Abstracts - Flinders University

Transcript

Abstracts
Karen Agutter
University of Adelaide, [email protected]
Italian Migrant Hostel Experiences
Over 300,000 Italians arrived in Australia after the Second World War. While the majority
arrived as unassisted migrants, or under the sponsorship of family and paesani, many came
with assistance, either as post-war refugees, or under the assisted passage schemes which
operated from 1952. These assisted immigrants were often housed in Migrant Hostels,
Reception and Training Centres, Work Camps and business operated Single Men’s Quarters
such as those run by BHP. Although the uprisings at Bonegilla, Matraville and Villawood have
been well documented the Italian Immigrant experience of the ‘hostel system’ is less well
known.
Like many other migrants of this period the Italian experiences varied across time and across
hostels. For many assisted migrants, including Italians, periods of unemployment and forced
mobility for work created hardships, uncertainty and forced separation. For many, the hostel
experience was an alien one, with food and aspects of communal living difficult and unfamiliar.
Furthermore, the reception of Italians by other nationalities within the hostel system,
particularly the British assisted immigrants, was often hostile and in 1952 the British Migrants
Association went as far as to demand separate hostels or at least physical and structural
segregation within hostels, to prevent exposure to foreigners, particularly Italians.
Although Italian single men, single women and family groups formed an important percentage
of hostel residents across Australia, their hostel experiences, particularly outside of Bonegilla,
are little known. This paper will use archival documents and oral histories to consider the
broader Italian immigrant experiences within the Australian post-war hostel system.
Keywords: Italian Migration, Migrant Hostels, Migrant Experiences, Migrant Reception
Simona Albanese
University of Southern Queensland,
[email protected]
Italian masterpieces in Australia and immigration: a new approach
Italian artworks in Australia were catalogued for the first time almost twenty-five years ago by
Peter Tomory and Robert Gaston, who compiled for the first time a summary inventory of The
European paintings before 1800 in Australian and New Zealand Public Collections (1989), and
later by Ursula Hoff, who wrote a further catalogue of European Painting and Sculpture before
1800 (1973 and 1995 eds).
Plenty has been written since then on these works, especially in the last ten years.
Considerable attention has been given to Giovan Battista Tiepolo’s Banquet of Cleopatra by
the critics and by art historian Jayne Anderson, who has written a book on this painting:
Tiepolo’s Cleopatra (2003).
[…] In this paper I will investigate the possible relationship between these artworks and the
anonymous Italian migrants. Did they know about the existence of these Italian masterpieces?
Did they ever visit the National Gallery of Victoria? Could these pictures have provided a
reminder of the achievements of the culture they had left behind, a parallel for the risks they
had taken in leaving Italy, and the satisfaction of knowing how highly valued those
achievements were in Australia?
Keywords: art, paintings, migration, Banquet of Cleopatra, Giovan Battista Tiepolo
Louise Baird
Flinders University, [email protected]
‘La zona di sé’ and the epistolary form: comparing two novels of Natalia
Ginzberg
In her last two novels Ginzburg changed her literary style and form, choosing the epistolary
mode. Caro Michele (1973) is mostly written in the form of letters, interspersed with two
sections of dialogue and a few pages of third person narrative. La città e la casa (1984) is
entirely composed of letters. Her choice of this epistolary mode is dictated by her intense
preoccupation with the inner life of her characters, ‘dentro di noi,’ accompanied by a growing
dislike of authorial third person narrative. The change of mode evident in these last two novels
is the more dramatic when compared with her previous novel, Le voci della sera.
In earlier fiction Ginzburg particularly favoured the first person voice. Now she finds in her last
two novels a way to depict more fully, with much greater range, the interiors of human
consciousness, what goes on ‘dentro di sé.’ She preserves the sense of first person narrative
but covers a plurality of personal voices without having to use third person or omniscient
narrative.
Caro Michele emphasises the idea that human consciousness is a kind of prison, a ‘zona di sé’
in which individuals are confined, each in their own cell, trying to communicate, to understand
and be understood, but mostly failing. This idea is common in twentieth-century literature but
Ginzburg’s expression of it is highly distinctive and deserves special attention.
La città e la casa carries further her unique method of voicing her thematic concerns, her
unique ways of manipulating the epistolary mode. Both novels depict a central character in
flight, from the previous self, from the past. Each of these characters has a secret, which may
or may not have been unearthed by others. Caro Michele has a smaller range of characters,
with the mystery as to the ‘real’ nature of Michele at its heart. The letters of the other
characters both elucidate and mystify. La città e la casa has a much more complex plot
structure and a greater range of characters, letter-writers all trying to ‘unlock the self,’ to
interpret their own characters for others, and to offer opinions about other characters as well.
Letters are thus used for self-revelation, as much as to draw out plot, describe, wound and
comment on their fellow correspondents.
The epistolary method is brilliantly used by Ginzburg as a means to expose the workings and
failings of human consciousness in the plot of life. The paper’s title comes from a comment
made by one of the characters: ‘Ognuno di noi è sbandato e balordo in una zona di sé.’
Loretta Baldassar
University of Western Australia, [email protected]
Second Generation in Prato and Perth: the politics of recognising
difference
This paper explores the experience of belonging and identity for second generation migrants in
Prato, Italy and contrasts this with the experience of second generation in Perth, Australia. The
data presented are drawn from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Prato between 2009 and
2012 in collaboration with Raffaetà and McAuliffe and ongoing fieldwork conducted in Perth by
Baldassar. In examining this issue, we found that citizenship status is a key identity construct
that is performed and embodied in the Italian context, while the concept of ethnicity is largely
absent. In contrast, ethnic identity is a key defining attribute for migrants in Australia and
citizenship is often largely irrelevant. These findings contribute to scholarly debates about the
relevance of citizenship to identity and belonging and the heuristic value of the notion of
ethnicity. In the Prato case, social and political citizenship, at least as far as identity and
belonging is concerned, are tightly linked. People refer to citizenship status as the key identity
definer in much the same way that notions of ethnic and racial identity are used in similar
contexts in the UK, north America and Australia. I examine the factors that contribute to the
politics of recognising difference in the Italian and Australian contexts. Factors of relevance
include the relative recency or newness of immigration to Italy and the visible difference of the
certain high profile second generation groups. The conception of ius sanguinis citizenship,
along with the relative absence of the notion of ethnic identity in both popular and academic
discourses, have contributed to a strongly essentialist notion of identity that does not easily
permit notions of mixity and diversity.
Irene Belperio
Dante’s Commedia for our time: Is the traditional canon still relevant
Dante’s Commedia, as well as his lesser known works, has managed to captivate audiences
from various countries for over 700 years. Can the same be said today, particularly in a
university context?
This paper argues that:
far from being an outmoded social, political, religious and literary commentary, Dante’s
discussion of such issues as migration, wealth and religion raises interesting points for analysis
today; reflecting not just on the mistakes of the past, but on previous pedagogies and
epistemologies can be a useful means to contextualise current thinking; and lastly, the
representation of Dante’s Commedia across the centuries offers not just fresh insight into the
poem itself but the similarities and differences in interpretations offered in various periods can
provide insight into the times themselves. Just in the past 120 years, the first cantica of the
Commedia was made into Italy’s first ever feature film in 1911, the Inferno turned into a
videogame, complete with Dante-pilgrim as Templar Knight and, most recently, Dan Brown
utilises Botticelli’s map of the Dantean underworld in his latest novel Inferno.
One of the conclusions to be drawn from this is that the teaching in universities of the
Commedia and, perhaps more broadly other canonical Italian authors, involves their
reconceptualisation and their reinterpretation for a modern audience. In this manner, it is
hoped to highlight their continuing relevancy as well as placing them firmly within the context in
which they were penned.
Keywords: Relevancy, reconceptualisation, reinterpretation, diverse media
Stephen Bennetts
Australian ‘Ndrangheta: notes for a history of Italian organised crime in
Australia
How much do we really know about the history of the ‘Ndrangheta in Australia, now the most
powerful and most globalised of the three southern Italian Mafias (Dickie, 2013), and the only
one of these organisations known to be active in this country?
The known history of the ‘Ndrangheta in Australia begins in Far North Queensland in the
1930s, but the organisation most recently came to public attention in 2011, when Italian police
unsuccessfully sought the extradition of the Calabrian former mayor of Perth’s City of Stirling
on Mafia charges.
As in Italy, the Australian ‘Ndrangheta has proved adept at cultivating local politicians, and has
also benefited at times from bogus appeals to an Australian multiculturalist discourse. The
assassinations of Donald Mackay in 1977 and AFP Deputy Commissioner Colin Winchester in
1989, together with the television series Underbelly, have made the Calabrian Mafia a staple of
local journalism and media, yet there has been a paucity of detailed and serious scholarly
research on the Australian ‘Ndrangheta. Local journalistic and police investigation of the
phenomenon has sometimes suffered from a lack of knowledge of the Italian language, or an
appreciation of the organisation’s wider Italian and global context, with senior Australian law
enforcement officers at times even questioning the existence of an Australian ‘Ndrangheta as a
corporate entity. While Italian and international researchers have recently been producing
important insights into the nature of the ‘Ndrangheta (Dickie, 2011, 2013; Ciconte & Macri
2009; Sergi, 2012; Varese, 2006; Spagnolo, 2010), their efforts to research its history and
activities in Australia are hampered by geographical distance.
This paper assesses the value of these two geographically separate bodies of knowledge, and
the prospect of bringing them into dialogue through Professor John Dickie’s proposal to
establish a transnational research network on the Australian ‘Ndrangheta.
Stefano Bona
Italian filmmakers in China: translocal cinema and the changing
perception of another culture
In a globalised world, the interactions between cultures previously unknown to each other are
increasingly creating new challenges and opportunities.
China is one of the main protagonists of the world economy, and its rise has stunned the world.
How has its perception changed in countries that used to be in an economically leading
position no more than a few years ago? Having had connections with China since the time of
the ancient Roman Empire, Italy may provide a symbolic point of view. Moreover, since the
People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, Italian filmmakers were the first Western
directors allowed to shoot feature documentaries and films in that country. Hence, the previous
question may turn into: ‘How have Italian filmmakers represented China?’.
From Carlo Lizzani in 1957 to Dario Baldi in 2012, seven Italian directors have made
internationally distributed films in China. If films cannot be used as historical documents, they
still can convey the director’s perception of China when they were made. Thus, the analysis
and comparison of these translocal films allow us to understand how the visual perception of
the People’s Republic of China has shifted from that of an idyllic and isolated society to that of
a modern society characterised by inequality and increasing internationalisation, and to what
degree this change has impacted on Italian society.
Josh Brown
Linguistic convergence in 15th century Lombardy: the correspondence
of suor Elisabetta of Pavia
The main tendency characterising the evolution of the vernacular in Lombardy during the late
Middle Ages is the formation of a koinè. Lepschy has noted that written language in Milan
during the Quattrocento was determined by a variety of traditions, including Latin and latinising
elements, literary Tuscan and Northern Italian (literary Lombard in particular). In recent years,
there has been ongoing debate surrounding the role which Milan played in the formation of the
koinè. Lurati, for example, suggests Milan provided a centralising force for the ‘Milanisation’ of
the other Lombard vernaculars, similar to what occurred for Piedmont and the Veneto. On the
other hand, Massariello Merzagora suggests that the linguistic history of Lombardy does not
revolve around Milan. Sanga has provided a synthesis of both viewpoints and suggests that
Milan oriented the development of other Lombard dialects, both through its spread of the koinè
padana antica, as well as through the spread of an Italian model mediated by Milanese over a
long period. The problem of convergence – a historical process by which languages in contact
become more similar in structure – has so far received little attention throughout the literature
on Milan’s role in the formation of the Lombard koinè. This paper considers the
correspondence of suor Elisabetta of Pavia to show that convergence had begun even earlier
than what has currently been suggested in the literature.
Josh Brown and Marinella Caruso
University of Western Australia, [email protected];
[email protected]
New Courses 2012: the impact on enrolments in Italian at UWA
This paper explores the recent introduction of a new course structure at UWA, called New
Courses, and the impact this structure has had on first- and second-year enrolments in Italian.
We begin by briefly discussing the new degree structure in general before looking at some
overall trends on how it has impacted language enrolments at UWA, and in Italian in particular.
Using data from enrolment numbers in past years and a survey we created, we will show how
a large percentage of students studying Italian at UWA are not from the Faculty of Arts, how
this new degree structure has impacted on our student cohort and what this implies for
language teaching. The paper considers how New Courses has impacted on students’ choices
when deciding on a major, retention rates and what implications the new structure has for
teaching about Italian culture. Overall, we conclude that Italian is an attractive choice for
students from all Faculties and point to areas of further research.
Harry Cameron
University of Sydney, [email protected]
Revisiting Raddoppiamento Sintattico
This paper presents the findings from a study of the Italian phonological process of
Raddoppiamento Sintattico (RS) – namely, the doubling of the first consonant of a word. RS
was first documented by Renaissance philologists and has received much attention from
grammarians and phonologists ever since, especially over the last thirty years. However,
important questions remain unresolved – for example, regarding RS’s regional distribution and
whether it applies only within specific syntactic environments.
This paper presents a new look at the criteria governing the occurrence of RS, on the basis of
a study performed on data taken from CLIPS (Corpora e Lessici dell'Italiano Parlato e Scritto),
a corpus of spoken Italian. The study confirms certain well-documented findings – such as that
RS is typically triggered by the preceding word having final stress or being one of a number of
other trigger words. However, it also identifies that (i) RS occurs in the speech of some
northern Italians, challenging the majority of previous literature; (ii) the likelihood of a word
undergoing RS is influenced by the stress of the word itself; and most importantly, (iii) RS
occurs more frequently within commonly collocated expressions – and most frequently of all
within idiomatic constructions.
The paper argues that this latter finding largely explains previous (heavily contested)
observations that RS can apply only within given syntactic environments. The paper explains
briefly the broader linguistic implications of the patterns of RS occurrence– providing evidence
in favour of detailed lexical storage, and in favour of a usage-based approach to phonology,
such as Exemplar Theory.
Keywords: Linguistics, Phonetics, Phonology, Raddoppiamento Sintattico
Liz Campbell
Inferno XXVII: a study of deception, self-deception and wilful blindness
Canto XXVII of Dante’s Inferno is often paired with Canto XXVI, since both deal, inter alia, with
aspects of fraudulent counsel. Scholars, have, however, devoted greater attention to Canto
XXVI, dealing as it does with the great mythic figure of Ulysses.
The purpose of my talk will be to highlight the importance of Dante’s Inferno XXVII because it
concerns the manipulation by the powerful, in the person of Pope Boniface VIII, of those with a
weak moral compass, which, in this case, is the all-too-human figure of Guido da Montefeltro,
and the justification claimed by those of a weak moral compass for acceding to unethical
demands. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate Dante’s understanding of human psychology, his
use of irony and his dramatic portrayal of wilful blindness.
Montefeltro’s prevarications in his account of his encounter with Boniface finds a modern echo
in, for example, the behaviour of high-powered executives who, in their appearance before the
Leveson Inquiry into the abuse of power by the Press, exhibited wilful blindness regarding
phone hacking and the ensuing cover-up.
Guido da Montefeltro is a tragi-comic figure whose dilemma is vividly depicted in a way that
remains as fresh and as relevant to the twenty-first century as it was almost seven hundred
years ago.
Keywords: Dante; Inferno; Canto XVIII: Guido da Montefeltro; Pope Boniface VIII; deception,
self-deception, wilful blindness.
Piera Carroli and Vivian Gerrand
Australian National University, [email protected];
[email protected]
Home, belonging and citizenship in G2 Italian literature: sustainability
beyond territoriality
Overcoming the trauma of uprooting was a common preoccupation of earlier immigrant fiction
which still recurs. In post 2000 fictions and narratives written by Italians of immigrant extraction
– we take as our focus Kaha Mohamed Aden’s Fra-Intendimenti and Igiaba Scego’s writing –
there is a critical comparison of the different cultures and generational values and the claim for
new spaces and new subjectivities, along the lines of the nomadic figuration and flexible
citizenship proposed by Rosi Braidotti. The literary domains are closely linked with the
historical and political domains and the theoretical approach adopted: Braidotti’s figurations of
‘nomadic subjectivity’ and ‘nomadic ethics’. In a seemingly similar vein, Somali-born author
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s most recent book draws on the idea of nomadism and bears the title Nomad:
A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010). Rather than opening up the
ways in which identity is imagined as Braidotti is interested in doing, however, Hirsi Ali
reinforces Samuel Huntington’s famous Clash of Civilizations thesis which theorises, in
particular, incompatibilities between the monotheistic religions.
Adens’ and Scego’s, Fra-Intendimenti and La mia casa è dove sono, also published in 2010,
are similarly preoccupied with how we imagine identity. The idea that home is where one finds
oneself presents a departure from Huntington’s paradigm which extends nationalistic tropes of
blood ties that are evident in Italian jus sanguinis citizenship laws, where to be Italian, one
must have Italian blood. To be at home, in Aden’s and Scego’s work, means to accept that
one’s identity is produced as much by one’s heritage as it is by one’s trajectory. This idea has
been explored across multicultural and postcolonial bodies of literature over the past few
decades. Aden’s and Scego’s positioning as Italian Somali writers within a context of a nation
that has neglected to acknowledge its colonial past speaks to and with this literature.
Keywords: G2 Italian literature, belonging, sustainability, nomadic subjectivity
Piera Carroli
Australian National University, [email protected]
Is ‘Italian’ literature becoming nomad?
Drawing on Braidotti’s philosophical concepts of nomadic subjectivity and sustainability, this
paper proposes a perception of 21st century literature as ‘nomad’, in need of a ‘nomadic’
aesthetics and perception of poetics. Elitist canons appear anachronistic in the ever fluctuating,
often virtual, 21st century, ‘aerial’ rather than territorial, cultural space in which literature is one
of many practices imagining and generating cultural spaces, inclusive of a multitude of texts
made up of disparate enunciations (Fiorentino 2011). The proposition of a ‘nomadic’ literature
intentionally confuses any already challenged notions of fixed canons and national literatures.
The literary texts considered, produced astride the two centuries, which, unlike earlier texts
[that] used syntax ‘to cry out’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1983: 26), uses syntax to escape encaging
definitions (‘minor’, ‘migrant’). It focuses on global themes, intersecting the individual and the
collective, the local and the global in their complex narratives leaping into geographies and
histories beyond Italian national borders, with women often being protagonists as authors.
Engaged in literary and political globalism, these writers strive for a ‘nomadic’ subjectivity. No
longer just collective or political, or autobiographical, their literature has escaped easy labelling
and strict definitions.
Using several ‘nomad’ texts, the case will be made that this recent literature, often considered
‘minor’ in the negative sense, provides the opportunity to ‘reverse racist discourses and turn
contamination and otherness into a language and literature of innovation and change’ (Carroli
2010) by including texts able to reflect and express Italy's global society and a literary
globalism. Can literature once more help build Italian unity from difference, and, this time, with
difference?
Keywords: Italian literature, nomadic subjectivity, migration
Joshua Carter
University of Melbourne, [email protected]
Narratives of Trauma in Igiaba Scego’s Oltre Babilonia
The novels of author Igiaba Scego examine the relationship between trauma and language.
The author’s second novel Oltre Babilonia follows the lives of two sets of mother and daughter
(Miranda and Mar, and Zuhra and Maryam) connected via their relationship to an absent father
and husband Elias. These two interlocking stories focus primarily on the younger protagonist’s
difficulties integrating into Italian society. Both daughters are not without their own problems:
Zuhra suffers from the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her high school
professor, and Mar must come to terms with the loss of both her unborn child and her partner
Patricia. However, each daughter’s personal trauma is exacerbated by the historical and
cultural legacies of their parents, a concept which Marianne Hirshe termed post-memory 1. As
life-stories are presented genealogically violence is intertwined with identity and continues to
affect family members long after events have occurred.
The two stories of mother and daughter illustrate that inter-generational trauma is transmitted
through language. In Oltre Babilonia trauma is presented as a gendered experience. While
both sexes were equally subjected to the violence trauma arguably forms the basis of female
subjectivity in the text. The cultural significance attributed to the mother-tongue ensures that
personal histories are conveyed from mother to daughter in their native language.
Furthermore, in being first-generation migrants and women the stories of both mothers are
predominantly confined to the family and are expressed in the language of the private sphere
rather than Italian, disallowing memories from entering into the cultural frameworks of their new
country. Scego places the onus on her protagonists to trace trauma back to its origin in order
to illustrate that their troubles are not distinct from the past, though rather represent a
continuation of it.
Keywords: Igiaba Scego, intergenerational trauma, post-memory, gender.
1
Hirsh, M. “Past Lives: Postmemories in Exile.” Poetics Today. 17.4 (1996): 659-686. Print.
Marinella Caruso and Josh Brown
University of Western Australia, [email protected]; ,
[email protected]
Translating and dubbing films into Italian with iMovie
This paper discusses the integration of a multimedia project involving the video editing
application iMovie in an Italian course at the University of Western Australia. The use of video
materials in language classrooms has a long tradition. Thanks to technological advances,
video materials can now be offered to students as texts to manipulate by means of computer
editing software. We report on a project designed for first-year students from the advanced
stream (post high-school) which involved dubbing a five-minute sequence of a film from
English into Italian using iMovie. Using results from a survey distributed online as well as
written comments from students, the paper argues that the integration of an assessment task
involving iMovie was a fundamentally positive learning experience. Despite initial
apprehensions by students to use new software and concerns about time constraints, we show
how students re-interpreted sophisticated linguistic expressions in Italian in their own way. The
evaluation of the project demonstrates that the application of iMovie to language learning was
a positive learning experience even when students were not familiar with the software.
Daniela Cavallaro
University of Auckland, [email protected]
Staging hysteria: Clotilde Masci’s Vigilia nuziale
During her playwriting career for professional and amateur theatre, Clotilde Masci (1918 –
1985) wrote more than one hundred plays. Her major works touched on topics which would be
the focus of the rising feminist theatre: marriage as the main role offered to women in Italian
society, unmarried or widowed life, separation and divorce.
The protagonist of Masci’s 1952 drama Vigilia nuziale Cristina, at nearly 30 years of age, is
about to marry the son of her father’s best friend – someone she barely knows. On the eve of
the wedding, however, she claims first to her family and later to the police to have stolen a ring.
After the confession of the true thief proves her innocence, the play ends with a subdued
Cristina who asks her relatives for forgiveness, meekly obeying her fiancé’s instructions, as the
wedding preparations resume.
1952 reviewers of Vigilia nuziale were baffled by the character of Cristina, mentioning hysteria
as a possible cause for her behaviour. In recent decades, women playwrights have rewritten
cases of female hysterics, or have used characters of hysterical women as figures of artist’s
manqué, women whose creative potential had been stifled. In my presentation, I will show that
the characterisation of Cristina’s traumatic past, repressed present and threatening future,
together with Masci’s choice of the profession of a medical doctor for Cristina’s fiancé, make of
this play a suggestive precursor to recent works on hysteria by contemporary women authors. I
will conclude that Cristina’s hysterical behaviour and her continued confession of guilt, with the
foreseeable consequence of several years in jail, may be a last desperate attempt to avoid
what she knows will be the confinement and suffocation of a wife, the silencing of her creative
potentials.
Keywords: Clotilde Masci – hysteria – Italian women writers – Italian theatre
Mirna Cicioni
Monash University, [email protected]
Telescopes and Film Reels: Autobiography and Humour in three Italian
Memories of Childhood in the Holocaust
I look at three autobiographical texts by Italian Jewish writers who, in their sixties, retrieved
memories of their childhoods after the anti-Semitic laws of 1938. Lia Levi (born in 1931) wrote
Una bambina e basta (A Little Girl and No More) in 1994; the book has not been translated into
English. Aldo Zargani (born in 1933) wrote Per violino solo (For Solo Violin) in 1993; the
English translation was published in 2002. Renzo Modiano (born in 1936) wrote Di razza
ebraica (Of Jewish Race) in 2005; the English translation, by Susan Walker and myself, was
published in 2013.
Expelled from state schools after 1938 and forced to live in hiding after the armistice of 8
September, 1943, the young narrated selves experience exclusion, isolation, dangers,
constant fear for themselves and their loved ones, but also moments of human solidarity and
occasional childish curiosity and playfulness. I focus on the ways the adult narrating selves
look back at their young selves: the juxtaposition of the two perspectives is at times humorous
and at times self-deprecatingly ironic.
Daniela Cosmini-Rose
Italian Civil Alien Corps in South Australia, the ‘forgotten’ enemy aliens
The period during the Second World War is remembered by the Italians in Australia as one of
the hardest of their experience as migrants, owing to the restrictions that they were subjected
to and to the anti-Italian sentiment that had spread throughout the nation.
On the day that Australia received news that Italy had entered the war (11 June 1940) the
migrants of Italian origin were no longer just ‘aliens’ (unnaturalised foreigners) but became
‘enemy aliens’. A number of Italian migrants, both naturalised and unnaturalised, were arrested
and interned on the basis of their political views, occupation and social standing. Those who
were not arrested were given the option of volunteering for military service, otherwise, from
1942, they were obliged to serve in the Civil Alien Corps (CAC) to work on projects of a noncombatant nature such as construction works, salt production, cutting and handling of timber
and scrub clearing.
Although numerous studies have focused on the internment of Italians, to date there has been
very little research to explore the issues related to those enemy aliens who were removed from
their usual occupations and loved ones to serve in the Civil Alien Corps, and were subjected to
discrimination and loss of liberties.
This paper presents the findings from a study of the experiences of Italian migrants who served
in the CAC in South Australia during the Second World War based on the analysis of personal
archival files that contain information on the projects migrants were employed in,
documentation relating to financial, medical leave, disciplinary matters and letters sent by the
aliens themselves to their families, which will provide insight into the experiences of a
‘forgotten’ group of migrants during an important period of South Australian history.
Keywords: Italian Migration, Migrant Experiences, South Australian History, Enemy Aliens.
Luciana d'Arcangeli
Un'altra meta' del cielo: genere, sessualita' e identita' sociale nel cinema
italiano
Ad un primo rapido esame della situazione del cinema Italiano nel nuovo millennio potrebbe
apparire di assistere alla nascita di una nuova, anche se limitata, età dell’oro per quanto
riguarda il cinema italiano declinato al femminile, l’espressione di sessualità ‘alternative’ ed
identità sociali che resistano in un’epoca ‘liquida’ alla deregolamentazione e flessibilizzazione
dei rapporti sociali. Il presente intervento si propone di effettuare una panoramica sui film ed i
dati più significativi del cinema italiano, dal 2000 ad oggi, rispetto ai temi di genere e
sessualità, illustrando, ove possibile, i progressi fatti e quelli ancora da fare.
Theodore Ell
Intruders in Eden or thoughtless guardians? Giorgio Orelli on the rift
between human beings and their sanctuary
Swiss-Italian poet Giorgio Orelli (b. 1921) voices the isolated and precarious status of his
Ticino homeland, a landscape that dwarfs culture into a particle of nature, pre-social,
elemental. But all is not restful in this Swiss sanctuary. Orelli perceives a muted but threatening
state of conflict. Hunters stalking their quarry feel their guns suddenly turned aside; rain comes
over the farms like an assault; the flight of birds and butterflies seems to carry some vital
message that is barely understandable. Are these signs that humanity has trespassed where it
is not welcome and may soon be forced out? Or is nature sending a distress signal, appealing
to the better side of a guardian that has abused and neglected it? Whatever the case, what
confronts the human figures in Orelli’s poetry is a sense of wrongness, failed responsibility,
distraction from matters of great importance at the edge of thought.
The alienation growing in Italian life causes such stress – work does not mean a living,
institutions do not respond to citizens’ needs or beliefs, politics is a scene not of building but of
tearing apart – that it may seem unwarranted to approach it in purely symbolic terms. But
symbolism such as Orelli’s finds real weight as Italy confronts the ethical as well as the
economic side of its crisis. Orelli’s poetry can stand as a warning of the consequences of
leaving conscience adrift, of allowing the sense of isolation and exposure, the lack of
responsiveness between self and setting, to be overlooked through short-sightedness. This is
poetry that makes the case for an expansive, searching mentality in a reductive climate: poetry
as recourse and redress.
Keywords: Poetry; Giorgio Orelli; Switzerland; Ticino; nature; alienation; symbolism; socioeconomic crisis; literary study
Marisa Escolar
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, [email protected]
Teaching Introduction to Italian Literature, Beyond the Anthology
One of the traditional courses in an Italian major, introduction to Italian literature has often
been taught as a transhistorical survey of the canon, with the assistance of an anthology that
provides historical and literary context (usually strictly Euro/Western-centric), summaries,
excerpts, analyses and discussion questions, and texts written in a manner deemed
particularly difficult for the students may be paraphrased, translated into contemporary Italian
or footnoted. Students thus are led to believe that a single, correct interpretation exists, and
are often discouraged thinking that their linguistic or analytical skills are simply preventing them
from accessing the ‘answer’ themselves. A further consequence of this approach is the
propagation of the belief that a dozen men created Italian literature, and that they did so by
continuously and belatedly borrowing from both their own past as well as European trends.
This paper is part of an on-going project in the development of an introductory curriculum that
allows students to engage with Italian literature in a dynamic fashion, de-emphasising a
smooth historical narrative in favour of a focus on the plurality of Italian literatures. If part of an
introductory class is to expose students to such names as Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch,
Goldoni, Manzoni, Foscolo and Leopardi, I argue for the need to do so in a layered fashion:
considering how an author wrote and rewrote his text, and how it was subsequently rewritten
and repurposed both inside and outside Italy. Italy thus becomes a dynamic contributor to a
wider literary conversation, and the Italian canon is permeated by other authors, forms, genres,
media and languages.
After some brief comments/critiques on the ‘traditional’ approach to teaching Italian literature
(which I intend to support with some data/input from courses taught by colleagues throughout
the U.S.), I will discuss my own project with specific classroom examples, and, ideally, open
the floor to a discussion about alternative approaches.
David Faber
FG Fantin: A Complex Sense of Belonging
Beginning with the definition without sociological pretension of ‘belonging’ as a complex
dimension of membership of community and personal identity, this paper takes a fresh look at
the complex sense of belonging of a significant Italian Australian migrant worker, Francesco
Giovanni Fantin (1901–42), whose life, work and untimely death at the age of 41 have
attracted considerable historical attention given his assassination by fascist antagonists at
Loveday Internment Camp near Barmera South Australia around 6.30pm on 16 November
1942, shortly after the Battle of El Alamein in which Australian and Italian troops participated
on opposing sides. His death was a turning point in the history of wartime preventive deterrent
detention of ‘enemy aliens’, the single most adverse social event in the history of the Italian
community in Australia, then as now one of the largest and most significant ethnic communities
in the nation. The paper charts the dimensions of community, both socioeconomic and political,
which informed Fantin’s sense of working class anarchist identity from his formative years in
the Schio district of the Veneto to his sense of identification with Australia on the very eve of
his death.
Matteo Farina
University of South Australia, [email protected]
The sequential organisation of openings in Facebook Home interactions
Online chats, blogs and social media have provided second language students with more
opportunity to interact in the target language. However, the way Italian Native Speaker (NS)s
interact in online environments, such as Facebook (FB), is different from the way they
communicate in spoken conversation. Thus, being able to understand the way Italian NSs
interact on FB is important for teachers in order to explain to students how to communicate in
this specific environment. This paper presents the results of one of the first studies that applies
Conversation Analysis (CA) to investigate the sequential organisation of the opening posts of
FB Home interactions. After describing the terminology utilised in this study, such as explaining
what is the Home, a thread, a post and an opening, this paper shows that generally Italian FB
users begin FB Home interactions by using a telling. Moreover, tellings which occur in the first
post of a FB Home interaction are commonly autobiographical or related to a third person
event. After describing what are autobiographical and third person event tellings, this paper
continues to analyse the different formats of first post tellings, including textual messages,
photo and hyperlink tellings as well as the combination of textual messages and photos or
hyperlinks.
In conclusion, a better understanding of the way Italian NSs interact on FB might help teachers
in developing new materials that may help students improve the communicative competence in
the Italian language.
Keywords: Facebook, conversation analysis, openings
David Forgacs
New York University,
Globalisation and the reconfiguration of Italian studies
In the past few years, academics whose areas of study have traditionally had a national focus
have had to consider how far globalisation has called into question the continued validity of
that focus. In the case of Italy, since the global financial crisis of 2008–12 internal economic
policy and political affairs have increasingly been shaped by European directives. Migratory
flows into and through Italy from many source countries have brought with them a new tide of
multiculturalism and multilingualism, which reactionary forces may deplore but are unable to
stem. Information and communications technologies have brought about new forms and
speeds of connectedness between Italy and the wider world. Italian products – from food to
films – are redefined on global markets and new meanings are assigned to them. At the same
time, a growing Italian academic and intellectual diaspora has disconnected Italian expertise
and cultural belonging from residence within Italy’s borders. In this paper, I will consider some
of the implications of these changes for the various fields of Italian studies, both those dealing
with contemporary Italy and those concerned with earlier eras, and for the training of future
specialists. What does it mean to do ‘Italian studies’ today and what is it likely to mean
tomorrow?
John Gatt-Rutter
La Trobe University, [email protected]
Reading Italian Australian lives
Over the last three decades there has been an increasing number of full-length life-writing texts
by and/or about Italian Australians, with an often evanescent dividing line between
autobiography and biography. In fact, I am studying Italian Australian autobiographies and
biographies as a single composite group. Mostly written in English, they claim citizenship within
Australia as Italians. Those of the first and second migrant generations are predicated on the
paradigm of a migration narrative, while those of the third or later generations articulate a
rediscovery of the culture of origin.
These full-length Italian-Australian life-writing texts number at least sixty, and collectively
emphasise an individualist perspective, whilst broadly sharing a common narrative paradigm.
There are also at least a dozen publications each comprising a number of much shorter,
predominantly oral, histories by a group of people. These few publications collectively add up
to some five hundred life histories.
This area of study poses an intriguing set of problems for an Italianist as traditionally defined.
Knowledge of Italian language or languages no longer seems to be crucial. A knowledge of
Australian social history and social culture would appear to be more relevant. Does this area
belong to Italian studies at all? Here, textual analysis veers away from literary valence to
discursive valence, which is, of course, equally speculative. To the social scientist or the
historian, the discursive valence of life-writing texts, speculative though this is, is likely to be as
or more valuable than their highly dubious documentary valence. Experiential issues of space
and place, of belonging and identity, endeavour and achievement, dominate migration and
transcultural life writing.
Vivian Gerrand
University of Melbourne, [email protected]
Donne di Roma: Belonging in the digital paintings of Fabrice de Nola
Since 2006, Belgian-Sicilian visual artist Fabrice De Nola has been creating oil on canvas
paintings with QR codes (a communication system based on universal spatial-visual symbols
first pioneered by Toyota) containing texts and hyperlinks that can be read by mobile phones.
In early 2009, an exhibition of De Nola’s interactive painting series, Donne di Roma (Women of
Rome), was held at Rome’s Auditorium complex. The artworks review the positioning of myriad
women living in Rome, offering a hopeful vision of belonging in Italy’s capital. Poised at the
centre of Rome’s intercultural grassroots reality, Women of Rome unveils a techno-utopian
vision in which to write and to reside, jus domicili, is to belong.
Identities in De Nola’s paintings emerge as hybrid, interstitial and multiple. Such multiplicity
contests fixed conceptions of Italian-ness and jus sanguinis citizenship laws. The relational
language of the spaces created by these texts works in various ways to represent new
modalities of belonging that are constantly mapped anew via encounters that bring
subjectivities in their particularity into being. De Nola’s artworks support such belonging by
inviting viewers, whoever they might be, to play a part in their evolution. De Nola’s paintings
thus affirm the existence of, and create, inclusive spaces in which no one is a foreigner: Rome
appears as a dynamic site of cultural interaction in which identity remains open not solely to
what is present but, also, to the coming community that is yet to emerge.
Keywords: Belonging, digital painting, intercultural, migration, potential.
Francesco Goglia and Veronica Fincati
University of Exeter, Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid,
[email protected]; [email protected]
Maintenance and use of immigrant languages in the Veneto region
The Veneto region is among the regions with the highest number of immigrants (11.0%
according to Istat). The majority of immigrants work in the local factories and in the services
sector. The distribution of immigrants across the territory is even in both large and small cities.
In recent years the process of family reunion has increased the number of immigrant children
and teenagers. Children of immigrants account for 11.2% of the school population in the region
(Anastasia and Fincati, 2011). The Veneto region’s linguistic repertoire includes Italian and the
Veneto dialect, and there is a situation of de facto bilingualism with diglossia in which Italian is
the H language and the Veneto dialect is the L language. Immigrant languages enrich this
bilingualism.
This paper is based on research supported by the British Academy (SG110908), which
entailed the distribution of 149 sociolinguistic questionnaires in three secondary schools with a
high percentage of students with immigrant backgrounds in the provinces of Treviso and
Padova. The questionnaires aimed to collect information on language choice, maintenance
and attitudes. The pupils who filled in the questionnaire belong to 23 nationalities – 56% of the
sample were Moroccan, Romanian, Albanian and Chinese, the four main immigrant groups in
the region.
This study reveals that the use of Italian is prevalent in the school context or in contacts with
local people, while immigrant languages are maintained in the family context with an emerging
role of Italian within the family, mainly with brothers and sisters. The use of the Veneto dialect
is also attested particularly with peers. Results also show different degrees of maintenance
and use of immigrant languages according to different immigrant groups.
Isobel Grave
Mediating metaphor in Italian‒English English‒Italian literary translation
The paper explores metaphor from the perspective of the translator, attempting to understand
better which characteristics of this linguistic resource promote, or conversely, inhibit the
translator’s mediation. The language pair is Italian and English, the source texts are from both
languages and are all works established in the literary canon of their respective cultures.
On the face of it, the existence of synonymous words in a language pair yields referential
equivalence – until the multiple meanings of the word in question are unpacked. Such is the
case of the metaphorically used Italian verb portare in an Ungaretti poem; in it are packed both
the meanings of wear and carry, and the message of the poem in the original coheres around
this polysemy. This instance is the point of departure for exploring a range of strategies
translators into English have used to mediate such polysemy in a metaphorical framework.
The extent to which the meaning of a word may be viewed as being made up, at least in part,
of the meanings of other words (Cruse, 1997) implies that any discussion of metaphor must
look at its contextual relations and the strength of collocational constraints. The first example is
the Dantean metaphor of the keys (… le chiavi … serrando e diserrando/ the keys … locking
and unlocking, Inf.13, 58-60); the commensurability between the ST and a number of
translations of this image points to the acknowledged conceptual simplicity of complementaries
and the widespread representation of opposites across languages. Counter examples are
provided by an Italian translation of Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm where several
metaphorical collocations support the findings of Kenny (2001) that collocation can be the site
of creative mediation on the part of the translator.
Luigi Gussago
The role of comparative literature in Italian Studies: the example of the
Picaresque novel
This paper attempts to underline the importance of comparative literature not only as an area
of intersection between distant national cultures and languages, but also in the light of Italian
studies in particular, as a result of a stimulating contrast with other cultural experiences. In
order to survey more than one option of literary comparisons, I will follow Ulrich Weisstein’s
account of comparative methods, such as influence and imitation, reception and survival,
thematology, etc., with a focus on the European context. On a doubtless lower key to Goethe’s
ambitious plan of a Weltliteratur, I will describe the evolution of one of the oldest forms of storytelling, the picaresque novel, and its influence on recent Italian prose. Originating in lateRenaissance Spain as a polemical response to the conformism imposed by the Catholic
Counter-Reformation, this kind of narrative centred on a rogue’s farcical adventures has
crossed frontiers and divides incessantly, from Britain to Germany, Italy, Russia and France, to
name but a few, becoming the unreliable messenger of Enlightened modernity and its
inevitable quandaries. In more recent history, the pícaros have joined the voices of Post-War
disillusionment and the outcry announcing the end of all ideologies, in keeping with their usual
understatement and unyielding self-indulgence. In this perspective, the novels of contemporary
Italian authors who have reshaped the figure of the rogue in a modern way, e.g. Stefano Benni,
Aldo Busi, Cesare De Marchi, etc., can be better appreciated when compared with other
representatives of a similar picaresque anti-epos.
Keywords: Comparative Literature, Italian Studies, Picaresque Novel, Contemporary Italian
Literature
John Hajek and Yvette Slaughter
University of Melbourne, [email protected];
[email protected]
Is this the end of the Italian wave in Australia? What happens when
demography and education come together?
Since mass migration began to Australia after the Second World War, the wave of Italians
arriving in the country has forged an indelible path across the Australian landscape. Just as
Australia’s identity and demographics have changed fundamentally over time, so have the
characteristics of the Italo-Australian community in Australia. This paper utilises data from
Australian censuses as well as on the study of Italian in schools to identify areas of success,
ongoing concern, and change in the Italo-Australian community – particularly on the language
front.
First, the presenters use census data to track the changing demography of Italo-Australians.
Based on home language, country of birth and ethnicity statistics, they look at patterns of shift
across ages groups, time and location, as well as at correlations between identifying as Italian
and the use of the language in the home. They also consider the implications of a new sudden
influx of young Italians landing on Australian shores.
Second, they give consideration to the learning of Italian in Australian schools and the possible
implications for assisting language maintenance in the Italian community, as the number of
Italian-born residents in Australia declines. While Italian has become one of the most studied
languages in Australia, the impact on the maintenance and development of bilingualism among
those of Italian background appears to be largely negative for reasons identified during our
presentation.
Given current demographic and educational trends across the nation, they ask whether we
might be witnessing the end of the Italian wave that began to hit Australian shores in the postwar period.
Keywords: demographics, migration, language education, sociolinguistics,
Roger Hillman
Verdi and Cinema
The link between opera and cinema, dominant sites of cultural history in the 19th and 20th
century respectively, is perhaps strongest in the case of Italy. Of Gallone’s 1937film Scipione
l’Africano, Jeremy Tambling writes: ‘we may see grand opera reaching its apotheosis in
cinema, the medium of twentieth-century Italian popular culture, a fulfilment of Italian opera.’ 2
For Gramsci, popular reception of Verdi operas led to a whole ‘repertory of clichés’,3 a kind of
musical library of pulp fiction. Verdi’s music is crucial for an understanding of the engagement
with history in films by some postwar Italian directors, notably Bertolucci (in the direction of
Gramsci) and Visconti. Beyond that, the status of Verdi as freedom-fighter and political icon
was drawn on by the Italian political spectrum to underpin false analogies between the
Resistance and the Risorgimento, as a way of rendering the checkered history of Italy in World
War II less complex and more comfortable. In Italian film history, the swansong to this direction
aptly comes with the Tavianis’ use of the Verdi Requiem in The Night of San Lorenzo, after
which Verdi in particular seems to return to the fold that was also ongoingly occupied by Italian
opera, namely global music (cf. the three tenors).
The national vis-à-vis the international resonances of Verdi, on soundtracks far from confined
to Italian films, make him a rich object of research into this balance. The bigger issue is the
relationship between history and myth. It converges in a figure like Verdi, both in his biography
(the fortuitousness of his name, as initials, serving as a rallying call to Italian unification) and
his reception. The use (Syberberg’s Hitler) and avoidance (by most directors of the New
German Cinema) of Wagner can serve as a contemporary counter-example. Music in film
evokes not just a particular era, but the subsequent reception of that era in relation to other
aspects of the film narrative. It suggests, in other words, nothing less than the simultaneity of
historical layers and debates.
Keywords: Verdi cinema cultural memory
2
Jeremy Tambling, Opera and the Culture of Fascism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 80.
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings, ed. David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1985), 378.
3
John Kinder
Anglicisms in Australian Italian in the 1850s: testing universals in
diachrony
The systematic study of language borrowing was established in the 1950s (Weinreich,
Haugen). The earliest studies of Italian in migration contexts focused almost exclusively on
borrowing and were brought to full scientific rigour in the early 1980s by the work of Bettoni,
who adopted Clyne’s taxonomy of ‘transference’. In the half-century since then the body of
research into Italian in Australia and other migration settings gives rich analysis of the
processes of borrowing and insights into language structure. These analyses and insights will
be tested in this paper against a corpus of written Italian produced in the 1850s. The ‘Martelli
letters’ are a set of private correspondence, written in Western Australia between 1854 and
1864. This corpus is distinctive, with respect to most studies of Italian in Australia, since it is
from a century before mass migration, it is written and it was produced by a person highly
proficient in ‘standard’ Italian (as well as in English). The paper will demonstrate that the trends
identified in post-1950s migration Italian are consistently present already in this earlier corpus
of written Italian. In particular patterns of integration – at the levels of morphology, syntax and
discourse – are remarkably consistent with more recent corpora. Some significant exceptions
will be identified and discussed. The project will also contribute to back-dating the presence of
a number of common Anglicisms in the Italian language.
Keywords: Italian language, language contact, 19th century
John Kinder
An Italian in 19th century Western Australia: Raffaele Martelli and his
networks
The presence of Italians in nineteenth-century Australia is usually accounted for in descriptions
of lone travellers – aristocrats, political refugees, missionaries – who forged their own fortunes
in difficult colonial territory and generally disappeared into anonymity. Such travellers or
migrants may, however, have belonged to wide-ranging and active networks of persons who
shared information, ideas and material support. One such figure is Raffaele Martelli. Born in
Ancona in 1811, Martelli was a priest and professor at the local seminary and the local liceo,
and was in good relations with the large Jewish population of Ancona. He participated in the
First War of Independence as chaplain of the Battaglione Universitario Romano. He found it
increasingly difficult to remain in the Papal States as events unfolded during 1848, with the
Papal Allocution and the War, and then with the Repubblica Romana of 1849. Through a
series of chance encounters, and a coincidence of friendships, he travelled to the Swan River
Colony in 1853 and lived his remaining 27 years there, in comparative anonymity. His letters,
however, and those of his friends, reveal on-going contacts with various parts of Italy, Malta,
Spain and France. This network exchanged information about personal and public life,
swapped books, newspapers and photographs, put persons in contact with others of potential
interest in the circles of missionaries, church authorities, the Roman art world. This paper will
describe the network and will argue that, while most of the participants in the network have left
little trace of their individual lives, the network itself made a significant contribution to
nineteenth-century Australia and also, in part, to cultural life in Italy.
Keywords: Travel, migration, 19th century
Sara King
National Archives of Australia, [email protected]
Promoting innovative Italian Migration History teaching in Australian
universities using contemporary archival sources
Migration records held by the National Archives of Australia have been a long-standing major
source of evidence for researchers and postgraduate students with an interest in Australian
migration studies. However, in recent years, shifts in technology and in the approach to
dissemination of information of the National Archives allow for significant integration of
migration primary sources in the teaching of undergraduate subjects. In particular, the
contemporary process of digitisation of migration records significantly increases the capacity to
unlock original, case-specific material – traditionally accessible only through national and state
offices – as they are now available online. With over 8 million records and 23 million pages
already available in a digital format, undergraduate students now enjoy unique opportunities to
become accustomed with archival sources and gain innovative perspectives on migration
history. This reverses the physical engagement with archival research and offers teachers new
opportunities to ‘bring the archive to the classroom’. Importantly, this technological shift has
even stronger implications for distance learners.
Keywords: contemporary archival sources; digital records; migration history; Italian diaspora
Alice Loda and Francesco Borghesi
University of Sydney, [email protected];
[email protected]
Dissolving boundaries: versification and space in Barbara Pumhösel’s
Prugni
It is now more than twenty years since Italian migrant writers stepped on the Italian literary
scene. Their peculiar voice has raised growing attention worldwide and has created new
methodological and critical issues, starting from the contested role they play within the Italian
literary tradition. Despite their significant contribution, non-native Italian writers have remained
isolated from the Italian literary tradition. In light of these reflections, my paper explores some
aspects of versification and space in Barbara Pumhösel’s poetry collection Prugni (2008). The
author, whose mother tongue is not Italian, moved to Italy from Austria in the late 80s and
started shortly after a remarkable poetical production in the Italian language. Space is central
in Pumhösel’s works and it constantly takes on ‘contrapuntal’ (Said) values. Her dual
perceptions of space often emerge in versification strategies and poetry devices, as well as in
multilingual inserts. In the first part of my presentation, I will contextualise Pumhösel’s poetry in
the broader scene of contemporary Italian poetry and Italian migration poetry. In the second
part, I intend to examine her versification strategies in Prugni. After analysing selected aspects
of metre, rhetoric, and style, I will argue how her versification techniques are strictly connected
with particular perceptions and ideas of space.
Rocco Cesare Loiacono
Practical aspects of legal translation: the translation of an Italian land
sale contract
This paper examines the difficulties associated with the translation of contracts concluded
between companies or individuals of two different countries. These difficulties arise from the
nature of legal language, which has both a universal and a specific character: universal in that
it distinguishes itself from ordinary language usage in all cultures, yet particular in that the legal
language of each nation is linked to the peculiar culture and traditions of that nation. This
intercultural aspect of legal translation becomes even more problematic when one considers
that contracts are prescriptive legal texts, since they have the fundamental objective of
determining the rights and responsibilities of the parties in a particular situation. The translation
of a contract at an international level must have the same binding effect, and outline with
precision these rights and responsibilities, with respect to the original language text. Any
misinterpretation on the part of the translator in this regard could lead to (potentially costly)
disputes. Such requirements underline the increasing need for translations of legal texts which
convey appropriately in both languages the meaning and objectives of the original.
In an increasingly globalised world, the need to bridge the legal and cultural divide between
nations is of growing importance. Many Australians are acquiring land in Italy given the
favourable exchange rate of recent times. Italy is a civil law nation; Australia is a common law
nation, thus two distinct legal cultures are involved. This paper will analyse various
problematical translations in an Italian contract for sale of land and propose possible
resolutions that can bridge the legal and cultural divide whilst at the same time ensuring that
the meanings of the terms in question are transmitted in the target text so as not to pose
interpretation problems.
Keywords: Legal translation – Italian / English – land sale contract
Laura Lori
Italia
Per poter riflettere consapevolmente sul futuro degli studi di italianistica nel mondo e in
particolare in Australia è necessario capire a fondo la mentalità italiana contemporanea. Dalla
costruzione ad Affile del monumento al Generale Graziani, riconosciuto criminale di guerra, al
dibattito sullo ius solis, gli italiani sembrano, nella migliore delle ipotesi, impreparati ad
accettare la multiculturalità tanto quanto sembrano continuare a rifiutarsi di riconoscere le
responsabilità dell’epoca coloniale. Cieca verso il passato e sorda al futuro l’Italia sembra
davvero condannata ad un eterno presente di disoccupazione, corruzione e nepotismo in cui,
gattopardescamente, tutto cambia per rimanere sempre uguale a sé stesso e in cui l’Altro non
smette mai di essere tale. L’intenzione di questo intervento è di tratteggiare brevemente la
rappresentazione dell’Altro per eccellenza, ossia la donna africana, nella letteratura italiana
contemporanea, per cercare di contestualizzare i continui attacchi al Ministro dell’Integrazione
Cécile Kyenge e valutare come evitare di allevare generazioni xenofobe e sensibili alle sirene
dell’estrema destra che cercano d’incantare l’Europa nel tempo della crisi.
Michael Madigan
[email protected]
The NCA Bombing – A Mafia Murder?
March 2, 1994 will forever be marked as a watershed in the history of Australian crime. The
murder of a police officer is a rarity in itself but the ruthless, targeted killing of Detective
Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen, and the alleged involvement of Australian/Italian Mafia makes it one
of the most significant crimes in Australia’s history.
Sergeant Bowen was brutally murdered. Remarkably, a parcel bomb addressed to him slipped
through the security net of the Adelaide office of the National Crime Authority (NCA).
Bowen was a senior investigator with the NCA and was exclusively involved with Operation
Cerberus; the investigation into Italian organised crime in Australia. An important part of his
team’s brief was to report back to a Federal Government parliamentary committee, to answer a
simple question, “Does the Mafia exist in Australia, and if so, indicate to what extent.” Bowen
was certain that there was widespread Mafia presence in Australia, and was quickly learning
the extent of its complex organisational web.
His main focus was on the secretive Italian crime syndicate, ‘Ndrangheta, whose origins
formed in the heart of the Province of Reggio Calabria. ‘Ndrangheta’s epicentre is centred on
two small villages Plati, which is often described as the ‘heart of ‘Ndrangheta’, and San Luca,
the ‘soul’ or the ‘cradle’. Plati once had the dubious title of, “Kidnap Capital”. The local
criminals specialised in kidnapping family members of wealthy, northern Italian industrialists,
and holding them in secreted caves in the mountains that shadow Plati. Proceeds from the
ransoms were reportedly sent to Australia and ‘invested’ in the lucrative business of cultivating
marijuana.
This paper details the background and evidence in the murder of Geoffrey Bowen, focusing on
Italian organised crime that surrounded this investigation. The majority of information for this
book was obtained from the files from the Coronial Inquiry in 1999.
Simone Marino and Giancarlo Chiro
University of South Australia, [email protected];
[email protected]
Il comparatico come capitale sociale tra famiglie di origine calabrese
residenti ad Adelaide, Sud Australia
La presente ricerca esamina un aspetto della relazione tra minoranze etniche e capitale
sociale. Nel caso specifico, saranno analizzate le relazioni sociali ed economiche che si
svolgono all’interno del sistema della parentela spirituale, quello del comparatico di battesimo,
in un gruppo di famiglie originarie da una circoscritta area rurale calabrese. La parentela
spirituale, oltre a svolgere una funzione identitaria, è uno tra gli strumenti più efficaci per la
produzione di capitale sociale nella comunità calabrese di Adelaide. Lo studio esamina come
le famiglie vincolate tra loro dal San Giovanni (il comparatico di battesimo), operino all’interno
di un network di famiglie alleate, i compari, vincolate tra loro da un sistema prescrittivo di
‘amichevolezza’ (amity) imposto culturalmente che proscrive ogni forma di attrito, imponendo
un rispetto reciproco ‘congelato nel tempo’, di generazione in generazione. Sarà osservato il
dispiegamento di questa rete di relazioni familiari nell’ambiente lavorativo delle famiglie dei
partecipanti, confermando il ruolo svolto dal comparatico nella produzione di capitale sociale.
Keywords: Comparatico, capitale sociale, Italo-Australiani, alleanze familiari, trasmissione
culturale
M. Cristina Mauceri
The dawn of a new African Italian theatre: Ruh: Romagna più Africa
uguale by the Teatro delle Albe
It is well known that in the last decades of the twentieth century, Italy became a destination
country for migration from different continents, and this is now reflected in literature. However,
it is not well known that in the last century the first literary collaboration between African
migrants and Italians took place on the stage, before the publication of the first works by
migrant writers at the beginning of the 1990s, written with the help of Italian authors. In 1988,
the Ravenna based company, Teatro delle Albe, staged Ruh Romagna + Africa =, the first
performance by both African and Italian actors. In the first part of my presentation, I will
illustrate the poetics of the Albe, characterised by what Martinelli, the director of the company,
defined a ‘meticciato artistico’. In the second part, I will analyse some aspects of this
intercultural play and show how the Albe adopted a postcolonial perspective to deconstruct
and mock the Italian stereotypical perception of black people and denounce a colonialist
attitude towards them, using devices such as irony and parody.
Martin McLaughlin
University of Oxford, [email protected]
Something new, something old: Recent research trends in pre-modern
Italian culture and Clive James’ translation of Dante’s Comedy
The conference themes are re-imagining Italian Studies in the 21st century and conceptualising
our researches into Italian culture in the context of globalisation. Bearing in mind that the three
other Keynote speakers will deal with contemporary topics, I have chosen to concentrate on
the pre-modern period in this two-part lecture. In the first part, I will consider some of the ways
in which UK research into medieval and early modern Italian culture has diversified in recent
years (the imposition of scientific models of research, the concern with the public impact of
academic enquiry, the role of knowledge exchange). In the second half, I will consider one
contemporary example of Australian engagement with early Italian culture: Clive James’
recently acclaimed translation of Dante’s Comedy (2013). It is almost exactly 200 years since
the first complete translation into English of Dante’s masterpiece, by Henry Cary (1814), so
James has many illustrious predecessors. However, there are many innovations in Clive
James’ version that make it stand out as being fit for purpose in our century: he is the first to
incorporate information normally found in footnotes into the text itself; he is the first to use a
flexible quatrain rather than blank verse or terza rima as his metre; and he is the first to pay
explicit attention to poetic tempo and texture. In his introduction James quotes T. S. Eliot’s
view that the final canti of the Paradiso are as great as poetry can get, then adds: ‘The
translator’s task is to suggest that such a judgment might be right.’ The second part of this
lecture analyses James’ version to see if it reaches the bar that he has set so high.
Martin McLaughlin
University of Oxford, [email protected]
Reading Calvino in English translation: from the earliest fiction to the
Letters
Recent work on Translation Studies have shed light on the crucial role played by translation in
the reception of texts outside their country of production. The translation industry has ensured
that most of Calvino's works have now been translated into English. However, there are some
interesting gaps which are worth exploring, and there are also a number of translations still in
print that provide a misleading picture of any 'message' in Calvino's works. There were a
number of flaws in the very first English versions (Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, and some early
short stories), as might have been expected, but even his best selling fictional work, Le citta'
invisibili, translated by an expert such as William Weaver in 1974, has some crucial mistranslations, and the same is true of some of his non-fiction, including a 1980s translation of
Perche' leggere i classici.
Gino Moliterno
An early Italian presence in the Australian film industry: the Pugliese
family
After having long been neglected in official accounts, Sicilian-born Giorgio Mangiamele has in
more recent years come to be rightfully acknowledged as one of the pioneers of the revival of
the Australian film industry in the postwar period. However, a closer investigation of the
historical record reveals an involvement of Italians in Australian film culture from its earliest
days. A notable case is that of the Pugliese family. A native of Viggiano in Southern Italy,
Antonio Pugliese migrated to Australia as a labourer in 1881 but by 1910 he, and the large
family he had fathered with his Australian-born wife, Caroline, owned and operated three
cinemas in the Sydney area. As a tightly-knit family concern, ‘Pugliese Enterprises’ managed
to continue operating successfully as an independent exhibitor even after the formation of the
combine in 1913, indeed directly challenging the power of the combine by releasing films such
as Raymond Longford’s A Maori Maid’s Love (1916) at its Alhambra cinema in Haymarket.
Following Antonio’s death in 1916, Caroline and eldest son, Humbert, further expanded the
company’s activities into film production and financed at least three films, including the early
Raymond Longford/Lottie Lyell vehicle, The Church and the Woman (1917). Critically
acclaimed and remarkably successful at the box-office when it was first released, the film
nevertheless came to involve the family in a series of expensive litigations over copyright, all of
which may have contributed to the demise of the company in the early 1920s.
In this paper I attempt to trace the involvement of the Pugliese family in early Australian film
culture and its significant contribution to the first flowerings of the Australian film industry.
Keywords: Australian film industry, Italian migration
David Moss
Introduction: why Terra matta?
I introduce the phenomenon of Terra matta, indicating its exceptional interest, placing it in its
cultural and historical context and tracking the transformations of the work as it moves through
its different textual embodiments, adding aesthetic, social and economic value at each point.
Roberto Nobile
Voiceover actor featuring in Terramatta (2012)
Costanza Quatriglio
Film director
Chiara Ottaviano
Cliomedia Officina
Terra matta: fare il film e andare oltre
Nel mio intervento do conto delle motivazioni, anche personali, che mi hanno fatto
intraprendere la produzione del film e traccio la storia dalla prima idea del 2007 fino alla sua
realizzazione/presentazione a Venezia nel 2012. Metto a fuoco le scelte principali da affrontare
durante tutto il percorso, le decisioni prese singolarmente o collettivamente e i motivi che
hanno ispirato quelle decisioni. Infine accenno alla nuova sfida, l’Archivio degli Iblei, la cui
realizzazione è parte del Progetto terramatta.
Bio
Producer and co-screenwriter of terramatta;. Contemporary historian of film and mass media at
Turin Polytechnic and formerly at the Università del Piemonte Orientale. Managing Director of
Cliomedia Officina, an organisation specialising in historical and contemporary research,
especially in relation to business history and strategies of communication, and in the creation
and production of audiovisual and multimedia materials. Author, co-author and editor of many
books, chapters and articles including most recently I Racconti della storia: Vols VI, VII, VIII,
IX, Garzanti, 2004-2005); La banca CRT, storia, patrimonio d’arte, comunicazione d’impresa
(2002), La politica sui muri. I manifesti politici dell’Italia repubblicana (2000), The Mafia.150
years of facts, figures and faces (cd-rom,1999), Mezzi per comunicare. Storia, società e affari
dal telegrafo al modem (1997), Guerra e mass media. Gli strumenti del comunicare in contesto
bellico (1994).
Gabriele Pallotti
Universita' degli Studi di Modena E Reggio Emilia,
[email protected]
La dimensione pragmatica nell'italiano dei parlanti non nativi
Quando si pensa a una lingua, a come si impara e si insegna, si tende subito a pensare a
lessico e grammatica. Benché l'esistenza di una dimensione pragmatica sia nota da tempo,
prima in campo teorico, poi nella dimensione applicativa, le riflessioni in merito per quanto
riguarda la didattica dell'italiano sono ancora piuttosto sporadiche.
In questa comunicazione si intendono presentare i risultati di alcune ricerche che si
concentrano specificamente su questo tema. In particolare, si tratterà la prospettiva
interculturale con un esempio molto circoscritto ma che schiude riflessioni ben più ampie:
l'apertura delle telefonate di servizio in italiano e in altre lingue europee, che mostra come
anche nel compiere atti apparentemente semplici e di routine si proietti tutta la dimensione di
un ethos culturale. Verrà inoltre presentato un sito per l'insegnamento della pragmatica
dell'italiano a parlanti non nativi, che siano stranieri o italiani di seconda o terza generazione
per cui l'italiano non è più la lingua materna. Il sito, chiamato LIRA, fa uso di tecnologie
innovative per stimolare l'apprendimento e la riflessione in modalità 2.0, ovvero con un forte
contributo da parte degli utenti. La pragmatica, infatti, non consiste di regole fisse e invariabili,
ma è estremamente sensibile a fattori quali il genere, l'età, la provenienza geografica. LIRA è
allo stesso tempo un sito di insegnamento e di ricerca, che consente di aprire molte
prospettive sulla pragmatica dell'italiano in Italia e nella società globale.
Cristiana Palmieri
Why learning Italian? The experience of adult learners in Sydney
This paper presents some findings from a study that examines the motivations of adult
Australians of non-Italian origin to learn Italian. As well as being one of the most taught
languages in the Australian school and university systems, Italian is also one of the most
chosen language subjects for adults in vocational courses. Nonetheless, very little research
has been conducted in this latter area, in spite of the very high numbers of students who enrol
in these Italian courses every year. Therefore my research aims to investigate the motivations
leading adult Australians to learn a ‘non global’ (Dörnyei, 2009) second language such as
Italian.
The main hypothesis of my study is that in the Australian multicultural context, the motivation to
learn Italian is influenced by a process of negotiation of identity, triggered by both the presence
of a well established Italian migrant community and the exposure to Italian cultural elements.
Thus the ‘investment’ (Norton Pierce, 1995) of students in learning Italian may be generated by
the desire to acquire some forms of symbolic capital rather than material resources, as in the
case of other more ‘global’ languages (e.g. English).
My study embraces a view of motivation as a multifaceted phenomenon that is produced in a
social environment through the interaction between the second language learners and the
context in which they operate (Gardner, 1985, 2010; Dörnyei, 2005; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko,
2002).
In this paper I will present results of a questionnaire distributed electronically to students, and
of interviews with students of Italian at different language levels enrolled in two institutions for
adult education in Sydney.
Keywords: Adult language learning motivation, identity, Italian learnt in Australia, symbolic
capital.
Robert Pascoe and Caterina Cafarella
Victoria University, [email protected];
[email protected]
I Globalisti – The Fourth Wave
A summer's day on the foreshore at Lipari. The young Sicilian serving us lunch has nearly
completed her university degree, majoring in environmental science and economic
development. ‘Neither of these exist in Italy!’, she says with a laugh. Already two of her friends
have moved to Melbourne. They are part of the fourth movement of emigrati to Australia, and
we suggest the term ‘globalisti’ to sum up their experience. There were three former waves
(Pascoe 1987): ‘esploratori’, the scouts of the nineteenth century, ‘pescatori’, the fisherfolk and
farmers who came in large numbers from the 1920s, and ‘costruttori’, the urban builders from
the 1950s. The ‘builders’ established the Little Italies up and down Australia. Among their
achievements is ‘Il Globo’, the most successful Italian newspaper outside Italy (Cafarella &
Pascoe 2010). The globalisti are leaving Italy for much the same economic reasons as their
grandparents, but they are arriving with tertiary qualifications, a more sophisticated
understanding of politics, and the new technologies of social media. In this paper we use
interviews with globalisti to speculate on the causes and consequences of this interesting
phenomenon. Just as the Eolian Islands supplied so many talented and resourceful immigrants
on the distant past, so too our lunchtime hostess and her generation might well have a
significant effect on contemporary Australia.
Keywords: i globalisti; fourth wave
Ellen Patat
Bahçeşehir University, [email protected]
Io e Te di Niccolò Ammaniti per l’apprendimento della lingua straniera.
L’Italiano espatriante d’oggi
Tra le ultime esperienze letterarie italiane divulgate a livello internazionale, in linea con le
evidenti tendenze per una lettura veloce e generalmente fruibile da un’ampia fascia di lettori, si
ritrova il romanzo intimistico, Io e Te, dell’ex-cavaliere splatter, Niccolò Ammaniti. L’arte del
saper scrivere immediato, la creatività e la semplicità dello stile dei suoi racconti, rendono
questo breve romanzo un potenziale strumento per l’apprendimento della lingua italiana. E’,
tuttavia, inevitabile dover riconsiderare il ‘problema della lingua’. L’interrogativo che questo
saggio vuole affrontare riguarda proprio l’italiano e l’italianità che emergono da questa lettura.
Analizzando le particolarità linguistiche del testo si cercherà di delineare quale sia la varietà
linguistica che lo caratterizza e che lo trasforma in un’originale fonte di arricchimento e di
riflessione per l’insegnamento dell’italiano come lingua straniera. La lingua comune assurge al
rango di lingua d’arte a cui ricorrono sempre più scrittori delle nuove generazioni per esprimere
la propria identità. L’italiano espatriante d’oggi è una varietà neo-standard, a volte substandard, che, convogliando l’odierna italianità, si rivolge a un pubblico eterogeneo. Emergono
la componente gergale colloquiale tradizionale e innovativa specchio di una lingua in continuo
cambiamento. Sembra, inoltre, che l’italiano mediatico e i suoi ritmi filtrino nella letteratura e
diventino il cardine di un nuovo modo di esprimersi. La sintassi semplice, lo stile stringato e la
lingua viva contribuiscono al successo della narrazione seppur eliminando la più classica
raffinatezza retorica tipica di molti capolavori della letteratura italiana. A livello lessicale, il
richiamo al mondo animale, in particolare alla sfera entomologica, offre spunti per metafore e
similitudini. Queste caratteristiche, la chiarezza e la semplicità sintattica del testo lo rendono
un possibile strumento nell’insegnamento delle quattro ‘macro-skills’. Il testo rappresenta un
valore aggiunto in un contesto in cui il discente, motivato e stimolato a sviluppare
un’autonomia cognitiva e critica, assume un ruolo attivo nella costruzione del sapere.
Keywords:Ammaniti, italiano neo-standard, apprendimento lingua seconda.
Barbara Pezzotti
ACIS, [email protected]
Giorgio Scerbanenco’s Investigations into Political Trasformismo and
Otherness: A Case of Postmodern Impegno
With his series featuring Duca Lamberti, Giorgio Scerbanenco (1911-1969) tackled some
sensitive issues of Italian society of the 1960s. However, Italian intellectuals of his times have
denied Scerbanenco his role of a politically committed author. Using the concept of
‘postmodern impegno’ (Antonello & Mussgnug 2009, 11) – as opposed to the traditional notion
of Gramscian impegno – in my paper I show that Scerbanenco has exploited the conventions
of the American hard-boiled novel in order to carry on a severe critique of the Italian society
and politics of his times. Indeed, apart from tackling urbanisation and pollution, consumerism,
and the rise of brutal organised crime in Milan and Europe, this writer has also performed a
critique of political opportunism and historical amnesia following World War II. Ultimately,
Scerbanenco’s original style and his sustained engagement with many important problems of
Italian society of the 1960s make him an exponent of a generation of writers, which includes
Luciano Bianciardi (1922-1971) and Giovanni Testori (1923-1993), deeply involved in Italy’s
social transformations, and stylistically a precursor of the ‘Giovani cannibali’ literary trend of the
1980s and 1990s.
Keywords: crime fiction, impegno, scerbanenco
Mariastella Pulvirenti
Casa Mia: Home ownership and identity for post-war Italian Australian
migrants
This paper shows the link between immigration, identity and home ownership for first and
second generation Italian Australian migrants. It is based on stories recounted almost 20 years
ago, stories now being brought to life for a new publication due to be released in 2014. It
reveals the distinctiveness of the meanings of home ownership for the post-war migrant
generation, due to a strong desire and drive to achieve ‘sistemazione’. Borrowing from Judith
Butler’s concept of the heterosexual matrix, this link is represented as a heterosexual homeownership matrix wherein the desire for home ownership is naturalised by connecting it to a
specific set of heterosexual household relations. The paper also reveals how the matrix is a
site around which second generation Italian Australians negotiate their gender, class, sexual
and ethnic identities. The revelations are presented through the stories of individual women
and men within the context of their housing histories.
Keywords: Italian-Australian, home-ownership, identity, sistemazione
Giovanni Rabito
TM2
Terra matta 1 e 2 a confronto
Il tema di questo mio intervento è la natura della seconda versione della sua autobiografia da
parte di Vincenzo Rabito, iniziata subito dopo la fine della prima versione (il dattiloscritto che
sarebbe diventato Terra matta). E’ una versione ancora più lunga e in vari modi diversa nelle
sue enfasi rispetto alla prima. La conoscenza dell’esistenza e della natura di questa seconda
autobiografia, non pubblicata, offre la possibilità di rivedere l’esordio narrativo dell’autore e di
modificare in vari punti il ritratto sia del lavoro che dell’autore che finora ne è stato fatto.
Raffaella Lina Rapone
Connectedness to Cultural Heritage
This paper explores the concept of connectedness to Italian cultural heritage amongst
descendants of Abruzzesi migrants from the area of Griffith, New South Wales. More
specifically, it analyses their perceptions of self-identity and their links to their cultural heritage,
as elicited through semi-structured interviews. Forty participants took part in the study, and
they are the children and grandchildren of migrants, some of whom migrated in the early
1920s. However, the majority of participants are the children and grandchildren of post Second
World War migrants from Abruzzo who all settled in Griffith as part of chain migration. They
range in age from their early twenties through to their late seventies and early eighties. This
paper will show differing insights emerge on perceptions of identity and connectedness to
Italian cultural heritage across the generations and will discuss the social and political
implications that may explain these differences.
Keywords: Connectedness; Cultural heritage; Identity
Francesco Ricatti
University of the Sunshine Coast, [email protected]
‘So’ romanista fracico’. Migrants’ passion for football in Rome
In 2012, 34 oral history interviews were conducted with migrants who live in Rome and are
passionate about football. The project was developed in collaboration with the Circolo Gianni
Bosio, directed by Professor Alessandro Portelli. The aim was to collect important testimonies
about migrants’ everyday lives in Rome, but also to enrich migration history through a focus on
three essential yet often overlooked aspects: 1) migrants’ interrelation with and settlement in
specific urban contexts, rather than the broader national community; 2) their involvement in
leisure activities, and in particular sport, and the importance of such activities as social and
cultural spaces of negotiation and (re)orientation; and 3) the centrality of migrants’ corporeal
and emotional experiences. In turn, this approach also offers valuable insight into the urban
and sporting history of multicultural metropolis like Rome, suggesting that the intertwining of
migration and football has played an important role in shaping the emotional, social, cultural
and urban landscapes of (post)modern cities.
Keywords: Migration – Football – Rome – Oral history
Luca Ricci
Archivio Diaristico Nazionale
Terra matta: Dal dattiloscritto al libro
Indico in dettaglio la natura del lavoro che io ho svolto, prima da solo e poi in collaborazione
con Evelina Santangelo, per transformare il dattiloscritto originale (a detto di un membro della
giuria che l’ha premiato: ‘il capolavoro che non leggerete mai’) in un testo che diventerà un
best-seller per i tipi di Einaudi. Analizzo gli obiettivi specifici che mi sono posto e i metodi che
ho adoperato per realizzarli.
Bio
Co-editor of Terra matta (2007). Former Senior Archivist at the Archivio Diaristico Nazionale
(ADN) and Artistic Director of its Festival Premio Pieve – Banca Toscana. Extensive
experience as an editor specialising in autobiographies and memoirs for the publishing houses
Mursia, Einaudi, Terre di Mezzo, Baldini Castoldi e Dalai, Unicopli. Former deputy editor of
Primapersona, the journal of the ADN. Also specialist in theatre and opera production. Founder
of the company CapoTrave and of the Kilowatt Festival for which he received the Premio Ubu
(Special Projects).
Antonia Rubino
The role of the Italian-speaking media in Australia: insights from a
phone-in program
Italian spoken in a migration context has been studied mainly in private and informal sites such
as the family and friendship, and much less so in more public and formal sites such as the
media, in spite of their increasingly important role in many migrant communities. Indeed,
today’s easier access to Italian speaking media compared with the past offers the opportunity
to keep up to date with changes taking place in the country of origin, including linguistic
changes.
In this paper I explore the role that one such media, namely the radio, can play in a migration
context, by analysing data drawn from a phone-in program broadcasted in an Italian speaking
network operating in Australia. I focus on ‘problematic’ interactions that take place during this
program, when either the callers, mainly first generation Italian migrants, display uncertainty in
the word to be used, or misunderstandings arise between the callers and the host of the
program. The paper analyses how language negotiation is managed between the two parties,
focusing on (i) the host’s ‘repairs’ to the caller’s difficulties; and (ii) the callers’ uptake of such
repairs.
On the basis of this analysis I draw some considerations regarding the impact that this type of
program can have on the callers’ – as well as the general audience’s – linguistic awareness,
and more broadly on their language attitudes.
Keywords: multilingualism, media, Italian, migration
Marco Santello
Beyond Trilingual Italo-Australians: How Bilinguals Relate to their Dual
Linguistic Repertoire
This contribution explores attitudes towards bilingualism among Italian English bilinguals in
Australia. In particular, a focus group was conducted in Sydney among both Italian and English
dominants, where explicit attitudes towards bilingualism were elicited. The results are
complemented by the quantitative analysis of survey questionnaires – adapted from Baker
(1992) – that involved a larger sample. Attitudes towards bilingualism are analysed through ttests and correlation methods in order to verify the existence of dissimilarities according to
linguistic and culture-related variables. The findings indicate that overall Italian English
bilinguals have positive attitudes towards bilingualism, although they acknowledge the partial
persistence of negative attitudes against certain forms of language interference. Statistical
analyses reveal significant differences across several indicators between bilinguals who selfreport phonological interference when speaking English and those bilinguals who do not.
Moreover, some correlations between age of acquisition of English, self-reported cultural
identification and attitudes towards bilingualism are found.
Keywords: Bilingualism, Italian, English, Australia, Attitudes, Language, Culture, Identity
Daniela Scarcella
Monash University, [email protected]
Il radiodocumentario in Italia
In Italia il radio documentario non è un genere che gode di grande fortuna. Ha tuttavia
decisamente visto giorni migliori ai suoi albori – ossia durante il periodo fascista - e in quella
che viene considerata la stagione d’oro del radio documentario in Italia - gli anni del
Neorealismo. Sfortunatamente negli ultimi 50 anni l’importanza del radio documentario nel
panorama italiano si è andata rapidamente sgretolando, al punto che non si può dire esista
una vera e propria tradizione italiana del radio documentario.
Nel panorama anglofono invece, nonostante gli allarmismi su come la televisione prima e
Internet poi avrebbero fatto scomparire il genere, il radio documentario gode di ottima salute e
prospera persino. In ogni caso questa non è una peculiarità legata necessariamente all’utilizzo
della lingua inglese: quello che Australia, Canada, Regno Unito e Stati Uniti hanno in comune
è la presenza di un’emittente radiofonica pubblica che finanzia la produzione di radio
documentari considerandoli un bene comune. In Italia invece, la RAI non sembra essere
interessata a dedicare né spazio né tantomeno finanziamenti alla produzione di radio
documentari.
In questa presentazione si cercherà di capire come la specificità di questo tipo di radio
narrativa italiana sia andata progressivamente disintegrandosi al punto tale da non aver più un
pubblico preparato ad ascoltare radio documentari, peraltro scarsamente disponibili in italiano.
Parte della mia ricerca ambisce a comprendere se e come la traduzione e la realizzazione in
italiano di una serie di radio documentari in inglese possa in qualche modo dare una spinta a
modificare questo status quo. Poter ascoltare in italiano alcuni tra i più rappresentativi radio
documentari prodotti nella sfera anglofona potrebbe incoraggiare la ri-creazione di una
tradizione del radio documentario come genere in Italia?
Susanna Scarparo and Bernadette Luciano
Monash University and University of Auckland,
[email protected]; [email protected]
Performing the invisible past: Costanza Quatriglio’s Terra matta
We discuss Quatriglio's filmic representation of Rabito as a ‘post-ideological’ autobiographical
subject in a ‘postdocumentary’ age. This will take into account recent theoretical
understandings of documentary (in particular Stella Bruzzi’s influential perspective). The
analysis of the narrative rhythm will focus mainly on two issues: the role of the voice over and
the relationship between past and present and History and personal story.
Angela Scarino
Roundtable
Valentina Seffer
Persephone on the Threshold: Hybrid identity in Italian American
Memoir, The Skin Between Us
This paper will analyse the presence and function of the Greek myth of Demeter and
Persephone in the memoir, The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty and Belonging
(2006) by Italian American author Kym Ragusa. This myth, which dates back to 650 BCE, is
still very much alive today. As a symbolic narrative, the story can be revisited in different ways
and lends itself to several fields of study such as psychology, art, literature, music,
anthropology, gender and cultural studies just to name a few. In relation to Italian American
women authors, it has often been used, by the literary critics, either as symbolic of the
condition of the women who lived in a highly patriarchal society or to describe the relationship
between mother and daughter or, yet again, to describe the division between the Italian and
American cultures. This paper will look at how the myth of Persephone and the interplay of
myth and memory can help us understand the notion of hybridity today. I will draw on Homi
Bhabha’s definition of hybridity and Stuart Hall (Hall, 1990) and Jonathan Rutherford’s
definitions of identity (Rutherford, 1990). On the one hand, Bhabba interprets hybridity as a
‘third space’ in which hybrid subjects empower themselves and emerge from the liminal
position they occupy. On the other, Hall and Stuart define identity as something in motion that
has to present answers to the modern times. According to Hall and Rutherford, in order to be
productive, identification constantly has to change form and exist in a state of continuous
progress. As I will argue, by comparing herself to goddess Persephone – goddess of the limen
par excellence – Ragusa turns to the myth as an expression for her hybridity and as a mode of
resistance against the fragmentation of her self. Like Persephone, Ragusa moves vertically,
diving in the past represented by the realm of memory, only to resurface empowered by the
darkness and to claim her new whole self.
Keywords: Italian American women – myth and memory– story telling – Demeter and
Persephone – hibridity – identity – identification – memoir
Melanie Smans
Factors Driving the Italian Immigrant Entrepreneur Internationalisation
Process
Minimal research examines the factors that drive an immigrant entrepreneur to be involved in
international business activities. Upper echelons theory stresses how managerial factors,
including education, foreign language skills, and international experience, influence the
internationalisation process. It is yet to be addressed if and how managerial factors drive the
immigrant entrepreneur internationalisation process. To further our understanding, in the
context of Italian immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia, this study employs a qualitative
research approach. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Italian immigrant
entrepreneurs and Italian and Australian industry experts and government representatives.
This context was chosen as the Italian community in Australia is large and well established and
has positively contributed to the economy over a sustained period, not only by being a labour
source and small business owners, but as founders of firms involved in international business
activities.
The findings of this study highlight that in the Italian immigrant entrepreneur context,
international business and migration experiences can drive an immigrant to internationalise
their business. These experiences create an awareness of opportunities outside of the
domestic market and influence an entrepreneur’s willingness to explore foreign opportunities.
However, contrary to some studies, formal higher education did not drive the
internationalisation process. Rather the ‘entrepreneurial learning’ gained from growing up and
working in the family business environment contributes to the development of a ‘gut instinct’ or
‘common sense’ that is used in the internationalisation decision-making process. In addition,
we question studies that argue that the acquisition of local language and regional dialect skills
will specifically drive the internationalisation process. Rather, our study shows that while they
do appear to be inextricably linked, it is difficult to ascertain if it is foreign language skills per se
or growing up in an environment surrounded by immigrants, that specifically contributes to an
awareness of, and interest in, international opportunities.
Keywords: Entrepreneurs, Internationalisation Process, International Business, Managerial
Factors.
Antonella Strambi
Re-imagining the teaching of Italian language: The role of ICT
Recent developments in technology and education are revolutionising teaching and learning,
with the result that many of our traditional principles and practices are challenged. The
teaching of Italian as a second language must respond to these challenges strategically, in
order to sustain and enhance the quality of teaching and learning through innovative, effective
and efficient approaches.
At a recent event organised by the Centre for Educational ICT at Flinders University, Dr. Amy
Collier, Director for Technology and Teaching at Stanford University, suggested five keywords
that relate to education in the near future: connective, curatorial, constructive, creative, and
customised. In this presentation, I discuss these concepts in relation to the specific context of
Italian as a second language, and suggest ways in which they can provide some useful
guidelines for the development of a successful ICT strategy.
Rebekah Sturniolo-Baker
Native and non-Native Speaking Teachers of Italian: an exploration of
differences in students’ and teachers’ perceptions
This paper reports on a study that has combined both quantitative and qualitative research
methods to examine university students’ experience of being taught Italian by teachers who
are native speakers, and those who are non-native speakers; as well as examining the
perceptions that these teachers have of themselves in the classroom.
Of the world’s English language teachers, 80% are non-native speakers. Despite this, there is
a belief that native speakers are the best language teachers, which Phillipson has termed ‘the
native speaker fallacy’. As a result, there has been much research conducted in the last 25
years on the issues surrounding native and non-native speaking teachers of English around
the world; that is, students’ perceptions of language teachers, whether they have a particular
preference for one over the other, and in what areas. As well as this, teachers, particularly nonnative ones, have described how their experiences in the classroom have been shaped by
their linguistic background. Yet this issue has never been addressed within the field of Italian
language teaching at university level in Australia, and no research, to the best of my
knowledge, has been conducted.
To gather data online questionnaires were sent out to students and teachers, and then followup interviews were conducted; language ‘teaching and learning’ was broken down into various
aspects such as grammar, speaking skills, listening skills, vocabulary, and cultural aspects of
the language.
From this study it is clear that there are some areas where students have a preference for one
kind of teacher over another, or at the very least appreciate the value of being taught by both
native and non-native speaking teachers. Teachers themselves also recognise that they have
strengths and challenges in the classroom that are related to their linguistic background.
Keywords: Native and non-native speakers, language teaching, language learning.
Enza Tudini
Increments as resources for social action in dyadic online Italian chat
This paper explores the production of increments, also known as turn extensions, in dyadic
online text chat by participants with differential language expertise in Italian. Dyadic text chat
has a unique turn-taking system which lacks prosody and kinesics as interactional resources.
Furthermore, most chat softwares do not permit participants to monitor one another’s
production of posts as they are being written. This is likely to impact on participants’ use of
increments as an interactional resource, and on the conversation analyst’s ability to identify
them. For example, intonation is one interactional device which is used in spoken conversation
to indicate imminent turn closure and project a response from interlocutors, thus creating a
possibly complete turn-constructional unit (TCU) and transition relevance place (TRP) for the
purpose of speaker change. The speaker may, however, add further talk to that TCU, thus
producing an increment and redoing the TRP. If prosody, gaze and monitorability of recipients’
online talk production are unavailable as interactional resources, and the software does not
reliably show silences and pauses, can text chat participants still use increments as a resource
for online textual interaction? The analysis points to the fundamental role of syntax and
punctuation, in users’ adaptation of incremental devices, with various functions, from spoken to
textual online environments.
Graham Tulloch
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Walter Scott and the Historical Novel
In the lectures on English Literature he prepared for a group of young friends Lampedusa
devoted one chapter to Walter Scott. Lampedusa writes of the psychological depth of Scott’s
characters, a comment out of key with contemporary British and American criticisms of his
work. In this paper I consider what Lampedusa’s comments on Scott might reveal to us about
his own conception of the historical novel as practised in The Leopard. In particular I will
consider this question in the context of the unwillingness of a number of critics to accept that
The Leopard is indeed a historical novel. Can Lampedusa’s comments on Scott, the first really
important creator of historical novels, help us in understanding in what ways The Leopard
might be considered as a historical novel? In order to further elucidate this question I will also
consider Lampedusa’s more extended treatment of Stendhal.
Will Visconti
Sex and the City, or, the Courtesan as the embodiment of Venice
A trend has become particularly prevalent in historical fiction novels in recent years to feature
courtesans (cortigiane oneste) as heroines or prominent characters. This can be seen most
particularly in Sarah Dunant's In the Company of the Courtesan, Christi Phillips' Rossetti
Letter, and Kate Forsyth's novel Bitter Greens, to name a few.
What makes this tendency all the more striking is the fact that all of these novels are set in
Renaissance Venice, and in most cases the women concerned are Venetian by birth. I aim to
therefore look at how the courtesan has become emblematic of the city within contemporary
popular consciousness, and how this period has become such a key part of the marketing of
Venice's image and the city's mythology.
An important idea that I want to examine is precisely why we read about courtesans: why is the
story of the cortigiana (in the majority of cases, stories focus on the courtesan rather than the
lower-class meretrice) so appealing? Is it the frisson of transgression? Is it the nebulous space
that courtesans historically occupied as educated but transgressive figures within society? Is it
the contemporary perception of ‘sexiness’ and empowerment that has been attached to the
figure of the courtesan, and her difference from ‘respectable’ women of the same period?
Moreover, the prominence of either romance, or political intrigue, or both, features quite
prominently, which raises questions of precisely why the cortigiana is constructed within these
narratives as a protagonist linked to political intrigue, scandal and skullduggery.
Drawing on a combination of textual analysis, historiography and feminist theory, I plan to shed
further light on the popularity of the courtesan in contemporary culture, how she has been
remembered and represented, and the implications with reference to current trends in
literature.
Keywords: courtesan, contemporary fiction, Venice, prostitution, historical fiction,
representation, women
Catherine Williams
Evaluating anti-Mafia policies: the prctical and methodological
difficulties and the case for such research
La Spina’s The Paradox of Effectiveness: Growth, Institutionalisation and Evaluation of AntiMafia Policies in Italy (2004) laments the lack of proper evaluations of policies introduced in
Italy in order to combat mafia crime, such as the use of collaboratori di giustizia (643); La
Spina claims that studies produced by the Italian social scientists concerned with anti-mafia
policies ‘almost never’ attempt methodical, analytical evaluations (642), and posits that such
evaluations are vital in order to remedy a tendency to understate the successes achieved by
the use of such policies (642). Whether the latter is the reason evaluation is so necessary is
arguable, but that it is necessary is not.
I propose to use my PhD research into the impacts of Law 45/2001 (which made significant
amendments to the legislative framework on collaborators of justice) as a case study of
evaluation research into Italy’s anti-mafia policies. I propose to discuss my findings, examine
the methodological and practical difficulties associated with undertaking evaluation research of
anti-mafia policies, and make a case for the importance of this research.
Keywords: mafia, anti-mafia, evaluation, collaborators of justice, collaboratori di giustizia
Vito Zagarrio
Universita’ degli Studi Roma Tre, [email protected]
Una certa tendenza del cinema italiano
Il titolo della lecture è un omaggio al famoso saggio di Truffaut Une certaine tendance du
cinéma français, e vuole indicarne il punto di vista, attento al new-new Italian film, ma anche
interessato a monitorare le tendenze più generali del cinema italiano contemporaneo, dei suoi
modi di produzione, delle sue tematiche, dei suoi stili e dei suoi Autori.
Il cinema italiano degli anni duemila vive un momento di svolta epocale: dopo gli abbozzi di
‘rinascita’ degli anni novanta, il cinema del nuovo millennio ha a che fare con molte tematiche,
che la presentazione riassume, per sintesi, in dieci punti:
1) la rivoluzione digitale, che trasforma i modelli produttivi e di messa in scena, ma anche i
modelli distributivi e fruitivi;
2) la crisi sistemica del Paese, della sua produzione culturale e del comparto cine-televisivo; il
duopolio televisivo, la fine dell’assistenza governativa, la crisi dei beni culturali e della ricerca;
3) lo sfondo politico-ideologico, legato al clima post 11 settembre, al ventennio berlusconiano e
alla nuova crisi planetaria;
4) il ricambio generazionale, che fa emergere alla ribalta una nuova leva di filmmakers;
emergono Autori che usano tecniche diverse, dalla pellicola tradizionale al digitale – appunto –
sino al telefono cellulare, e che rappresentano/producono un nuovo Immaginario.
5) il tema del gender, con la presenza importante della donna nei ruoli autoriali, ma anche in
quelli della collaborazione tecnico-artistica;
6) il tema dei ‘generi’, con il ritorno di alcuni filoni e tipologie industriali, tra cui spicca
ovviamente la ‘nuova commedia italiana’ degli anni duemila;
7) l’importanza del documentario, che diventa fenomeno importanza e rivendica pari
opportunità rispetto al cinema ‘di finzione’ (distinzioni che però appaiono, in questi anni,
sempre più labili’)
8) l’irruzione di temi legati al nuovo secolo, come quello dell’identità, della ‘diversità’, dell’etnia;
9) particolarmente importante appare il tema dell’emigrazione/immigrazione, fenomeno nuovo
che il cinema non può non rappresentare;
10) il rapporto con la televisione (declinata nel senso della cosiddetta ‘fiction’ tv), con il video,
con le arti digitali, che fanno ben capire come la stessa nozione di ‘film’ appaia oggi
inadeguata.
In questo quadro, si possono isolare Autori ormai affermati (come Sorrentino e Garrone),
Maestri delle generazioni precedenti (da Bellocchio a Bertolucci, da Tornatore a Salvatores, da
Mazzacurati a Soldini), ma anche tanti registi, cineasti, documentaristi, film e videomakers (da
Vicari a Munzi, da Pannone a Balsamo, dai fratelli De Serio a Di Costanzo alle sorelle
Comencini, dalla Quatriglio alla Taviani) che sono stati a volte definiti come ‘la meglio gioventù’
del cinema italiano, e permettono di dare all’intero scenario un giudizio positivo. Quella ‘certa
tendenza’ è certamente interessante, nonostante i contesti di Crisi e di Depressione,
economica, sociale e politica.

Abstracts - Flinders University

Transcript

Documenti analoghi

Department of Italian

Un software italiano salva i cartoon

sample menu.

La Mamma Italiana: Interrogating a National Stereotype

45826 UB - NMLA Italian Studies Journal-1

Read it! Speak it! Italian – Italiano

Penne D`Italia st - Naldi

00 fronte 22, 2 - Statistica Applicata

special edition of “a tavola con le tradizioni del… cinema”

Modulo Iscrizione Soci Attivi