newsletter - AISCLI

22 Pages·2013·5.12 MB·English

5 Spring 2013
52013
5 Spring 2013

CONTENTS
A Word from the Editors p. 1
EDITORIAL Unigwe on Achebe 2
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL 4
THE NEW AISCLI BOARD 5
SNAPSHOTS of RECENT EVENTS 7
AISCLI FORTHCOMING EVENTS 17
ANNOUNCEMENTS and CFPs 18

A Word from the Editors The newsletter will become more instrumental in
With this issue we are delighted to inaugurate a our effort to ‘go global’, and for this reason it is a
new phase in the life of our Association, a phase true pleasure to welcome Marta Cariello as our
that began with the election of the new Board of third newsletter editor.
Directors last January at the end of the AISCLI As always, many thanks to each one of our
symposium in Rome. members for contributing to our endeavour by
We wish to thank the members who have left the sharing information, material and their work. And,
Board – Itala Vivan, Maria Renata Dolce and as always, we invite you all to make this Newsletter
Marco Fazzini – for the splendid work, the circulate among as many colleagues and friends as
unwavering support and the extraordinary possible.
intellectual contribution they offered in the past Do not forget to renew your membership and to
three years. And we would like to welcome disseminate information among students and
Carmen Concilio, Maria Paola Guarducci and colleagues about the AISCLI Summer School,
Marta Cariello to our team. To Annalisa Oboe, our which will be hosted at the University of Turin,
Chair, our heartfelt thanks for remaining in charge 16-21 September 2013. Information about this
of AISCLI for another mandate. year’s edition is contained in this issue.
As was discussed in Rome, this new phase intends We wish you a fruitful and peaceful summer, and
to be marked, among other things, by an effort to we hope to see many of you in Turin.
create a network with the many Italian post- Alessandra Di Maio, Marta Cariello,
colonialists working abroad. Simona Bertacco
Newsletter Editors
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NEWSLETTER

5 Spring 2013

EDITORIAL

challenges the notion of the “discovery” of a

Chika Unigwe, A TRIBUTE FOR CHINUA people who already existed, and whose well-
ACHEBE (16 November 1930 - 21 March 2013) established civilisation has come under attack by

the “discoverers”. “The white man is very
Chinua Achebe writes of his protagonist in
clever,” Achebe writes. “He came quietly and
Things Fall Apart: “Okonkwo was well known
peaceably with his religion. We were amused at
throughout the nine villages and even beyond.
his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he
His fame rested on solid personal achievement.”
has won our brothers, and our clan can no
At the age of 27, Achebe most likely had no idea
longer act like one. He has put a knife on the
just how much of his own life that opening
things that held us together and we have fallen
sentence of his debut novel was prophesying.
apart.”
Things Fall Apart has since sold more than twelve
Like everyone else I know, I remember the first
million copies and has been translated into more
time I read Things Fall Apart. I could not have
than fifty languages.
been more than ten when I read an older

sibling’s copy. I was in primary school, a ‘good’
school where the use of ‘vernacular’ was not
allowed and social studies lesson taught us that
Mungo park ‘discovered’ the River Niger, while
our fore-fathers sat around being wild savages. I
had read another book, maybe a year or two
before which had a huge impact on me. It was
actually more a pamphlet than a book, with lots
of words I did not understand, but with an
unmistakable message: the black race was a
cursed one. Black skin was the mark God gave
Cain when He kicked him out of Eden. The
black man could not hope for salvation. A
grownup had given me the book, and being at
an age when I was impressionable, I swallowed
its racist ideology and worried for my soul. Until
I read Things Fall Apart.

The book’s publication in 1958 was deservedly a
huge cultural event. Published two years before
Nigeria gained independence, at a time when
questions of identity and nationhood
preoccupied colonised nations throughout the
continent, it firmly moved Africans from the
margins of their own narrative to the centre.
It tells the story of the colonial intervention I was struck even then by the simplicity and
from the African point of view and eloquently beauty of the prose, and how the village it
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described seemed very much like mine. It
captivated me and opened up for me a world of
expansive possibilities. In it, I – who had been
fed on the stories of Enid Blyton, and instructed
at school on the history of post-colonial Nigeria
– found a space where I could exist, one in
which my forefathers existed as people worthy
of respect. They were not pagans, running

around wildly in the dark, cursed by God for not
being Christians. It was like reading Igbo written
in English. I learned that history taught in
schools was not always accurate, and more
importantly, that if I wanted my story told well, I
had to tell it and in my own way.
That revelation was a liberating and refreshing
experience. Nelson Mandela has been quoted as
saying that Achebe was the one writer in whose
company his prison walls came down. For me, it
was in his company that my world opened. And
it would be many years before I would describe
it as “coming home”.

Achebe became my idol and I sought him out
diligently. I read him carefully, savouring his
wisdom.
His later works continued the interrogation of
the tension between old and new, but also
became increasingly critical of the Nigerian
government. His last book, There Was a Country:
A Personal History of Biafra (2012), traces the
trajectory of the country’s leadership problems
and offers an honest and biting criticism of
contemporary Nigeria.
No matter what his subject, Achebe wrote with
an unflinching honesty and with elegance. From
Things Fall Apart to There Was a Country, he has
reminded me of the importance of not only
owning my own story, but also articulating it,
transcribing it, and, more importantly, of finding
my voice. That is his enduring legacy, for which
I – and many others – are immensely grateful.
Achebe is gone, yet he lives not only in his
works, but in those of generations of writers all
over the world for whom he continues to be a

major influence. Even as I mourn his passing, I I am very grateful to Nigerian writer (and friend) Chika
also celebrate his life. Because he lived, I am able Unigwe for wanting to share with us this celebration of
to be the kind of writer that I am. Chinua Achebe’s work and legacy.

CHIKA UNIGWE A.O.

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NEWSLETTER

5 Spring 2013

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

REMINDER TO AISCLI MEMBERS MODULO D’ISCRIZIONE AISCLI
available online:
We need your support! By renewing your annual http://www.aiscli.it/iscrizioni.php
membership, which we kept at a minimum in
You can submit it online or mail it to:
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- participate in all AISCLI activities:
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NEWSLETTER

5 Spring 2013

THE NEW AISCLI BOARD

ANNALISA OBOE (CHAIR) PIETRO DEANDREA (SECRETARY) is Associate
is Professor of English Professor of English Literature at the University
and Postcolonial Studies of Torino, Italy. His publications deal with
at the University of Padua, postcolonial litera-tures (Fertile Crossings: Meta-
Italy. She is the current morphoses of Genre in
Chair of AISCLI, in her Anglophone West
second term. Her African Literature,
publications include Fiction Rodopi 2002),
History and Nation in South eighteenth-century
Africa (Supernova, 1994); literature, Shake-
the edited volumes Recharting the Black Atlantic: speare’s drama and
Modern Cultures, Local Communities, Global multiculturalism in
Connections (with A. Scacchi, Routledge, 2008), Italian schools. He is
Approaching Sea Changes: Metamorphoses and also a translator of
Migrations across the Atlantic (Unipress, 2005), fiction, poetry and drama.
Mongrel Signatures. Reflections on the Work of e-mail: [email protected]
Mudrooroo (Rodopi, 2003). Among her latest
contributions are Experiences of Freedom in
Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures (with S. Bassi, MARIA PAOLA GUARDUCCI (TREASURER) holds
Routledge, 2011) and a number of critical essays, a PhD in Comparative Literature and is Lecturer
including “Per un pensiero postcoloniale” (Aut in English Literature at the Università degli Studi
Aut n°354, 2012). Roma Tre (Rome, Italy), where she teaches
e-mail: [email protected] courses on Victorian literature, Modernism and
Post-modernism. Guarducci’s researches focus
on African Literatures in English, on Black
CARMEN CONCILIO (VICE-CHAIR) is Associate
British literature, and on the relationship
Professor of English at the University of Turin
between the English literary canon and the
where she teaches
Empire. She has published a monograph on
English and
South African
postcolonial
contemporary fiction,
literatures. She has
Dopo l’interregno. Il
been Visiting
romanzo sudafricano e la
Professor at the
transizione (Aracne,
University of
2008). She has
Toronto, UBC
published articles on
Vancouver, and
Jane Austen, George
Vancouver Island
Lamming, Sam
University. She sits on the board of the M.A. in
Selvon, W. M.
American Studies and is a member of the
Thackeray, etc. She
English Doctoral Program at the University of
has also edited a collection of short stories by
Turin. She has published extensively in Italian
South African women writers, Il vestito di velluto
and in English on postcolonial literature. She is
rosso. Racconti di scrittrici sudafricane (Gorée, 2006).
the Director of AISCLI’s Summer School.
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]

5
ALESSANDRA DI SIMONA BERTACCO
MAIO (NEWSLETTER (INTERNATIONAL
EDITOR) is Ricercatrice RELATIONS) is Assistant
of English language Professor of Humanities
and literature at the at the University of
University of Louisville, USA, and
Palermo, Italy. A was previously a
postcolonial scholar, Ricercatrice at the
her area of University of Milan,
specialization includes Italy. Her research
black, diasporic and migratory studies, with a focuses on issues in postcolonialism, women’s
particular attention to the formation of and gender studies and translation studies.
transnational cultural identities. Among her Her most recent publications include:
publications are the volumes Tutuola at the “Postcolonialism”, in The Oxford Companion of
University. The Italian Voice of a Yoruba Ancestor Philosophy and Literature edited by R. Eldridge
(2000), the collection An African Renaissance (2009), La morte e i suoi riti nella cultura
(2006), Wor(l)ds in Progress. A Study of Contemporary contemporanea (Altre Modernità #4, 2010) co-edited
Migrant Writings (2008), and Dedica a Wole Soyinka with N. Vallorani, and Language and Translation in
(2012). She has translated into Italian several Postcolonial Literatures: Multilingual Contexts,
authors, among them Nuruddin Farah (Rifugiati, Translational Texts, forthcoming with Routledge.
2003) and Wole Soyinka (Sul far del giorno, 2007; She is on the editorial board of the journal of
Foglie rosso sangue, 2009). literary and cultural studies Other Modernities,
e-mail: [email protected] based at the University of Milan.
e-mail: [email protected]

MARTA CARIELLO (CONFERENCE ORGANIZER)
is a research fellow in English Literature at the

“Jean Monnet” Department of Political Studies

at Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy, where she

also teaches English Language for Political

Science. She has published on postcolonial

literature, cultural translation, women's studies

and Mediterranean studies, with a specific focus

on Anglophone Arab women writers. Her latest

volume was published in Italy with the title
AISCLI EXECUTIVE BOARD
Scrivere la distanza. Uno studio sulle geografie della
Chair ANNALISA OBOE
separazione nella scrittura femminile araba anglofona
(Università degli Studi di Padova)
(Liguori, 2012). Her current research focuses on
Vice-Chair CARMEN CONCILIO
the thematization of
(Università degli Studi di Torino)
exile and distance in
Secretary PIETRO DEANDREA
Anglophone Arab
(Università degli Studi di Torino)
women writers, as well
Treasurer MARIA PAOLA GUARDUCCI
as on poetry by
(Università degli Studi Roma 3)
women of the
Newsletter Editor ALESSANDRA DI MAIO
Palestinian diaspora
(Università degli Studi di Palermo)
and on polyglossia as
International Relations SIMONA BERTACCO
feminist strategy of
identity discursive (University of Louisville, USA)
formation. Conference Organizer MARTA CARIELLO
e-mail: [email protected] (Seconda Università di Napoli)

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NEWSLETTER

5 Spring 2013

means of controlling life and death in the bodies
in transit of the colonised and the immigrant,
6th AISCLI CONFERENCE with particular reference to Coetzee’s The
CULTURES AND IMPERIALISMS Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee and Martinelli’s Rumore
Università Roma Tre, Rome di acque.
17-18 January 2013 The two following sessions addressed issues of
mapping and geography, starting with Shaul
The 6th AISCLI Conference Bassi’s mapping of contemporary Kenyan
was an extremely fertile literature, taking into account the elements that
moment of debate and make up this map, such as linguistic choices,
exchange of ideas on the marketing implications, audience reception as
theme of “Cultures and well as the role of new technologies, all in
Imperialisms”, drawing on the relation to the predicaments of what the
legacy and relevance today of Western academia understands as ‘post-colonial
Edward Said’s fundamental literatures’. Lars Jensen explored how
work, twenty years after its postcolonial and post-imperial Europe and its
publication. identity construction are inter-connected with
The conference opened with the developments of Said’s theorizations.
a keynote address by Patrick Antarctica and its role in myth and memory was
Williams on “Overlapping put on the map of culture and imperialism by
Intellectuals, Intertwined Nicoletta Brazzelli, while Maria Olaussen looked
Theories”. Williams’s thought the way European powers displace Indian Ocean
provoking address was empires in the name of Enlightenment, replacing
followed by a session in which the theoretical forms of cosmopolitanism with Western notions
debate prevailed, with Serena Guarracino’s of individual freedom. Another rarely charted
discussion of the figure of the postcolonial territory was situated on the map of power
intellectual and her/his public persona in light of relations and culture and imperialism by John A.
the legacy of Said’s Culture and Imperialism, and, Stotesbury, who explored the contemporary
on a similar note, by Vincenzo Salvatore’s Anglophone Gibraltarian literary discourse in a
analysis of “text” and “career” as sites of power post-Saidian perspective. An important
and, in particular, Said’s praxis as an intellectual, argument was made by Caterina Romeo on the
so radically characterized by his personal urgency for a postcolonial reading of Italian
dimension. Culture and Imperialism was analysed in history and culture, while Pierpaolo Frassinelli
relation to Said’s memoir Out of Place by Denise and David Watson offered a contrapuntal
deCaires Narain, with particular reference to the reading of theories and representations of the
author’s reflections on homeland and home and decline of the Euro-American imperial
the interconnectedness of imperial and non- geopolitics vis-a-vis “the South” and the process
imperial cultures. Furthermore, Sam Gates through which the South itself is becoming
discussed Said’s position on the issue of the “global”. The South was also at the heart of
“clash of civilizations” and the limits and Luigi Cazzato’s presentation, in which
possibilities of such position in light of Said’s geography and geopolitics were re-read in light
use of Foucault and the problematics of of the new dynamics of power and multiple
Foucauldian theories when applied to trajectories of postcolonial continents, where the
international problems. The closing presentation global North may indeed be “evolving” toward
also evoked Foucault, in Claudia Gualtieri’s Africa, while the global South may be
discussion of Said’s theorization of the “involving” toward Euro-America. Finally,
complicities between cultures and imperialisms Norbert Bugeja introduced the notion of
and the imperial mechanism of biopolitics as a melancholia as constructed in Orhan Pamuk’s
7
Istanbul – Memories and the City, as a counter- approach that may integrate rather than dismiss
narrative to the ideological discourses of the new the traditional concept of the archive. New
Republican politics in Turkey, and as operating media and their re-structuring of archival
through a Saidian model of “intertwined processes was at the centre of John C. Hawley’s
constructions” that allow the author to narrate discussion of the implications and role of social
his own privileged experience in relation to the networks and new media in the Arab Spring,
underprivileged and to evince an affective exploring the extent to which it has been
relation between narrating subject and the possible for those involved to circumvent
deteriorating urban landscape. control by the corporate imperialism that Said
The second day of the conference saw two wrote about, and the developments brought
sessions, the first of which addressed issues of about by the very changes in communication
“New and Old Canons”, with Francesca that have occurred since Said’s theorizations.
Romana Paci discussing Janice Kulyk Keefer’s Roberta Cimarosti brought to the table an
work as constructing the forming, dissolving and interesting discussion of the ways and degrees in
re-forming of the “us/them” binary pattern at which cultural imperialism are embedded in
the basis of Said’s Culture and Imperialism. The English language course books and curricula,
“contrapuntal re-writing” of The Tempest by while, on a different note, Nicoletta Vallorani
Suniti Namjoshi was the focus of Stefania analysed “postcolonial crime” in the first novel
Basset’s presentation, while Fabio Luppi of David Peace’s planned trilogy about Tokyo,
analysed Yeat’s People’s Theatre and the Tokyo Year Zero, in which Japan is portrayed
emerging definition of “a people’s theatre”, under siege in the aftermath of World War II,
seemingly in contrast with the privileged where the body of (victimized) women becomes
experience which such theatre proved to be; the icon of violence and cultural rape implied in
questions then rise in the US invasion.
relation to the Michael Quadraro
definitions of notions offered a reading of
such as culture, post-colonial art as a
tradition or identity, re-elaboration of
which may prove colonization, with a
problematic when specific focus on the
called to represent aesthetic strategies
reality. Edvige and critical evaluat-
Pucciarelli discussed ions of diasporic
the political represent- space in Trinh T.
ation of colonialism in Minh-ha and Isaac
Shakespeare’s Antony Julien’s visual works.
Abdulrazak Gurnah and Cleopatra, a text that Closing the session, Natalia Molebatsi
has been underestimated in terms of Marta Cariello ex-plored multilingualism as a
postcolonial critique and re-reading, while strategic construction of distance and separation
offering a poignant picture of the new in contemporary diasporic poetry by Palestinian-
imperialistic ambitions of Jacobean England. American women authors.
The session on old and new canons closed with The two readings given by Natalia Molebatsi and
Paola Della Valle’s presentation on Robert Louis Abdulrazak Gurnah were the highlights of the
Stevenson’s late South Seas fiction, through a conference, delivering two moments of
postcolonial reading of the author’s anticipation emotional and literary intensity that established a
of “subversive imperial fiction”. true dialogue with the theoretical discussions
The closing session of the conference focused that animated the individual sessions.
on languages and archival practices. Tiziana The conference was meant to explore the
Morosetti discussed the role of the archive in relevance of postcolonial thinking twenty years
postcolonial criticism through an examination of after the publication of Said’s Culture and
the case of the “Hottentot Venus” as Imperialism, and the result was a highly
representative of the Saidian appeal for an stimulating moment of encounter and debate,
8
which, thanks to the work of the Scientific The conference programme ran in parallel
Committee – Annalisa Oboe, Maria Paola sessions in which almost fifty papers were
Guarducci and Maria Renata Dolce – was delivered. The selective survey that follows is
transformed into a fundamental updating of the meant to give an idea of some interesting
discussion of the maps, languages, re-readings contributions offered over the three days.
and re-writings of postcolonial studies in light of Dealing with black British neo-slave narratives,
Said’s essential contribution. Elisabeth Bekers (Free University of Brussels
VUB) discussed how the oppositional gaze,
Marta Cariello often adopted by women writers, as in
Seconda Università di Napoli Bernardine Evaristo’s Blonde Roots (2009) and
Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses series
(2001-2008), create “(re)visions of Africa” which

might dangerously reinforce binary visions of
WHAT IS AFRICA TO ME NOW? the world. Christine Levecq (Kettering
THE CONTINENT AND ITS LITERARY University) criticized the fossilized
DIASPORAS representation of Africa and the contemporary
UNIVERSITY OF LIÈGE, BELGIUM silences about the new Diaspora’s presence in
21-23 March 2013 African American literature through Saidiya
Hartman’s Lose Your Mother: A Journey Across the
Atlantic Slave Route (2007) and Keith Richburg’s
Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa
(1997). Serena Guarracino (University of Naples
“L’Orientale”) draw the audience’s attention to
Joan Anim-Addo’s Imoinda (2008) and Tony

Morrison’s Desdemona (2011) to prove the force
of musical arrangement and songs in shaping a
The three-day international conference “What is
Africa to me now?” at the University of Liège musical idea of Africa, a “home” detached from
time and space through “sound” aesthetics and
brought together academics, scholars of
postcolonial literatures, and renowned writers of narratives.
Annie Gagiano (University of Stellenbosch) led
the contemporary Anglophone world to explore
how Africa is represented, narrated and the audience through a geographical and
historical journey in five diasporic novels – from
perceived in literary and visual works by African
and diasporic artists of African heritage. Waguih Ghali’s 1964 Beer in the Snooker Club to
Jose Eduardo Agualuso’s 2007 My Father’s Wives
On the first day, the opening remarks of
Bènédicte Ledent and Daria Tunca, who – to affirm that Diasporic identities are granted a
privileged outside position from where they can
organized and hosted the conference, were
followed by Alison Donnell’s keynote lecture, challenge personal views on their homelands’
socio-political situations. On similar grounds,
“Nowness & Africa in Anglophone Caribbean
Maria Paola Guarducci (University of Rome 3),
Literature: A Queer Time and Place”. Donnell
having in mind South African writer Zoë
invited the audience to adopt the concept of
‘queer’ to read the multifaceted Caribbean Wicomb’s whole production, focused on The
One that Got Away (2008) to consider the author’s
context where the “African presence” lives in
cultural queer ideas of time and space. In emotional involvement with a nation she looks
at from a diasporic position. Daria Tunca
dialogue with Kamau Brathwaite’s point that
literature, since imposed by colonial education, (University of Liège) inserted Nigerian writer
(now living in Belgium) Chika Unigwe’s last
cannot convey representations of African
aesthetics and connections in the Caribbean, novel Night Dancer (2012) in a literary
“Nigerianess” which is close to previous
Donnell affirmed the role of Caribbean literature
in resisting “cultural normalization,” especially generations of Nigerian writers’ works in
language, narrative aesthetics, “setting, theme or
through images of an “ideal” Africa whose
influence on “ancestry, legacies and retentions” style,” but which has a ‘Negroist’ social aim
where intimacy and emotions are explored to
should be further investigated.
9