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Prospero. A Journal of Foreign Literatures and Cultures University of Trieste, Italy VOL XXVIII (2023) “Revolutions. Changes of paradigm in British and German literatures and cultures between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries” The forthcoming number of Prospero (XXVIII 2023) invites contributions that will focus on paradigm shifts in the literary and cultural fields of English and German literatures between the Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Starting with the great political and social revolutions of the eighteenth century in Western civilization, many revolutions and epistemic turns have marked early modernity, both in a longue durée perspective and in the turmoil of the epochal punctum, and have seen moments of dialogic confrontation and decisive influences between national cultures. Authors could consider both the role that revolutions and epistemic turning points have played in the Anglo-German literary and cultural sphere, and also the way in which they have influenced and contributed to intensifying the relations between British and German-speaking literature and culture. Proposals may also examine forms, genres and styles that have characterized the evolution of British and German literature, starting from the innovative impulses and trends that arose in some phases of reception and cultural intersection: from the rise of the novel to the discovery of German drama, from the influences of German idealism and Sturm und Drang on English Romanticism to the links between the phenomenon of the Gothic and the age of revolutions, among the many possible examples which this issue aims to consider. An array of relevant topics may include – but are not be limited to – the following suggestions (further topics are welcome):  Political and social revolutions  Industrial revolutions  Philosophical, aesthetic and anthropological revolutions  Scientific revolutions and epistemological crises  Technology and the human: experimentations, borders, new myths  Freedom and human rights  Romanticisms  Social reforms and radicalism in national literatures  Enlightenment and protofeminism  The foundation of the liberal arts and the birth of journalism  The novel and the revolution of literary genres  The Gothic and the age of revolutions An abstract of maximum 350 words in English and a short bionote should be sent by March 30, 2023 to Roberta Gefter Wondrich (gefter@units.it) and Marilena Parlati (marilena.parlati@unipd.it) for British literature and to Federica La Manna (federica.lamanna@unical.it) and Irene Fantappiè (irene.fantappie@unicas.it) for German literature. Contributors will be notified acceptance of their abstracts by April 30, 2023, and full articles (between 6000 and 10000 words) will be due by September 1, 2023, in order to ensure publication after the peer-review process by December 2023. For queries and further information about the journal, please contact the editor in chief Roberta Gefter Wondrich at gefter@units.it and visit the website at: https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/handle/10077/6091.

Applications are open for the 2023 edition of the Verona SaM – International Shakespeare Summer School: Antony and Cleopatra (deadline to apply: 3 April). SaM  Shakespeare and the Mediterranean   Summer School      Antony and Cleopatra     Verona, 24-31 August 2023  For the programme and further info, please click here: https://skene.dlls.univr.it/en/sam-shakespeare-summer-school-antony-and-cleopatra/  

Two-day workshop on: Using corpus & discourse methods to study nostalgia May 4-5 2023, Bertinoro, Italy The purpose of the workshop is to develop a systematic methodology for identifying nostalgic discourses. We aim to bring together expertise in nostalgia, (critical) discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to break new ground in this area. The residential programme will consist of hands-on activities with corpora (including a corpus of transcripts of BBC Desert Island Discs) to identify markers of nostalgic discourse. Combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis as well as input from other linguistic and non-linguistic disciplines, it will provide a forum to exchange ideas, best practices and foster collaboration on the multifaceted topic of nostalgia which seems to have recently gained amplified attention across disciplines. This hackathon-type approach to the thorny issue of identifying nostalgia was sparked by discussions in the nostalgia discourses reading group led by Anna Marchi and Charlotte Taylor (see collaborative bibliography). The workshop is limited to 20 participants to facilitate group discussions and we hope to recruit colleagues at all career stages (including doctoral researchers) with an interest in the topic of nostalgia in discourse. We assume that all participants will have some background in discourse studies, corpus linguistics, or linguistics more broadly. The event is organized by the Corpora Linguistics and Technology (CoLiTec) research centre (Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna in Forlì) and will be hosted at Bologna University’s residential centre (CEUB), in the medieval hilltop town of Bertinoro (FC). Accommodation and meals will be provided by the organisers, participants will need to arrange and pay for their own travel. Preliminary programme: – May 3rd.: Arrival and welcome buffet for informal networking. – May 4th: AM: Presentation of research interests and/or potential methodological contributions. PM: Exploratory work in small groups followed by round-up sharing findings and reflections. – May 5th: AM: Small groupwork followed by collaborative compilation of list of markers. PM: Panel on future directions and outputs. We expect the workshop to lead to a publication on the methodological aspects of systematically identifying nostalgia in discourse. The collaboration may also result in the enrichment of an open access corpus made available through the DIT Department NoSketchengine platform. If you would like to participate in the workshop, please send an expression of interest to anna.marchi@unibo.it and Charlotte.Taylor@sussex.ac.uk by 16 January 2023. This should include a) description of how your existing research interests relate to the theme and how you can contribute to the aims of the workshop (max.300 words), b) a short bio-note (max. 100 words). Scientific and organizing committee: Anna Marchi, Charlotte Taylor, Silvia Bernardini, Cinzia Bevitori, Adriano Ferraresi and Alan Partington

Hidden Histories / Recovered Stories Victorian Popular Fiction Association 15th Annual Conference 12–14 July 2023 Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK Keynote Speakers Professor Patricia Pulham (University of Surrey, UK) Dr Adrian S. Wisnicki (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, US) Professor Nathalie Vanfasse (Aix-Marseille Université, FR) Call for Papers The Victorian Popular Fiction Association is dedicated to fostering interest in understudied popular writers, literary genres and other cultural forms, and to facilitating the production of publishable research and academic collaborations amongst scholars of the popular. This conference celebrates the ways in which Victorian popular culture, fictions and artistic productions addressed topics and subjects, and experimented with stories and genres, that went unacknowledged, were repressed or censored by the mainstream. We are interested in, on the one hand, the hidden, lost, forgotten, and on the other hand the recovered, reclaimed, remembered. The conference seeks to re-centre the popular, from gruesome murder stories to sensational tales of sexual violence and adultery, discussions of pseudo-sciences like spiritualism, to addressing miscegenation, and Victorian historical fiction that reimagines the lives of marginalised figures. It wants to also highlight the ways in which current scholarship is rediscovering hidden aspects, characters and narratives of the Victorian period. We also invite papers exploring the relevance of forbidden or unspeakable themes in neo-Victorianism. Silenced by Victorian mainstream culture but obliquely voiced in such popular genres as the sensation novel, the penny dreadful and the bodice- ripper, these themes have taken centre stage in today’s fictionalisation of a past that tends to be reimagined in all its deviant, arousing and disquieting aspects. Possible topics include: – Forgotten and/or ignored global Victorians – The ‘lost world’: nature, animals and the environment – Challenges to the myth of progress, the monstrosity of science – Rediscoveries in Victorian and Neo-Victorian writing – Historical fiction (both Victorian and neo-Victorian) – Disability, diversity, and inclusivity – Decolonising and undisciplining – Forgotten aspects of Empire – Ethnical encounters, rehumanising the Other – Hidden genders and illicit sexuality – Translation and the transnational – Hidden, secret, forbidden spaces – The unspeakable, violence, and taboos – Fears of national and imperial weakness – Theorising the margins, the unspoken and affect – Censorship, targets of political repression and the spectre of social upheaval – Life writing, travel writing and the epistolary – Experimentation with forms and genres Please send proposals of 250–300 words, a 50-word biography, twitter handle (if you have one) to Dr Claudia Capancioni, Prof. Mariaconcetta Costantini and Dr Laura Gill at: vpfaconference@gmail.com. The conference will take place at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln as an in-person event, but online participation will be possible for accessibility. Please indicate in your abstract if you anticipate being unable to attend in person. Proposals for roundtables and reading group meetings responding to the conference theme are also welcome. Deadline for proposals: Wednesday 8 th February 2023. Membership of the VPFA is necessary to attend the conference. To find out more, please visit the VPFA website: http://victorianpopularfiction.org/vpfa-annual- conference/. For up-to-date information, please check the conference page on the VPFA website: https://victorianpopularfiction.org/vpfa-annual-conference/.

Alleghiamo il programma del convegno internazionale “LinC. I linguaggi della crisi tra virus e politica: forme del discorso e modello di comunicazione”, Università di Bari “Aldo Moro”, 1-2 dicembre 2022: brochure def web

Convegno internazionale: “La mascolinità nella letteratura e nelle arti: decostruzione/evoluzione di modelli identitari – “Masculinity in Literatures and the Arts: Deconstruction/Evolution of models of Identity”, Università di Pescara, 29-30 settembre 2022, organizzato dall’Università degli Studi “G. D’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara in collaborazione con l’Università del Salento e la Bishop Grosseteste University (Lincoln, UK) e dal gruppo di Ricerca L&gend https://www.unich.it/legend

Il giorno 30 settembre 2022, all’Università IULM (IULM 1 – Aula Seminari, 6° piano) e in streaming (https://go.iulm.it/metafora) si terrà un workshop dal titolo “La metafora nella comunicazione contemporanea: prospettive linguistiche, semiotiche e traduttive”. Il convegno intende esplorare l’uso della metafora nei diversi media, nei discorsi politici e istituzionali e in tutte le forme di comunicazione rivolte al grande pubblico, compresi i contesti multimodali e la comunicazione audiovisiva. Il programma e lo streaming sono scaricabili dalla pagina IULM del convegno, all’indirizzo https://www.iulm.it/it/news-ed-eventi/news/metafora-comunicazione-convegno– L’evento è aperto a tutti, ma è necessario registrarsi compilando il form disponibile alla pagina https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90483680/Eventi-IULM Il programma è disponibile anche a questo link: metafora-programma

Il 3 agosto scorso Maria Rosaria Cocco ci ha lasciato.    L’avevo incontrata per la prima volta nel pieno della rivolta studentesca del ’68, in un’affollata aula dell’Orientale di Napoli in cui rimbalzavano le notizie che venivano dalla Sorbona, dal Politecnico di Torino e dalla vicina Facoltà di Architettura occupata: a tutte le latitudini, con intensità e sfumature diverse, si esprimeva l’urgenza di cambiare dalle fondamenta la società capitalista, la cultura borghese e l’apparato dell’istruzione che le incarnava; e si scandiva uno slogan che anche noi due sostenevamo fermamente e per la cui realizzazione ci saremmo poi adoperate per anni, condividendo l’idealismo profondo di quell’universo giovanile: “Università di massa e qualificata”; uno slogan e un ideale che furono fatti propri da un ampio gruppo di docenti democratici dell’allora “Seminario di Inglese” dell’Orientale di cui facevano parte Nando Ferrara, Lidia Curti e molte/i altri.    Eravamo ambedue studentesse “mature” con esperienze lavorative alle spalle. Maria Rosaria, che aveva collaborato per qualche anno con la RAI di Napoli, stava scrivendo la tesi per la sua seconda laurea, mentre insegnava inglese in una scuola media di Gragnano. Io avevo ripreso gli studi dopo anni di attività come traduttrice. Ma quei mesi e quegli anni di accesi confronti ideologici e il rinnovamento epistemologico che andavano attuando comunità di studiosi come il Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies di Birmingham e il gruppo delle Annales in Francia ci diedero un nuovo imprinting di cui il lavoro di ricerca/didattica e la produzione scientifica di Maria Rosaria sono una chiara testimonianza.   Il suo primo saggio, pubblicato da laureanda su Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale (1968, n. 2), evidenziava questo rovesciamento di prospettiva fin dal titolo (“Malodorous Ibsen”, che riprendeva uno degli insulti lanciati contro Ibsen nel quadro dello scontro ideologico che si scatenò su Casa di bambola e le sue tesi sulla condizione femminile, tanto tra i critici quanto tra gli spettatori – con tanto di ombrellate in testa durante le rappresentazioni). Utilizzando come fonti la stampa quotidiana e periodica dell’epoca, sottolineava con forza il rapporto tra produzione estetica e “cultura”: un termine ed un ambito di indagine scientifica che non si erano ancora fatti strada in Italia e che avrebbero presto trovato cittadinanza all’interno dell’AIA con la creazione di una specifica sezione culturalista.   Nei suoi scritti e nei suoi corsi (tenuti prima all’Orientale e poi al Suor Orsola Benincasa) rimase fedele al suo impegno oltrecanonico, attingendo a repertori considerati ancora poco ortodossi, per portare alla luce aspetti inediti della cultura inglese, e di quella popolare in particolare: il rapporto tra rivoluzione industriale e tempo libero che determinò la creazione di nuovi generi di spettacolo che attiravano a teatro folle di lavoratori poveri ed analfabeti, bisognosi di svago, ma anche catturati dal fascino di Shakespeare che riusciva a trapelare perfino in riduzioni fulminee ed economicissime (“Shakespeare in 5 minuti”, “Shakespeare per un penny”), spesso limitate alle sole scene esoteriche o sanguinolente (le streghe di Macbeth, le cataste di cadaveri in scena…), ma ricche di azione (i duelli di Hamlet, le battaglie campali delle Histories e… persino… battaglie navali). Valga per tutti un solo titolo: Arlecchino, Shakespeare e il marinaio. Teatro popolare e melodramma in Inghilterra (1800-1850), del 1990.    Anche il suo interesse per manifestazioni “alte” e addirittura raffinate del teatro inglese (come la Salomè di Wilde, o il repertorio di un grande divo del palcoscenico come Garrick) si intrecciava a una lettura attenta alla rappresentazione del “femminile”, illuminata sapientemente dagli stimoli intellettuali dell’allora nascente critica femminista e consapevole della ricca complessità di ogni prodotto culturale (ricercato o popolare), inestricabilmente legato in modo dialettico e creativo al gioco egemonico operante in ogni congiuntura storica, secondo la geniale intuizione gramsciana intorno alla quale i Cultural Studies si andavano interrogando.   Il suo entusiasmo e il piacere della scoperta di gemme ignorate nelle pieghe oltrecanoniche della cultura inglese erano contagiosi, così come l’amalgama di serietà e di divertimento che la animavano come studiosa e come docente.  Marina Vitale