AIA30 Conference
Experiment and innovation: branching forwards and backwards
University of Catania, Department of Human Sciences
15-17 September 2022
I read some history: it is suddenly all alive, branching forwards and backwards
Virginia Stephen, 1903
Over forty years have passed since the first AIA national Conference was held in Rome, on 27th-29th April 1978. On that occasion Giorgio Melchiori presented the Association’s objective: “saggiare il livello scientifico raggiunto dalla ricerca nel campo dell’anglistica in Italia” [“to test the academic level achieved by research in the field of English Studies in Italy”]. In a radically changed University – “l’Università di massa” of the 1970s – the newly born Associazione Italiana di Anglistica set out to study the relationship between research and teaching, and to discuss, in Melchiori’s words, “il ruolo dell’anglista in una nuova Università, ossia la metodologia e la politica della ricerca” [“the role of the English Studies scholar in a new University, namely the methodology and the politics of research”].
These words still resonate today. In 2001 the University of Catania hosted the twentieth AIA Conference – poignantly titled Rites of Passage – and now we have a further opportunity to look back to our past, reflect on the state of the art, and look forward to the future of English studies in Italy.
On the exciting occasion of the AIA30 Conference, it seems particularly relevant to bring today’s sharpened awareness of the methodology and politics of research to the contexts of a profoundly changed academia and a radically altered post-Brexit geopolitical situation.
The theme of that first AIA Conference in 1978 was “experiment and innovation”: in 2022 we would like to invite AIA members to pick up on that same challenge by contributing to the scholarly conversation in all broad areas of research – literature, culture and language – through Seminars and Poster presentations.
The local organising committee looks forward to welcoming you to the AIA30 Conference in Catania, from 15th to 17th September 2022.