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Simposio Africa/Italia

[13-9-1998]

[Cari amici e amiche, per alcuni giorni non ho potuto accedere al mio server (ristrutturazioni) e mi dispiace del lungo silenzio. Ho molti messaggi da mandare e lo faro' con calma nei prossimi giorni. Alcuni annunci di convegni vi arriveranno a convegno terminato. Come quello che segue: mi dispiace e mi scuso con gli organizzatori. Lo mando lo stesso perche' puo' essere utile. Si tratta comunque di un aggiornamento di un dettagliato programma che avevo gia' spedito. E.S.]

AFRICA/ITALY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

MARCUM CONFERENCE CENTER

MIAMI UNIVERSITY

OXFORD, OHIO

NOV. 6-8, 1998

PROGRAM: The symposium will be held over a three-day period, from Friday

afternoon, Nov. 6, to Sunday morning, Nov. 8. All presentations will be in

English, except the Saturday evening session, 5:00-6:15 PM, in which Pap

Khouma and Armando Gnisci will speak in Italian. An English translation of

their texts and/or an interpreter will be provided.

Friday, Nov. 6: Art Museum Auditorium

Registration, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, Lobby, Marcum Conference Center;

1:10-5:00 PM, Lobby, Art Museum

Welcome, 1:30-2:00 PM: Art Museum Auditorium

Convening remarks: Sante Matteo, French and Italian, symposium organizer

Welcome: James Garland, President, Miami U.

HOSTS: Robert Kret, Museum Director, Edna Southard, Collections Curator

Panel A, 2:00-3:20 PM: Geological, Archeological, and Historical Foundations

CHAIR: Judith de Luce, Classics, Miami U.

1. Larry Mayer, Geology, Miami U., "Italian Earthquakes: A Legacy of the

Past and a Preview of the Future"

2. Reuben G. Bullard, Archaeological Geology, U. of Cincinnati &

Cincinnati Bible C., "The Cultural Presence of Rome in the Territory of

Ancient Carthage"

3. Edwin Yamauchi, History, Miami U., "Romans and Meroe in Nubia"

Refreshments, 3:20-3:45 PM, Art Museum Lobby

Panel B, 3:45-5:45 PM : Historical and Geographical Projections

Welcome: Reed Anderson, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Science

CHAIR: Renée Baernstein, History, Miami U.

1. Evelyn Edson, History, Piedmont Virginia Community C., "Defining

Africa: European Views of the Continent in the Middle Ages"

2. John Brackett, History and Afro-American Studies, U. of Cincinnati,

"Africa and Africans in the Imagination of Renaissance Italians"

3. Tom Conley, French, Harvard U., "Early Cartography and Euro-African

Exchanges in the 16th Century: Ramusio, Leo Africanus, the Cantino

Planisphere"

4. Francesco Loriggio, Comparative Literature, Carleton U., Ottawa,

Ontario, "Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean: The Cultural Debate at the

Turn of the Century"

Dinner, 6:30-8:00 PM, Marcum Conference Center, room 158, sponsored by the

Office of Student Affairs

Theatrical encounter, 8:30-10:30 PM: Studio Theater, Center for Performing

Arts; An African Harlequin in Milan, by Marco Martinelli (ed. & trans.

Teresa Picarazzi & Wiley Feinstein)

CHAIR: Linnea Dietrich, Art, Miami U.

1. Teresa Picarazzi, Italian, U. of Arizona, and Wiley Feinstein,

Italian, Loyola U., "Ravenna Teatro's African Actors and Authors in Romagna

and Dakar: Theater Between Two Worlds"

2. Paul Jackson, Chair, Theatre, Miami U., "An African Harlequin in Milan:

Reading Cross Culturally, A Dramaturgical Encounter"

Sat., Nov. 7: Marcum Conference Center

Registration, 9:00-1:00, Lobby

Panel C, 8:00-9:20 AM: 186 MCC; Social and Anthropological Perspectives

CHAIR: Abdoulaye Saine, Political Science, Miami U.

1. Stefano Bellucci, Political Science, Miami U., "Immigration: The Unjust

World"

2. Jacqui Andall, European Studies, Bath U., UK, "Crossing New Boundaries:

Gender and Ethnicity in Italy"

3. Benedetta Rossi, Anthropology, London School of Economics, UK, "Italian

Aid in Niger: Evidence from the Rural Development Project of the

Ader-Doutchi-Majiya"

Panel D, 9:30-11:50 AM: 186 MCC; Ethiopia/Italy: Conflict and Partnership

CHAIR: Ian Yeboah, Geography, Miami U.

1. Anatoly Antohin, Literature, and Esther Sellassie Antohin,

great-granddaughter of Emperor Haile Sellassie, U. of Alaska, Fairbanks,

"The Good of Evil: Two Ethiopian Wars with Italy: Military Conflicts as

Constructive Forces of Historical Interactions"

2. Harold Marcus, History and African Studies, Michigan State U., "Haile

Sellassie and the Italian in Ethiopia, 1941-1943"

3. Assefa Mehretu, Geography and African Studies, Michigan State U.,

"Potentials for Ethio-Italian Partnership for Regional Integration in

Ethiopia: Progressive Engagements Using Social Capital Dividends"

4. Gian Paolo Calchi Novati, Political Science, U. di Pavia, Italy, "Italy

and the Horn of Africa: The Unbearable Weight of a Weak Colonialism"

12:00-1:45 PM, 154 MCC; Lunch and KEYNOTE ADDRESS:

CHAIR: Maria Romagnoli Brackett, Comparative Literature, U. of Cincinnati

KEYNOTE: Graziella Parati, Italian, Dartmouth C., "Black Italy:

Representing Immigrants in Contemporary Italian Film"

Panel E, 2:00-3:20 PM: 186 MCC; Africans Writing in Italy

CHAIR: Denise McCoskey, Classics, Miami U.

1. Gabriella Romani, Italian, U. of Pennsylvania, "Italian Identity and

Immigrant Writing: The Shaping of a New Discourse"

2. Laura Harris, Literature and African Studies, Pitzer C., "L'abbandono:

Desire and Immigration in the Africa-Italian Diaspora"

3. Carla Ghezzi, Is.I.A.O., Italian Institute for African and Asian

Studies, Rome, Italy, "Some Remarks on African Immigration Literature in

Italian: My Native Land is Literature"

Panel F, 3:30-4:50 PM: 186 MCC; Who's Other? Whose Other?

CHAIR: Judith Zinsser, History, Miami U.

1. Marie Orton, Italian, Brigham Young U., "The Economy of Otherness"

2. Peter Pedroni, Italian, Miami U., "Two Italians and Two Africans:

Moravia, Volponi, Ebbri, Wasswa"

3. Khadar Bashir Ali, Italian, Ohio State U., "Voices from the Margins: A

Look at Emergent Immigrant Literature in Italy"

Panel G, 5:00-6:15 PM: 186 MCC; Voci Africane in Italia (African Voices in

Italy): Papers delivered in Italian, with English translations available.

CHAIR: Susanna Ferlito, Italian, U. of Minnesota

1. Armando Gnisci, Comparative Literature, U. di Roma "La Sapienza," "La

voce dell'Africa ed il silenzio degli intellettuali europei, oggi" (The

Voice of Africa and the Silence of European Intellectuals, Today)

2. Pap Khouma, Senegalese-Italian author of Io, venditore di elefanti, "La

vita di un immigrato in Italia" (An Immigrant's Life in Italy)

Banquet, 7:00-8:30 PM: Miami Inn, Oxford Room, lower level

Welcome: Enzo Ferraris, Italian Consular Agent, Cincinnati

Party, 9:00-11:00 PM: 154-158 Marcum Conference Center; sponsored by Black

World Studies

HOST: Rodney Coates, Director, Black World Studies

PERFORMERS: Oxford Gourd and Drum Ensemble and Afrikan-American Drum and

Dance Ensemble;

Sun., Nov. 8: Marcum Conference Center

Panel H, 8:00-9:50 AM: 186 MCC; Italians Writing about Africa and Africans

CHAIR: Raul Ianes, Spanish and Latin American Studies, Miami U.

1. Kevin Carollo, Comparative Literature, U. of Illinois, "Giuseppe

Ungaretti: Colonialism, the State of the Nation, and Nomadic Thought"

2. Pina Palma, Italian, Hofstra U., "Between Peasants and Soldiers: Images

of Africa and Social Consciousness in Fontamara and Cristo si è fermato a

Eboli"

3. Cristina Lombardi-Diop, Comparative Literature, New York U., "How to Be

Clean, Christian, and White: An Italian Woman in Colonial Eritrea"

4. Charles Klopp, Italian, Ohio State U., "Buster Keaton Goes to Africa:

Gianni Celati's Avventure in Africa"

Panel I, 10:00 AM-12:00 noon: 186 MCC; Africa and Africans in Italian Cinema

CHAIR: Paul Sandro, French and Film Studies, Miami U., or Ben Lawton,

Italian, Purdue U.

1. Karen Pinkus, Literature, U. of Southern California, "The Inscription

of Blackness in Italian Cinema"

2. M. Silvia Riccio, Italian, Indiana U., "La pelle nera/Black Skin"

3. Alessia Ricciardi, Italian, Northwestern U., "Humanism and Ideology:

Pasolini's Appunti per un'Orestiade africana:

4. Chandra Harris, Italian, Brown U., "Nel continente nero: The

Representation of Africans in Italian Cinema"

BACKGROUND, SCOPE, AND AIMS

In September, 1996, Denny Mendez was crowned Miss Italy. The event was particularly newsworthy throughout the world because Ms. Mendez, an immigrant in Italy from the Dominican Republic, is black. Few people outside of Italy realized that there were people of color in Italy at all. Even fewer expected that a black woman might be chosen as representative of Italian beauty. What was even more striking was the popularity of the choice in Italy, despite the inevitable controversy which ensued in the press: Ms. Mendez was not only chosen unanimously by the panel of official judges, but also received the vast majority of the popular votes of the television viewers watching the pageant. It was a defining moment for Italian society as it approaches the new millennium shaping a new identity for itself.

Over the past two decades Italy, previously known as a country of high birth rates and massive emigration, has instead achieved the lowest birth rate in the world and has become the destination of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of them from African countries. By some estimates, over the past two decades, a million or more African immigrants have entered Italy, whose southern islands are only a few miles from the north African coast, thus giving a new face to Italian society and adding intriguing new dimensions to the future of Italian culture. The changes in Italian culture brought about by this extensive multiracial and multicultural encounter are likely to be both radical and permanent. Decades and centuries from now these decades just before the new millennium may well be seen as the period when a radically new Italian nation and culture began to be created. It is significant that this phenomenon of massive immigration coincides with a period of social and political upheaval in the country, during which new demographics, new social attitudes and expectations, as well as new political parties have been forged and a new Italian constitution is being written. It is a truly millennial turning point in Italian history.

Much of the history and culture of the Italian peninsula--and by extension all of Europe--has been shaped by its contacts with African cultures: from the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage in classical times, to the Crusades on the threshold of the Renaissance, to the colonial wars of the Fascist regime. The current renewed contact between Africans and Italians, with the flow of migrants going in a historically new direction, presents a new set of issues, problems, and opportunities which have important implications not only for the future of Italian society but for intercultural and interracial relations throughout the world. By considering a broad historical and multidisciplinary context, the symposium will attempt to perceive and understand the diverse dimensions and opportunities inherent in this new encounter between Africa and Europe: whether it will give birth to another racially, culturally, and economically divided and unequal society, or if it may not instead prove to be the first step in a process of cross-cultural fertilization which might generate a new Renaissance.

THE SYMPOSIUM

This interdisciplinary symposium will explore past, present, and future relations between Italian and African cultures from various perspectives: geographical, historical, political, economic, sociological, and cultural, including literature and cinema.

The Friday afternoon sessions, to be held in the Art Museum Auditorium, will focus on geographical, archeological, and historical aspects. Geologist Larry Mayer will lay the foundation by considering how plate tectonics have made the Italian peninsula a geologically unstable threshold between Africa and Europe, a not quite complete bridge spanning the Mediterranean Sea which separates the two continents. Archeologist Reuben Bullard and historian Edwin Yamauchi will explore relations between the ancient Rome and North African cultures. Historians Evelyn Edson and John Brackett and literary and cultural theorists Tom Conley and Francesco Loriggio will then analyze cartographical and ideological projections from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to our own time. The first day will end with a Theatrical representation at the Center for the Performing Arts of "An African Harlequin in Milan," a contemporary adaptation by playwright Marco Martinelli of an eighteenth-century comedy by Carlo Goldoni, in the tradition of Commedia dell'Arte, in which the traditional figure of Arlecchino (Harlequin) is played by an African immigrant in Italy. The editors and translators of the English edition, Teresa Picarazzi and Wiley Feinstein, along with Paul Jackson, chair of Miami's Theatre Department, will present the English version of the play. In Saturday morning's panels at the Marcum Conference Center an array of >international scholars will address political, social, and economic issues. Political scientist Stefano Bellucci, from Italy, will talk about the injustices faced by immigrants in Italy. British scholar Jacqui Andall will consider the overlap of gender and ethnicity in immigrant culture, while anthropologist Benedetta Rossi will study Italian economic aid to Niger. A special panel will be devoted to Italian-Ethiopian relations, with presentations by Esther Sellassie, great-granddaughter of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Sellassie, along with her Russian husband, writer Anatoly Antohin; by historian and Sellassie biographer Harold Marcus and his colleague from the African Studies Center at Michigan State University, Ethiopian geographer Assefa Mehretu; and political scientist and foremost Italian expert on Italian-African relations, Gian Paolo Calchi Novati. The keynote address, on the representation of Africans in current Italian cinema, will be delivered at the luncheon by Graziella Parati, the foremost expert on Italian immigrant literature in North America, whose extensive publications and presentations at academic conferences on the subject have served to introduce and explain this important new phenomenon to Italian teachers, students, and scholars on this side of the Atlantic as well as in Italy.

The afternoon sessions will be devoted to the emerging field of Italian immigrant literature, African voices making themselves heard in their new country in their newly acquired Italian language. Literary scholars Gabriella Romani, Laura Harris, Marie Orton, Peter Pedroni, and Khadar Bashir-ali, along with Carla Ghezzi, associate director of the Italian Institute for African and Asian Studies in Rome, will talk about Africans writing in Italy.

Saturday evening, before the banquet, Armando Gnisci, professor of comparative literature at the University of Rome and leading expert on Italian immigrant literature, will discuss the reception÷or its lack--which immigrant writers have received in Italy and Europe. He will be followed by one of the first and most influential of the African immigrant writers publishing in Italian, Pap Khouma, whose book Io, venditore di elefanti (I, Seller of Elephants) was one of the first to document the life of African immigrants in Italy, opening the door for other African Italian authors. Both speakers will speak in Italian, with English translations of their talks available. All the other conference presentations will be in English. At the banquet Enzo Ferraris, Italian Consular Agent from Cincinnati, will welcome the conference participants on behalf of the Republic of Italy. The evening will conclude with a party hosted by the Black World Studies program, which will feature music by the Oxford Gourd and Drum Ensemble as well as the Afrikan-American Drum and Dance Ensemble from Cincinnati. The symposium will conclude Sunday morning, Nov. 8, with two panels on how Africa and Africans have been represented in the Italian imaginary in our century. In the first session literary scholars Kevin Carollo, Pina Palma, Cristina Lombardi-Diop, and Charles Klopp will concentrate on literary representations. The second panel's papers by Karen Pinkus, Silvia Riccio, Alessia Ricciardi, and Chandra harris will focus on cinema. EXHIBITS, FILM: In addition to the theatrical encounter Friday evening, two special exhibits will complement the symposium. The Art Museum, which will host the Friday sessions and a welcoming reception, will exhibit African, Roman, and Italian artifacts from its collection, including six Venetian Fortuny fabrics, one of which was inspired by African Ashanti designs and was used to create the artwork for the symposium flyer and program cover. There will also be an exhibit of books, artifacts, and images pertaining to Africa and Italy in the entrance foyer of King Library. Earlier in the week, Tuesday evening, Nov. 3, there will be a screening of Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1970 film, Notes for an African Orestes (Appunti per un'Orestiade africana), 7:30 PM, 40 Irvin.