The Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici at Università della Calabria, in collaboration with the International Relations Special Office, and with the patronage of the U.S. Consulate General Naples, will host from May 29 through June 10, 2018 a twelve-day workshop on the future of Italian Diaspora Studies. This bilingual (English-Italian) workshop will be dedicated to the topics of Global Studies, Diasporic Studies and Italian Diaspora Studies. Additionally, the participants will develop a program regarding the Italian Diaspora Studies Seminar to take place every Spring- Summer beginning in 2019 at the Università della Calabria. We have invited a select number of prominent scholars from around the world who are interested in building a consortium with the Università della Calabria where the Italian Diaspora Studies series will serve as a foundational interdisciplinary program.
We expect to publish the proceedings from this initial workshop for further dissemination to those who might be interested in the consortium and our work.
Building on the past Italian Diaspora Studies Summer seminars, this workshop is aimed at establishing a ground for the development of future programs with a focus on a broader transnational perspective on the Italian diaspora (one that will include in particular Africa, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, United States, United Kindgom). In addition, special seminars will be dedicated to the history of Italians in North Africa and in Germany. We have in mind a community- based scholarship program with the mission of focusing on the South of Italy and on Calabria as central areas for the study of Italian diaspora. Several regional excursions will be offered as sections of the workshops. The goal of these site visits is to underline the importance of material culture and of historical heritage that can be experienced only by visiting the specific locales of the diaspora such as landscapes, spaces, food, music, and dance.
Another goal of the seminar is to show the diasporic origin of Italy itself as a colonized place since prehistoric time and, therefore, a place where ethnic groups mixed for millennia and still continue to mix in the present due to the new immigration phenomenon happening in Europe. Calabria is one of the principal entry points because of its location at the centre of the Mediterranean. A three day Festival of the new Italian hyphenated identities will overlap with the seminar on May 30-June 1, offering participants the opportunity to attend meetings with immigrant film directors, musicians, and writers that represent in their artistic works the new multicultural Italy.
In this transnational, interdisciplinary program, participants will be invited to build, together with the host university, the first and only existing structure worldwide that creates a platform of dialoguing, comparing and networking with different Italian diasporas across the globe, connecting regional spaces where the issues of past migration are still present today. Formal and informal talks will create a lively and engaged program that will also offer participants an opportunity to visit the beautiful and historically rich region of Calabria, still cut off from the most obvious and exploited tourist routes of Italy.
Confirmed Participants
Margherita Ganeri, Università della Calabria, Italy – Director
Nancy Caronia, West Virginia University, US
Connie Guzzo MacParland, Guernica Editions, Canada
Michelangelo La Luna,TheUniversity of Rhode Island, US
Kathleen La Penta, Fordham University, US
Benedetta Mannino, Università di Palermo, Italy
Samuel Patti, Italian Diaspora Studies Foundation, US
Francesco Ricatti, Monash University, Australia
Joan Saverino, University of Pennsylvania, US
Pasquale Verdicchio, University of California, USA
Anita Virga, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Joseph Viscomi, New York University, US
