of this event by clicking on the link below: http://www.incrocidicivilta.org/

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EACLALS Triennal Conference 2011 Under Construction: Gateways and Walls Istanbul, Turkey 26-30 April 2011

Info & Programme: http://www.eaclals2011.boun.edu.tr/programme.html#

POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION

CONFERENCE POSTCOLONIALISM, ECONOMIES, CRISES, University of Birmingham, UK 7-8 July 2011 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: ELLEKE BOEHMER, SARAH BROUILLETTE, SUMAN GUPTA Info & Programme: http://www.postcolonialstudiesassociation.co.uk/conferences-and-events/

11TH ESSE CONFERENCE Istanbul, Turkey, 4-8 September 2012 (deadline for seminars: Feb 28, 2011)

Info & CfP: http://www.essenglish.org/

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AISCLI CREATIVE SELECTION This is a new section that we have added to our newsletter. We thought it was important to end on a ‘creative note’, as a reminder of what makes our field of study and research so special. We therefore invite all members to submit to the Newsletter editors unpublished creative texts such as photographs, poems, (very) short stories. For this issue, we have been granted permission by Marco Ambrosi to reproduce one of his photographs that will be showcased in the exhibit AFRICA: See You, See Me!

15 February 2011