- Marzo 20, 2025
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Genere / Testo / Performance nelle culture anglofone dagli anni ’70 a oggi
Marzo 20, 2025 - Marzo 22, 2025
Giornate di studio su Genere / Testo / Performance nelle culture anglofone dagli anni ’70 a oggi20-22 marzo 2025Aula 268, Monastero dei BenedettiniUniversità di CataniaGiovedì 20 marzo 2025, alle 15.30, nell’Aula 268 del Monastero dei Benedettini, avranno inizio le Giornate di studio su Genere / Testo / Performance nelle culture anglofone dagli anni ’70 a oggi, organizzate dall’Unità di ricerca di Catania del progetto PRIN “Between Text and Performance. Race and Gender in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (1970s-today)” e dal Centro Interdisciplinare Studi di Genere “Genus” del Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche.La relazione di apertura, dal titolo “Nominare, svelare, agire. Perché le categorie sociologiche di sesso, genere e razza disturbano tanto?” sarà tenuta dalla sociologa Sara Garbagnoli (Parigi). A seguire, gli interventi di angliste e americaniste provenienti dalle Università di Bologna, Modena e Reggio Emilia, Palermo, Roma Tre, Roma La Sapienza, e del Disum.L’evento ha il patrocinio dell’AIA - Associazione Italiana di Anglistica e dell’AISNA - Associazione Italiana di Studi Nord-Americani.Comitato scientifico e organizzativo: Stefania Arcara, Giovanna Buonanno, Salvatore Marano, Daphne Orlandi, Floriana Puglisi.- Aprile 2, 2025
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Sensory Histories of Water
Aprile 2, 2025 - Aprile 4, 2025
Sensory Histories of Water2-4 April 2025MMB – Museu Marítim de BarcelonaOrganisers: Dr Antonio Arnieri, UAB – Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona; Dr. des. Tin Cugelj, IMS Study Group Auditory History; Dr Alexandros Maria Hatzikiriakos, University of St AndrewsSubmission deadline for abstracts: 15 November 2024Abstract of max 300 words must be sent to: sensorywaters2025@gmail.comWater as an elemental force has shaped human experience across millennia. Its physical properties and omnipresence in daily life have made it an object of profound sensory engagement, influencing cultures, environments, and social practices. In this way, humankind has interacted with water both in its natural form - e.g.. seas, lakes, rivers, springs, rain, dew, or fog - and through its transformations, such as wells, drainage and irrigation systems, water mills, fountains, baths, and steam.Building on the existing body of knowledge, this conference seeks to explore sensory experiences of water across the globe, from antiquity to modernity, through various approaches and within a transdisciplinary context. Within the framework of sensory history, we aim to explore how the presence of water and interaction with it has affected and shaped human communities, spaces, knowledge, and identities. To foster cross- and interdisciplinary conversation, we invite scholars from all relevant fields of research to propose papers for a three-day conference at the Museu Marítim de Barcelona. Papers may, but are not limited to, include and engage with the following overarching themes:● Water as a sensible matter: visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and/or olfactory experiences of water(s); how they are discussed and represented by different cultures.● The sensory experience of water of individuals and/or continental and waterfront communities; sensing water as a means of exchange, contact, and friction; emotional responses to water.● The sensory impact of water on humankind: its influence on community formation, social practices, traditions, cultural productions, and/or rituals; water and well-being.● Water and identities: the perception and uses of water in communicating and forming individual, social, gender, religious, and cultural identities.● Water and space: the perception of water informing experiences of shared, individual, public, and private spaces, their usage, and definition.● Water epistemologies: sensing water as a means of generating knowledge and cultural meaning; water symbolism, water in alchemy, science, magic, mythology, and folklore.We encourage scholars from all relevant disciplines to apply. More details can be found here: https://drive.google.com/.../1obvFlbBhKy.../view...- Aprile 9, 2025
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Queer Kinship across Time and Space
Aprile 9, 2025 - Aprile 10, 2025
Queer Kinship across Time and SpaceChrist Church, University of Oxford, 9-10 April 2025This is the second of a series of international conferences on the theme of queer kinship, organised by the Queer Kinship Network (Siena-Oxford-Toronto). The overall project seeks to explore queer kinship: affective bonds, relationships and family forms that diverge from and innovate beyond the model of the heteronormative family. With a primary focus on the Italian and English-speaking worlds, it investigates culturally marginalised histories and new transformative queer kinship dynamics, across different cultural contexts and time periods. By fostering critical debate and intercultural exchange, the project develops a deeper awareness of diverse configurations of queer bonds and families within a multicultural and inclusive framework. As well as rendering forms of queer kinship more visible, the project seeks to inform current debates on inclusivity, wellbeing and representation.The queer family and queer affective bonds are certainly not new phenomena, and many modalities of queer kinship, beyond legal family structures, or the pervasive norm of the ‘couple’, have existed for a considerable time: these include, but are not limited to, so-called romantic friendships, Boston marriages, polyamorous communities, queer kinship groups, and unconventional adoptions such as fillus de anima. Many forms of queer kinship have been marginalised in the socio-cultural contexts we study and beyond, or ‘read out’ of cultural texts, and continue to be stigmatised in some way. Texts which express queer bonds have been censored, or remained unpublished, and individuals and groups are discriminated against. This is particularly the case in Italy, where historic and current governments and institutions have propagated racist, heteronormative, homo- and transphobic discourses and legislation. It is also the case in the Anglophone world, which is marred by imperial homophobic and transphobic laws and where contemporary violent discourses against 2SLGBTQIA+ people and women are setting the clock of social progress back. In response to this violence and hoping to support the building of intellectual tools against it, the project seeks to render cultural expressions of queer kinship more visible, to analyse their variegated dynamics. The transcultural and transnational circulation of discourses on queer families and kinship has yet to be fully assessed and investigated. A deeper understanding of these cultural discourses is crucial to improving our awareness of the experiences, innovative practices and wellbeing of those who choose to diverge from the script of the heteronormative family.This conference at Christ Church, Oxford will explore cultural representation of queer kinship across time and space. One starting point might be the late nineteenth century, a period marked by significant shifts in terms of how sexuality was understood and represented. Some questions we seek to explore are: how have understandings of sexuality and family structures from this period shaped later forms of queer affect? What forms of queer affect preceded this period, and how do they resonate across the years, creating a queer ‘touch across time’ (Dinshaw)? How are we bound by this past, what do we inherit from it, and how do we either harness or escape its legacies (Love)? We are particularly keen to receive contributions for papers that trace modalities and articulations of queer affect across cultures, and temporal periods, identifying resonances, or what Lanser calls ‘confluence’, and noting variations between forms of queer kinship in different periods. As well as rendering forms of queer kinship more visible, and bringing them into dialogue, this diachronic and cross-cultural focus will facilitate critical reflection on what we can learn from more and less recent practices and discourses that can inform current debates.Themes for discussion include (but are not limited to):• Resonances and divergences between forms of queer kinship in different periods and cultural contexts;• Queer kinship beyond the couple norm;• Childless adults, parentless children and their affective ties;• Queer communities;• Polyamory;• Intersections of race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality and their impact on queer families and communities;• Multigenerational kinship;• Queer mobility and queer diasporas• The relationship between different textual genres, e.g. novels, memoirs, self-help books, films, historical documents;• Intercultural and interlinguistic translations and transpositions of queer kinship;• Methodologies and vocabularies for exploring queer kinship and lineages across time and cultural contexts.Please submit a 250-word abstract plus a brief bio (max 100 words), in English or Italian, by 20th January 2025, via this form.Confirmed plenary speakers:Stefano EvangelistaVetri NathanSelby Wynn SchwartzFor any further information, please contact Charlotte Ross: charlotte.ross@chch.ox.ac.ukSpeakers will receive a notification of confirmation by 10 February 2025.This is an in-person event; we appreciate that international travel and other reasons may make it difficult for some to attend. We are therefore also organising a series of online seminars; details to follow on our website in the new year. The languages of the conference will be English and Italian. There will be no conference fees and some travel subsidies are available; details to follow on acceptance of proposals.
Conference organising committee:Charlotte Ross (Christ Church, University of Oxford, UK)Silvia Antosa (University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy)Paolo Frascà (University of Toronto, Canada)
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