People

With the Patronages of the Canadian Embassy of Rome and of the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal, and with the expected renewal of the Patronage of the US Consulate Naples, this Italian Diaspora Studies seminar 2019, from now on referred to as IDs, is directed by Professors Margherita Ganeri and Vito Teti, assisted by Connie Guzzo McParland.

IDs will host a master course with Maria Mazziotti Gillian, in English, and a master course with Maria Attanasio in Italian. Other workshops will be led by Connie Guzzo MacParland (in English), and by Margherita Ganeri (in Italian). A series of seminars will be offered by Margherita Ganeri and Vito Teti on the anthropology and literary culture of the South of Italy and of its diasporic history and literatures, in the light of the so-called Southern Question. Guest speakers will include Michela Valmori, writer and scholar, Florinda Fusco, poet and scholar, and Mimmo Lucano, former Mayor of Riace. Others TBA. Some field trips will be inspired by the well-known Carlo Levi’s novel Christ Stopped at Eboli.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s workshop is entitled: The Power of the Past: Writing Poetry to Save Your Life. It will concentrate on writing about ancestries and histories. Participants will be encouraged to believe that their stories and memories are rich sources for poetry, and that it is in the details of these highly personal stories and memories that poetry achieves the universal. They will be incited to take risks in their writing by taking “deep dives” into the past, without excluding material that might seem unpoetic. Together they will find the courage to tell the stories they never permitted themselves to tell before — and, in the process, to “save their lives” by getting in touch with their truest and bravest selves.