2021

INTERNATIONAL ONLINE CONFERENCE VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Co-organised by Raffaella Antinucci, Università Parthenope, Naples, and Adrian Grafe, Université d’Artois (Research Lab “Textes et Cultures”) 16th-17th December 2021 Art in general, and literature in particular, have long been used as means to represent and give visibility to dynamics of violence, hurting and endurance. Vulnerability and resilience are two strongly related and almost antonymic concepts whose first meanings originate in the physical world. If vulnerability indicates the quality of being easily physically hurt or attacked, the word resilience was first used in physics to describe the ability of a substance or body to recover its shape and size after being bent, stretched, or pressed. When transferred into the social sciences, vulnerability denotes the diminished capacity of an individual or group to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a traumatic situation, whereas resilience points to a human intrinsic quality or “inner strength” that varies according to each individual’s capacity to react in a positive way to the same dramatic event or conditions. Considering the dramatic social and epistemic changes, including several tragic events, that characterized nineteenth-century Britain, the conference wishes to explore the literary forms in which individual and collective responses to traumas and marginalisation were addressed. Taking into account the Darwinian paradigm but intending to broaden and go beyond it, the conference seeks to address the representation of modes of exposure and (apparent) powerlessness, and how these are overcome. The conference will examine literary responses in the nineteenth century to crisis, trial and torment, topoi that loom large, for example, in Joseph Campbell’s idea of the monomyth, or hero’s and heroine’s journey, although here we are also specifically concerned with the non-heroic and anti-heroic. The neuroscientist Boris Cyrulnik has, in Un merveilleux malheur, described resilience as related to the idea that a crisis that deals the human subject a serious psychological blow may divide him or her into two, with one part of the self suffering the blow while the other ensures the subject’s survival by focusing on possibilities for happiness, what Hardy in a much-quoted phrase called ‘the appetite for joy’. How does the ‘acceptance of the fallible self’ (Collins 144) lead to a superabundance of love and goodwill? In George MacDonald’s novel Adela Cathcart (1864), the heroine suffers from a mysterious illness to which storytelling is perceived as ‘a potential cure’, and the means “to another kind of life”’ (cf Dubois 2015). The conference seeks to go beyond purely individual vulnerability. It will therefore take into account how nineteenth-century literature, in the shape, for instance, of the invasion scare novel, dramatised what Stephen Serata has called “the nation’s vulnerability” (110). Sir George Chesney’s 1871 cautionary novel The Battle of Dorking (mentioned by Serata) is but one example. It also means to explore ways in which different literary genres can be perceived in the nineteenth century as more or less vulnerable: poetry, for example, due to the rise in novel-reading. Also in this respect, we will be glad to receive proposals exploring the conference topic in journals, apologies, confessions, and autobiographies. What is the relationship between the artist Benjamin Haydon’s writing his Journal, which ends on June 22 1846, and his suicide committed a few hours after the entry for the latter date. We are interested in literary depictions of the family as a site of vulnerability and resilience: the treatment and mistreatment of Pip and Joe in Great Expectations. Are children such as Pip or Jane Eyre depicted as mistreated as a manipulation of the reader on the author’s part, in order to arouse the former’s sympathy for the hero or heroine (cf Coveney). Among examples of prison literature, we would be pleased to welcome readings of Wilde’s De Profundis (written while he was in prison) and The Ballad of Reading Gaol (written after his time in prison and he had left England for France). Apart from the above examples, and among other possible topics, presentations may focus on: – Literature, storytelling, humour and altruism as mechanisms of resilience and survival; – Impact, positive or negative, of local communities on the individual; – Damage done to, and the survival of, children; – Resilience and social Darwinism; competition or adaptation? – The depiction of illness and care, the responsiveness or otherwise of patients to treatment, the nature and quality of medicine and the medical professions; – Post-feminist readings of care ethics in the literature of the period; – ‘broken and failing groups of organic beings’ (Darwin, Origin, as quoted by Beer, 42); – Gratitude, kindness and bravery as factors in the promotion of resilience and survival – or not? – Poetry as mourning (Tennyson) or – As response to, if not enactment of, spiritual disturbance and recovery (Hopkins); – Why do some characters overcome adversity and others do not? – The perception and depiction of gender in relation to vulnerability and resilience: does “the man”—rather than “the woman”—ever “pay”? – … SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY – Beer, Gillian (2009). Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. CUP. – Collins, Deborah L. (1990). Thomas Hardy and His God: A Liturgy of Unbelief. Macmillan. – Coveney, Peter (1967). The Image of Childhood. Penguin. – Cyrulnik, Boris (1999). Un merveilleux malheur. Paris: Odile Jacob. – Dubois, Martin (2015), ‘Sermon and Story in George MacDonald’, Victorian Literature and Culture 43, 577-587. – Serata, Stephen (1996). Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Identity and Empire. CUP. – Troisi, Alfonso (2001). “Gender differences in vulnerability to social stress: a Darwinian perspective”. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11438373 There are no fees to take part in, or attend, this online conference. Please send Adrian Grafe adrian.grafe@univ-artois.fr and Raffaella Antinucci raffaella.antinucci@uniparthenope.it 150-word proposals for 20’ presentations, along with a brief bio-biblio, by July 3rd 2021. We expect to publish a set of essays arising from the conference.

Segnaliamo il seguente evento: “Tertiary Teaching for the Multilingual University” Date: 11-12 June 2021 Institution: Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Education (Bressanone) Description: The integration of content and language in higher education (ICLHE) has become central to the internationalisation of university curricula, yet quality in curriculum planning and delivery has sometimes been overlooked in the rush to internationalise. The conference examines models of innovation in tertiary teaching with a focus on content-and-language integrated learning, seeking to identify synergies between pedagogical research and didactic practices for EMI/multilingual higher education. Scientific Committee: Lynn Mastellotto, Renata Zanin, Liliana Dozza, Maria Cristina Gatti, Michele Cagol (Unibz); Amanda Murphy e Francesca Costa (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Elena Borsetto (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia). Registration: This will be an online event hosted on Zoom. There is no registration fee, but participants must register and will receive the Zoom link. Registration information available at this link: https://www.unibz.it/…/136690-tertiary-teaching-for-the… Conference website: https://iclhe2021.events.unibz.it/?page_id=100&lang=it

Care e cari, come molte e molti di voi sapranno, lo scorso 21 aprile è scomparsa la collega Lidia Curti. Pubblichiamo un pensiero speciale in suo ricordo di Laura Di Michele: Per Lidia Curti Con il cuore stretto e con immenso dolore affronto la scrittura di questo mio documento-pensiero di cui desidero rendere partecipi tutti coloro che, come me, hanno avuto il piacere e il privilegio di incontrare e conoscere Lidia Curti, docente e collega di anglistica all’Orientale di Napoli. Ogni volta, sia che si discutesse di questioni teoriche, letterarie e culturali, sia che si organizzassero lezioni di didattica frontale collettiva o attività di gruppi seminariali e sia che si esaminassero film (Lidia amava il cinema e andare al cinema; ha scritto stimolanti saggi sul cinema: Schermi indiani, linguaggi planetari: tra Oriente e Occidente, modernità e tradizione, avanguardia e popolare, 2008 con S. Poole) o si parlasse di questioni banali e quotidiane, ci si trovava davanti a qualche inattesa scoperta: il suo pensiero – attraverso l’analisi di testi letterari canonici o popolari, nei serrati dibattiti politici – invitava sapientemente i suoi interlocutori (colleghi e studenti) a raccogliere le sue sfide e a tracciare con lei percorsi di studio inesplorati. Di più, la passione che l’ha sempre animata fino agli ultimi giorni di vita era la molla della sua inesauribile curiosità intellettuale che la spronava ad andare oltre, a porsi per così dire accanto alle avanguardie, a essere ella stessa avanguardia e caposcuola, a interrogarsi in anticipo su teorie e metodologie analitiche ancora da fondare, su ambiti di ricerca scarsamente frequentati su territorio nazionale e nell’anglistica italiana. Fondamentali sono state le ripetute e fruttuose relazioni interuniversitarie con importanti centri di ricerca inglesi quali il Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies dell’Università di Birmingham: da qui, sul finire degli anni ’60, Lidia Curti aveva ‘importato’ nell’anglistica dell’Orientale di Napoli il campo variegato dei Cultural Studies con l’accento posto su classe, razza, genere, potere, media e linguaggi; lì Lidia Curti aveva portato con pieno successo il pensiero e gli scritti di Antonio Gramsci. Si era trattato di un rinnovamento reciproco e costante durato per moltissimi anni e arricchito poi con collaborazioni e scambi scientifici con università americane e australiane. La spinta inesauribile al rinnovamento ha sempre guidato le sue scelte intellettuali: già nel 1984 aveva pubblicato un volume originale sulle avanguardie registiche e sulle rivisitazioni shakespeariane (Peter Brook e Shakespeare: alla ricerca di un’avanguardia nel teatro inglese) e nel 1994 la cura del volume dal suggestivo titolo di Amleto e i suoi fantasmi. Successivamente realizzerà, con l’entusiastica partecipazione delle studentesse e degli studenti dei suoi corsi universitari, numerosi video mettendo così in luce l’interesse teorico e la pratica analitica nell’interazione creativa fra la produzione cartacea (soprattutto letteraria e popolare) e quella dei media cinematografici, televisivi ed elettronici. Il superamento di barriere spaziali, temporali, etniche, di genere ha connotato il perseguimento di sconfinamenti nei molteplici campi del sapere: i suoi progetti di ricerca, come la sua attività didattica e i suoi impegni accademici e istituzionali (Pro-rettrice all’IUO, Presidente dell’AIA, Membro della ESSE) hanno conseguito tale fine, sia che riguardassero la revisione critica dei canonici generi letterari o il ripensamento instancabile delle mutevoli differenze di classe, razza, genere e identità (alla ricerca del rinnovamento dei linguaggi comunicativi attraverso tracce di percorsi interdisciplinari e transculturali e intrecci tra poetica e politica di arti performative, visuali e sonore), sia che scardinassero le tradizionali visioni del femminile nella contemporaneità. Basti qui solo ricordare alcuni suoi scritti seminali che testimoniano l’attenzione civile e politica con cui interrogano criticamente, mettendole in questione, attuali teorie psicoanalitiche, femministe/post-femministe, postmoderne e postcoloniali onde suggerire nuovi scenari critico-creativi e percorsi di pensiero alternativi che potessero far pre-vedere differenti ma interagenti possibilità espressive: La questione postcoloniale: cieli comuni, orizzonti divisi (1995, con I. Chambers), Female stories, female bodies (1998), La nuova Sharazade. Donne e multiculturalismo (2004, con S. Carotenuto et al.)), La voce dell’altra: scritture ibride tra femminismo e postcoloniale (2006), Ritorni critici: la sfida degli studi culturali e postcoloniali (2018, con I. Chambers e M. Quadraro) e il recente Femminismi futuri. Teorie/Poetiche/Fabulazioni (2019, conA.A. Ferrante e M. Vitale). Lidia Curti non ha mai preso per mano studentesse e studenti, colleghe e colleghi, compagne di attivismo femminista; al contrario, li ha gioiosamente scaraventati in un oceano turbolento nel quale teorie e pratiche artistiche, letterarie, tecnologiche e digitali interagiscono, si intrecciano e talvolta fluiscono le une nelle altre dando luogo a ibridate modalità di pensiero che esigono necessarie sperimentazioni conflittuali con le egemonie ancora vigenti dell’antropocene, del capitalocene e del piantagiocene. Non è un caso che gli scritti più recenti di Lidia Curti si muovano in dialogo appassionato e in divenire con le posizioni ecologiche della Donna Haraway di Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene e continuino a sorprendere, a spiazzare e, in ultima analisi, a gettare un altro guanto di sfida: superare i consueti confini della conoscenza, della narratività letteraria ormai classica, della fantasia e della fantascienza tradizionali, dell’attivismo politico di un tempo, della separazione: andare oltre e attraversare le barriere – facendo ricorso alle teorie della intersezionalità di genere, alle indagini sulle migrazioni femminili, ai disastri ambientali, alle geografie globali e locali della disuguaglianza – è una delle ultime riflessioni critiche svolte da Lidia Curti. Pur straziati dalla sua scomparsa, siamo confortati dal pensiero che Lidia Curti resterà nelle nostre ‘storie’ presenti e future per riscrivere “il senso del presente, disturbando il mondo in cui viviamo” (Femminismi futuri, p. 10). Laura Di Michele

5th International Edition   Translation Symposium  Audiovisual Translation and Computer-Mediated Communication: Fostering Access to Digital Mediascapes   7-8 October 2021  Call for papers  Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic and in the wake of the decision of the Rector of the University of Palermo to cancel conferences and cultural events to be held at the institution, we have had to take the difficult decision to postpone the symposium to 7-8 October 2021. Stay connected for further news.  Organisers  Department of Humanities – University of Palermo  PhD in Studi Umanistici – Department of Humanities – University of Palermo  Department of Political Sciences and International Relations (DEMS) – University of Palermo Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures – University of Bergamo Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS), University College London (UCL)  Postgraduate course in Subtitling for the Deaf and Audio Description for the Blind (SOSAC-PALERMO)  Location  University of Palermo – Department of Humanities  Complesso Monumentale Sant’Antonino/Palazzo Chiaramonte Steri  Piazzetta Sant’Antonino, 1 – Palermo  Confirmed Speakers  Patricia Bou-Franch (University of València); Paola Catenaccio (University of Milano “Statale”); Larissa  D’Angelo (University of Bergamo); Jorge Díaz Cintas (University College London); Elena Di Giovanni  (University of Macerata); Eleonora Federici (University of Ferrara); Gian Maria Greco (University of  Warsaw); Iris Guske (Kempten School of Translation & Interpreting); Anna Jankowska (University of  Antwerp); Maria Olalla Luque Colmenero (University of Granada); Irene Ranzato (University of Rome  “Sapienza”), Maria Grazia Sindoni (University of Messina); Nuria Sanmartín Rincart (Universidad de  Valencia).  With the participation of Gabriele Uzzo (PhD student, University of Palermo, Accessibility Manager,  SudTitles), Maila Enea (Hogarth), Maria Luisa Pensabene (Audiodescriber, and Contract Lecturer,  University of Palermo), Silvia Torta (Project Manager, Transperfect). Organising Committee  Jorge Díaz Cintas (University College London), Stefania Maci (University of Bergamo), Giulia Adriana  Pennisi (University of Palermo), Alessandra Rizzo (University of Palermo), Cinzia Spinzi (University of  Bergamo), Marianna Lya Zummo (University of Palermo).  Scientific Committee  Rocío Baños, University College London, Lindsay Bywood, University of Westminster, Floriana Di Gesù,  University of Palermo, Frederic Chaume, Universitat Jaume I, Jorge Díaz Cintas, University College London,  Sabine Hoffmann, University of Palermo, Arista Kuo, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Stefania  Maci, University of Bergamo, Serenella Massidda, University of Roehampton, Josélia Neves, Bin Khalifa  University, Qatar, Jan Pedersen, University of Stockholm, Giulia Adriana Pennisi, University of Palermo, Nina  Reviers, University of Antwerp, Alessandra Rizzo, University of Palermo, Pablo Romero-Fresco, University of  Vigo, Oleg Rumyantsev, University of Palermo, Maria Grazia Sciortino, University of Palermo, Cinzia Spinzi,  University of Bergamo, Agnieszka Szarkowska, University of Warsaw, Iván Villanueva, Universidad Peruana de  Ciencias Aplicadas, Juan Zhang, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, Antonino Velez, University of  Palermo, Marianna Lya Zummo, University of Palermo.  Synopsis  Research on (audiovisual) translation, computer-mediated communication, technology and accessibility  has gained momentum in recent years (Díaz Cintas & Massidda 2020). Accessibility, understood as the  set of procedures, mechanisms and practices aimed at the provision of inclusive services addressed to a  general public, has grown as a methodological and theoretical framework in academia. For many, it should  be entrenched in society as a human right (Rizzo 2019; Greco 2018), since its ultimate goal is to facilitate  universal access to knowledge, thus breaking not only linguistic and cultural barriers but also sensory  ones (Di Giovanni 2018).  Against the backdrop of digital mediascapes, accessibility has become an instrument of mediation and  communication across a variety of discursive perspectives (Catenaccio 2018; Federici 2019), and its  function is guaranteed and strengthened by the vast array of audiovisual translation modes practised in  the industry as well as by the proliferation of visual and linguistic performative narratives on the web  (Bou-Franch 2019; Sindoni 2013). In the digital space (i.e. websites, blogs, web collectives, social  networks), accessibility guarantees the provision of some measures that make discourse more accessible  for all users (Luque, Soler, 2019). These rapid and encompassing developments are increasingly affecting  education and translation training (Spinzi 2019).  The combination of two domains, namely, audiovisual translation and computer-mediated  communication, to secure accessible digital platforms, entails both usability and inclusion, specifically  conceived for the design, creation and development of (audio)visual digital spaces that are addressed to  all citizens and make knowledge universally accessible. Such an approach has opened up new horizons  of global interaction, which cannot but involve interlingual activities. Among them, practices like amateur  translation, fandubbing and cybersubtitling (Díaz Cintas 2018a) have become crucial to the construction  of digital networks for the spread of computer-mediated knowledge (Zummo 2018; Díaz Cintas 2018b).  In broader terms, the promotion of access services to information in digital settings recognises the need  for adapting, simplifying, reinforcing, manipulating and/or translating written and spoken messages in  order to make them accessible to anyone, thus, including people with different (temporary or contingent)  cognitive abilities, speakers of other languages, sensory-impaired persons, and regular citizens. In light of  recent scholarly research in audiovisual translation and thanks to the “affordabilities of information and  communication technologies and their alleged democratising power” (Díaz Cintas 2018a: 127), the  symposium aims to explore the links between new forms of translation and the language of the multiple  digital discourse types inhabiting the cyberspace (Maci 2013). Encouraging knowledge dissemination  while at the same time challenging conventional media, the event is open to students, academics, teachers,  and professionals interested in the role and potential of access services, of which interlingual translation  is a component, in the promotion and propagation of digital discourses.  Call for Papers  We welcome contributions that reflect on the intersections between digital mediascapes and audiovisual translation, including accessibility to the media.  Send your abstracts (300 words) to: sosac@unipa.it  Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1st June 2021  Notification of acceptance: 1st July 2021  Registration fee: 60 euros.  Publication: a selection of papers will be published in a special issue of the peer reviewed and indexed  journal Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts (John Benjamins).   Link to the website:   https://www.unipa.it/dipartimenti/scienzeumanistiche/5th-International-Edition-Translation Symposium-Audiovisual-Translation-and-Computer-Mediated-Communication-Fostering-Access-to Digital-Mediascapes–00001/  References  Catenaccio, P. 2018. “Web-mediated stakeholder communication in the biotech industry: the discursive  construction of dialogic illusion”. Altre Modernità, pp. 48-63.  Díaz Cintas, J. 2018a. “Subtitling’s a carnival’: New practices in cyberspace”. Journal of

***Call for Papers*** “Transnational Subjects and Intercultural Identities: Travel and the Global South” Editors: Silvia Antosa (“Kore” University of Enna) and Elisabetta Marino (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”) De Genere. Rivista di studi letterari, postcoloniali e di genere Journal of Literary, Postcolonial and Gender Studies For centuries, travel writing has opened up spatial and temporal gaps between different places, cultures and languages, often causing a sense of disorientation and destabilisation. As a narrative form, it has constantly challenged readers, and encouraged them to adopt new and different interpretative criteria. It cannot be easily subsumed under a single literary genre and cannot be ascribed to a univocal ideological or scientific classification. It changes form and language according to the cultural context and to the world(s) it describes. Travel writing adopts multiple languages and forms of representation and develops new perspectives on the world; readers are compelled to re-orient themselves in order to understand and imaginatively re-create the narrated world, or multiple worlds, to which they can – albeit temporarily – belong. Historically, the “South” has been identified as a space with shifting and unstable borders, open to multiple forms of representation and reconfiguration. It has long been connected to the possibility of observing and experiencing new forms of encounter which could defy and challenge Western normative sociocultural frames and subvert notions of gender identity and heterosexual desire. Women have often perceived travelling as an emancipating experience, as an opportunity to free themselves from the strictures of social conventions. Hence, their letters from abroad and travel accounts have granted them the opportunity to acquire an authoritative voice even on topics beyond their (supposedly limited) areas of expertise, while enabling them to compare and contrast their own condition with that of their foreign counterparts. In their work, the South may become a transformative and performative space in which they can express and empower their own narrative voices. If historically women’s travel writing has been consistently defined as more “confessional” (Foster 1990, 19) and “subjective” (McEwan 2000, 87), twentieth- and twenty-first-century women travellers redefine the intimate nature of their writing by reshaping the very form(s) they used. In a similar vein, by re-imagining the South as a space in which they could be freer to investigate their own sexuality and desires, queer individuals and sexual dissidents have also produced alternative narrative spaces by conflating existing textual forms in order to give a discursive shape to disruptive forms of identity. More recently, textual representations have varied considerably in form and scope. By focusing on texts written between the beginning of the nineteenth century and the present day, this issue sets out to explore a multiplicity of written, visual, and intermedial texts by delving into writers’ experience of the Global South (in the widest sense of the term). It aims to show how they have grappled with issues of identity, difference, cross-cultural encounter(s), and belonging. In addition, it explores how the (de)construction of borders, social orders and strategies of control may be accompanied by a more nuanced, deeper understanding of the complex interconnections that link geographical and imagined spaces as well as identities. Special emphasis will be placed on the experimental textual and intermedial strategies authors have employed to challenge ingrained ideas about the superiority of Western civilization, gender roles and prerogatives, sexual identities, and religion. A multiplicity of textual forms and experiences will be interrogated, such as travel accounts, diaries, letters, fictional narratives of real or imaginative journeys, travel blogs, Facebook and Instagram stories, as well as inter- and transmedial transpositions of texts etc. A comparative approach and a diachronic analysis highlighting elements of rupture and continuity with tradition are welcome. Abstracts of 300 words (in English, Italian or French) should be sent to: degenere.journal@gmail.com and in CC to: marino@lettere.uniroma2.it and silvia.antosa@unikore.it, along with a list of references and a short biographical note. Submission of proposals: May 15, 2021 Submission of articles: September 30, 2021

Call for Papers 1st International Conference: “Storytelling as a cultural practice – pedagogical and linguistic perspectives” Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Education Conference venue: Faculty of Education, Viale Ratisbona 16, 39042 Brixen-Bressanone Chair: Maria Cristina Gatti & Jeanette Hoffmann Date: 8–9 October 2021 Submission of proposals: 15 April 2021 Conference language: English Si allega la Call for papers: CONFERENCE_Call for papers  

Dear all, Siamo liet* di segnalare il programma del programma del Convegno Internazionale “Gothic in a Time of Contagion, Populism and Racial Injustice” che si terrà dal 10 al 13 marzo p.v. online su Zoom. Il convegno è organizzato dalla Simon Fraser University di Vancouver e dalla International Gothic Association. Tutte le informazioni sul convegno e sull’iscrizione si trovano al seguente link: https://www.sfu.ca/conferences/iga-wll-gothic-2021/ La partecipazione come uditori al convegno è gratuita. Se vi sono colleghi/e dell’AIA interessati a partecipare, essi/e dovranno effettuare l’iscrizione online entro il 3 marzo prossimo. Ecco il programma: Programme – Conferences – Simon Fraser University