This speaker series will consider the centrality of Italy to a number of vital cultural discourses. The spatial metaphor of our title will have an important temporal component—the lectures will be trans-historical, extending from classical antiquity to the 20th and 21st centuries, as the centrality of Rome within the ancient world has remained a collective memory, for better and for worst, which has animated revivals in such forms as Dante’s ideal of the volgare illustre, the Renaissance return to classical models, 18th century neo-classicism, Mussolini’s imperial aspirations, along with its post-colonial legacy, and so forth.
Within a humanities curriculum, the primacy of Italy in the Early Modern period needs no belaboring. In disciplinary terms, the centrality of Italy extends from such obvious fields as literature, art and architectural history, archaeology, theology, economic history, the sciences, fashion and design, to the burgeoning new area of Mediterranean Studies. And of course, it is Italy’s geographic centrality which had made it the gateway to Europe for the tidal wave of immigrants seeking refuge from the poverty and wars of the Third World. “Destination” Italy will therefore be another facet of our inquiry, embracing not only this influx of desperate newcomers, but also the voluntary and privileged visitors who have made the country the center of their touristic and consumerist desires.
The issue of centrality will not go uncontested, however, as the dialectic of center-periphery will form an active part of the debate which these lectures seek to address. The marginal Italy of the above-mentioned refugees, the Romani community, the citizens of out-lying regions whose relationship to the center has always been problematic—such concerns will also be welcomed in the series.
In sum, our spatial metaphor is designed to offer a wide a varied platform for the study of Italy’s “position” with respect to a number of disciplinary pursuits. In addition to promoting the importance of Italian within a humanities curriculum, our series also has an “intra-disciplinary” goal—to offer profound and nuanced explorations of Italian culture itself, across time and of course, space.
Thursday, November 8, 5 PM in the RLL
Lina Insana
University of Pittsburgh, Associate Professor of Italian
https://frenchanditalian.pitt.edu/person/lina-insana
“Sicily in the ‘Black Mediterranean’: Charting the Island Between Race and Empire”
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Wednesday, November 28, 6 PM in the RLL
Ronald Martinez
Brown University, Professor of Italian Studies
https://vivo.brown.edu/display/rlmartin
“Centrality of Craft in Late Medieval Italy: Dante and the Rise of the Mechanical Arts”
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Thursday, February 14, 5.30 PM in the RLL
Simone Marchesi
Princeton University, Associate Professor of Italian
https://fit.princeton.edu/people/simone-marchesi
Title TBA
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Thursday, February 28 , 5.30 PM in the RLL
Sabrina Ferri
Notre Dame, Associate Professor of Italian
https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/all-faculty-by-alpha/sabrina-ferri/
Title TBA
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Wednesday, April 10, 6 PM in the RLL
Nicoletta Pireddu
Georgetown, Professor of Italian
https://global.georgetown.edu/people/nicoletta-pireddu
Title TBA