Videos by Simone Brioni
Kaha Mohamed Aden, an Italian writer of Somali origin, narrates her memories of Mogadishu, her ho... more Kaha Mohamed Aden, an Italian writer of Somali origin, narrates her memories of Mogadishu, her hometown, and reconstructs its story in Pavia, where she currently lives. The capital city of Somalia is divided into five main streets, with each corresponding to different historical periods. The ‘fourth road’ symbolizes the actuality of civil war, but also negates the preceding periods and makes it necessary to set our hopes on a ‘fifth street’. The Fourth Road: Mogadishu, Italy brings to our attention the issues of a land which shared a number of historical relationships with Italy in the past years; yet, this problematic aspect unfailingly tends to be overlooked by Italian mass-media. The history of the city of Mogadishu gives rise to many important fundamental questions on the history of Italy itself, given the assumption that we have a limited, and, to some degree, distorted historical view on this matter, not to mention the partial omission of the colonialism period. 2 views
Who are you? In an attempt to give an answer to this question, Ribka Sibhatu, Italian writer and ... more Who are you? In an attempt to give an answer to this question, Ribka Sibhatu, Italian writer and essayist of Eritrean origin, presents the history of her homeland in her current city, Rome.
In her imaginary trip backwards through her memories, she is accompanied by a young Italian man, who shares her same interest in exploring the relationship between identity and territory.
Ribka’s own personal story intersects powerfully with the stories of the Eritrean diaspora, which not only does it show the fault traces that colonialism has left behind in her country, but also demonstrates how the perception of immigration in Italy has been profoundly influenced by an apparent failure in the process of decolonization in Italian collective memory.
Aulò brings into question the concept of confine, not only in geographical, but also in cultural and identitarian terms. 18 views
Six Objects: Notes Towards a Film on Pietro di Donato is a short film by Loredana Polezzi, Simone... more Six Objects: Notes Towards a Film on Pietro di Donato is a short film by Loredana Polezzi, Simone Brioni, and Lindsey Pelucacci, which includes preliminary ideas for a larger research/film project about Pietro di Donato. The film features an interview with Richard di Donato and archival material from his personal collection. It was made thanks to a CAS Seed Grant for Interdisciplinary Research Teams. 13 views
Maka is a documentary about Geneviève Makaping, a Cameroonian-Italian anthropologist, writer and ... more Maka is a documentary about Geneviève Makaping, a Cameroonian-Italian anthropologist, writer and the first Black woman news anchor on Italian television, as well as the first Black woman to be named the director of a newspaper in Italy. The film offers a detailed account of Makaping’s journey of migration from Cameroon across the desert and the ocean, her arrival in Italy in 1982 following the tragic death of her partner, her success as a journalist and television host, and her more recent relocation and current teaching job in Mantua. Maka focuses on questions of national belonging, and it reflects on how the perception of migration and race has changed since Makaping first came to Italy in the 1990s. https://film.5e6.it/portfolio/maka/ 19 views
Beyond the Frame discusses colonial photography and challenges the gaze through which it framed A... more Beyond the Frame discusses colonial photography and challenges the gaze through which it framed Africa. A journey that emerges from a family archive discovered by chance, Beyond the Frame observes, interprets, and reflects upon how the colonial legacy shapes our present.
Oltre i bordi presenta un’intima riflessione sulla fotografia coloniale e interroga la prospettiva con cui essa ha costruito l’Africa. Attraverso un’esplorazione che prende forma da un archivio familiare scoperto in maniera fortuita, Oltre i bordi osserva, interpreta e riflette sul modo in cui le tracce del passato coloniale danno forma al nostro presente. 2 views
Books by Simone Brioni
Diversity, Decolonization and Italian Studies, 2022
will be Open Access under the international licensing Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-... more will be Open Access under the international licensing Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) with a two-year embargo on all articles. Issues and single articles under embargo will still be available respectively on subscription or for a fee.
Crazy Fish Sing, 2024
Crazy Fish Sing (Yogurt Editions 2024) is a visual art book inspired by Suranga Katugampala's for... more Crazy Fish Sing (Yogurt Editions 2024) is a visual art book inspired by Suranga Katugampala's forthcoming film, Still Here. Situated in an experimental territory on the border between noir and documentary, the film is shot in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Milan, Italy. Transporting the reader through its real, imagined, and affective geographies, Crazy Fish Sing offers a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on the making of Still Here and the questions this film raises about cultural hybridity, urbanization, and realism.
Crazy Fish Sing (Yogurt Edizioni 2024) è un libro d'arte visiva che trae ispirazione da Still Here, un film di Suranga Katugampala. Situato in un territorio sperimentale al confine tra il noir e il documentario, il film è girato a Colombo, nello Sri Lanka, e a Milano, in Italia. Muovendosi attraverso geografie reali, immaginarie e affettive, Crazy Fish Sing offre una prospettiva unica sulla realizzazione di Still Here e su alcuni temi di questo film, come l’ibridità culturale, l’urbanizzazione e il realismo.
Creatività diasporiche è un volume bilingue costituito da tredici conversazioni tra studiosi/stud... more Creatività diasporiche è un volume bilingue costituito da tredici conversazioni tra studiosi/studiose di materie umanistiche e artisti/artiste il cui lavoro si concentra sul tema della migrazione e dell’identità. I contributi nella raccolta abbracciano forme di produzione che vanno dalla letteratura alle arti visive, dal cinema alla performance teatrale, dai podcast alla musica rap, mentre tra le tematiche ricorrenti emergono dibattiti su identità, lingua, migrazione, memoria e cittadinanza. Questo volume è anche un invito a ripensare il lavoro creativo e quello accademico, in area umanistica, come intrinsecamente legati al dialogo e alla collaborazione. Ciascuna conversazione si concentra sull’Italia intesa come un catalizzatore di significati e di pratiche artistiche che si sviluppano in direzioni diverse e spesso inaspettate, piuttosto che come luogo geograficamente e culturalmente specifico, omogeneo e delimitato. Allo stesso modo, la nozione di cultura italiana che emerge da queste conversazioni è aperta, dinamica e intrinsecamente legata alla convinzione che ricerca e creatività abbiano un ruolo centrale nell’immaginare e costruire società più giuste e inclusive.
James Graham Ballard (1930-2009) è stato uno degli scrittori più eclettici e visionari del nostro... more James Graham Ballard (1930-2009) è stato uno degli scrittori più eclettici e visionari del nostro tempo, autore di alcuni romanzi di culto come "High Rise" (1975), "Crash" (1973) e "The Atrocity Exhibition" (1970). Intersecando alcune delle linee teoriche tracciate da Jean Baudrillard, questo saggio si concentra proprio su quest'ultima opera, capolavoro della sperimentazione letteraria post-moderna in lingua inglese. "The Atrocity Exhibition" introduce alcuni dei temi cardine della successiva produzione dell'autore e ha il merito di spostare l'attenzione della produzione fantascientifica sul presente piuttosto che su un ipotetico futuro, mettendo in rilievo le profonde contraddizioni della società dei consumi.
Pisa University Press, 2023
Il progetto Repositories scandaglia l’archivio della colonialità non semplicemente per ricostruir... more Il progetto Repositories scandaglia l’archivio della colonialità non semplicemente per ricostruire le storie degli imperialismi nella loro complessità fatta di scontri e interazioni, usurpazione e negoziazione. Esso indaga come le società coloniali si siano auto-immaginate in relazione a quei processi, come siano state costruite convinzioni, narrazioni e memorie, e come relazioni di potere nate durante l’età degli imperi si siano riprodotte – o siano state criticate – nel contesto post-coloniale. Se questo archivio ancora oggi influenza tutta una serie di discorsi e fenomeni socio-politici, le pratiche
artistiche e di ricerca che popolano questo volume mettono in discussione visioni e conoscenze stereotipate o marcatamente razziste che ancora oggi popolano il nostro presente. ISBN 978-88-3339-790-0
This monograph is a meditation on how transnational migrations have influenced how the sense of p... more This monograph is a meditation on how transnational migrations have influenced how the sense of place and the politics of space are represented in literature and film about migration to, from and within Italy. It examines work produced in Italian and English, and it emphasizes how culture and national identity can be reconsidered in a more inclusive way within a world marked by increased mobility. The text is divided into three main sections – “Places”, “Spaces” and “Crossings” – each of which contains two chapters. Chapter 1 argues that bridges, as they are represented in literature, movies and paintings about and by Italian Americans, are often used as symbols to highlight the social improvement of this ethnic group. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s definition of heterotopia, Chapter 2 analyses the filmic and literary representation of Termini station. The representation of Termini either as an isolated place in the urban geography of Rome or as a place that mirrors the multicultural reality of present-day Italy highlights a tension between different ways of practicing the same space. Moving from the analysis of “Places” to the analysis of “Spaces”, Chapter 3 examines how Pannone’s ‘American Trilogy’ (1991-98) and shows how memory of the myth of America in Italy rethinks ‘Italian’ history with a trans-national lens. Chapter 4 analyzes how Juhmpa Lahiri’s In Other Words (2015) dislocates Italy both linguistically and spatially by de-linking the experience of Italy from its physical spaces. “Crossings” focuses on reflections about moving through a space, and how the ways in which a space is practiced or experienced changes our understanding of it. Chapter 5 analyzes the ways Giuliano Santoro’s Su due piedi. Camminando per un mese attraverso la Calabria (On My Two Feet: Walking for a Month in Calabria, 2012) and Wu Ming 2’s Il sentiero luminoso (The Bright Path, 2016) describe walking as an activity which allows one to recognize the social modifications of space, and to rethink the geographies of suburban areas in Italy. Chapter 6 discusses how Elia Moutamid’s Talien (2017) reimagines driving as an activity that links physical movement through spaces to reflections about transnational mobility and national belonging. Moving beyond the analysis of literature and film about the representation of spaces of migration, the coda argues that finding new ways of inscribing the memory of the past in the present can be a way of rethinking subjectivity, memory and belonging.
Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora, 2020
Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora (Writing About Islam. Narrating a Diaspora) is a medita... more Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora (Writing About Islam. Narrating a Diaspora) is a meditation on our multireligious, multicultural, and multilingual reality. It is the result of a personal and collaborative exploration of the necessity to rethink national culture and identity in a more diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist way. The central part of this volume – both symbolically and physically – includes Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s reflections on the discrimination of Muslims, and especially Muslim women, in Italy and the UK. Looking at school textbooks, newspapers, TV programs, and sharing her own personal experience, this section invites us to change the way Muslim immigrants are narrated in scholarly research and news reports. Most importantly, this section urges us to consider minorities not just as ‘topics’ of cultural analysis, but as audiences and cultural agents. Following Shirin’s invitation to question prevailing modes of representations of immigrants, the volume continues with a dialogue between the co-authors and discusses how collaboration can be a way to avoid reproducing a ‘colonial model’ of knowledge production, in which the white male scholar takes as object of analysis the work of an African female writer. The last chapter also asserts that immigration literature cannot be approached with the same expectations and questions readers would have when reading ‘canonized’ texts. A new critical terminology is needed in order to understand the innovative linguistic choices and narrative forms that immigrant writers have invented in order to describe a reality that has lacked representation or which has frequently been misrepresented, especially in the discourse around the contemporary Muslim diaspora.
Il libro propone undici percorsi teorici all’interno della fantascienza italiana moderna e contem... more Il libro propone undici percorsi teorici all’interno della fantascienza italiana moderna e contemporanea per metterne in luce le caratteristiche originali e specifiche rispetto alla storia del paese e alla costruzione dell’identità nazionale. Gli undici capitoli (Discronie, Robot, Totalitarismi, Ecocritica, Follia, Religione, Terrorismo, Supereroi, Berlusconi, Europa, Postumano) analizzano ciascuno due o tre testi di riferimento, riflettendo sulla maniera in cui tali temi sono stati declinati all’inter- no della fantascienza italiana. Attraverso un viaggio culturale che spazia dal cinema alla letteratura, dal fumetto alle serie televisive, si vuole dare un’idea dell’originalità e della complessità di alcune esperienze culturali italiane, in un arco cronologico che va dagli ulti- mi anni del diciannovesimo secolo (L’anno 3000 di Paolo Mantegazza) alle più recenti uscite distopi- che (Furland di Tullio Avoledo e La festa nera di Violetta Bellocchio, ma anche la serie Il miracolo di Niccolò Ammaniti), passando per i film degli anni Sessanta e i romanzi post- apocalittici dei Set- tanta e Ottanta.
This book explores Italian science fiction from 1861, the year of Italy’s unification, to the pre... more This book explores Italian science fiction from 1861, the year of Italy’s unification, to the present day, focusing on how this genre helped shape notions of Otherness and Normalness. In particular, Italian Science Fiction draws upon critical race studies, postcolonial theory, and feminist studies to explore how migration, colonialism, multiculturalism, and racism have been represented in genre film and literature. Topics include the role of science fiction in constructing a national identity; the representation and self-representation of “alien” immigrants in Italy; the creation of internal “Others,” such as southerners and Roma; the intersections of gender and race discrimination; and Italian science fiction’s transnational dialogue with foreign science fiction. This book reveals that though it is arguably a minor genre in Italy, science fiction offers an innovative interpretive angle for rethinking Italian history and imagining future change in Italian society.
The recent histories of Italy and Somalia are closely linked. Italy colonized Somalia from the en... more The recent histories of Italy and Somalia are closely linked. Italy colonized Somalia from the end of the 19th century to 1941, and held the territory by UN mandate from 1950 to 1960. Italy is also among the destination countries of the Somali diaspora, which increased in 1991 after civil war. Nonetheless, this colonial and postcolonial cultural encounter has often been neglected. Critically evaluating Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’, as well as drawing on postcolonial literary studies, The Somali Within analyses the processes of linguistic and cultural translation and self-translation, the political engagement with race, gender, class and religious discrimination, and the complex strategies of belonging and unbelonging at work in the literary works in Italian by authors of Somali origins. Brioni proposes that the ‘minor’ Somali Italian connection might offer a major insight into the transnational dimension of contemporary ‘Italian’ literature and ‘Somali’ culture.
Edited Volumes by Simone Brioni
Traiettorie di sguardi denuncia il razzismo nell’Italia contemporanea, sottolineando il modo in c... more Traiettorie di sguardi denuncia il razzismo nell’Italia contemporanea, sottolineando il modo in cui diverse forme di disuguaglianza − razza, colore, genere, classe − si intersecano e si rafforzano a vicenda. Facendo riferimento alle proprie esperienze personali, Geneviève Makaping rovescia lo sguardo abituale dell’antropologia − quello che nell’etnografia coloniale è rivolto dai colonizzatori alle popolazioni indigene − osserva la maggioranza bianca dalla propria posizione di donna nera: «Guardo me stessa che guardo loro che da sempre mi guardano». Tale ribaltamento di prospettiva invita le persone bianche in Italia a non identificare sé stesse con la “normalità”
e a osservare che cosa voglia dire sentirsi costantemente “altri”. Traiettorie di sguardi è un libro originale e incisivo, che stimola una riflessione individuale e collettiva sulla questione del razzismo strutturale attraverso il racconto di accadimenti quotidiani. Ma soprattutto interroga i lettori sui meccanismi di inclusione ed esclusione presenti nella società italiana.
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Videos by Simone Brioni
In her imaginary trip backwards through her memories, she is accompanied by a young Italian man, who shares her same interest in exploring the relationship between identity and territory.
Ribka’s own personal story intersects powerfully with the stories of the Eritrean diaspora, which not only does it show the fault traces that colonialism has left behind in her country, but also demonstrates how the perception of immigration in Italy has been profoundly influenced by an apparent failure in the process of decolonization in Italian collective memory.
Aulò brings into question the concept of confine, not only in geographical, but also in cultural and identitarian terms.
Oltre i bordi presenta un’intima riflessione sulla fotografia coloniale e interroga la prospettiva con cui essa ha costruito l’Africa. Attraverso un’esplorazione che prende forma da un archivio familiare scoperto in maniera fortuita, Oltre i bordi osserva, interpreta e riflette sul modo in cui le tracce del passato coloniale danno forma al nostro presente.
Books by Simone Brioni
Crazy Fish Sing (Yogurt Edizioni 2024) è un libro d'arte visiva che trae ispirazione da Still Here, un film di Suranga Katugampala. Situato in un territorio sperimentale al confine tra il noir e il documentario, il film è girato a Colombo, nello Sri Lanka, e a Milano, in Italia. Muovendosi attraverso geografie reali, immaginarie e affettive, Crazy Fish Sing offre una prospettiva unica sulla realizzazione di Still Here e su alcuni temi di questo film, come l’ibridità culturale, l’urbanizzazione e il realismo.
artistiche e di ricerca che popolano questo volume mettono in discussione visioni e conoscenze stereotipate o marcatamente razziste che ancora oggi popolano il nostro presente. ISBN 978-88-3339-790-0
Edited Volumes by Simone Brioni
e a osservare che cosa voglia dire sentirsi costantemente “altri”. Traiettorie di sguardi è un libro originale e incisivo, che stimola una riflessione individuale e collettiva sulla questione del razzismo strutturale attraverso il racconto di accadimenti quotidiani. Ma soprattutto interroga i lettori sui meccanismi di inclusione ed esclusione presenti nella società italiana.
In her imaginary trip backwards through her memories, she is accompanied by a young Italian man, who shares her same interest in exploring the relationship between identity and territory.
Ribka’s own personal story intersects powerfully with the stories of the Eritrean diaspora, which not only does it show the fault traces that colonialism has left behind in her country, but also demonstrates how the perception of immigration in Italy has been profoundly influenced by an apparent failure in the process of decolonization in Italian collective memory.
Aulò brings into question the concept of confine, not only in geographical, but also in cultural and identitarian terms.
Oltre i bordi presenta un’intima riflessione sulla fotografia coloniale e interroga la prospettiva con cui essa ha costruito l’Africa. Attraverso un’esplorazione che prende forma da un archivio familiare scoperto in maniera fortuita, Oltre i bordi osserva, interpreta e riflette sul modo in cui le tracce del passato coloniale danno forma al nostro presente.
Crazy Fish Sing (Yogurt Edizioni 2024) è un libro d'arte visiva che trae ispirazione da Still Here, un film di Suranga Katugampala. Situato in un territorio sperimentale al confine tra il noir e il documentario, il film è girato a Colombo, nello Sri Lanka, e a Milano, in Italia. Muovendosi attraverso geografie reali, immaginarie e affettive, Crazy Fish Sing offre una prospettiva unica sulla realizzazione di Still Here e su alcuni temi di questo film, come l’ibridità culturale, l’urbanizzazione e il realismo.
artistiche e di ricerca che popolano questo volume mettono in discussione visioni e conoscenze stereotipate o marcatamente razziste che ancora oggi popolano il nostro presente. ISBN 978-88-3339-790-0
e a osservare che cosa voglia dire sentirsi costantemente “altri”. Traiettorie di sguardi è un libro originale e incisivo, che stimola una riflessione individuale e collettiva sulla questione del razzismo strutturale attraverso il racconto di accadimenti quotidiani. Ma soprattutto interroga i lettori sui meccanismi di inclusione ed esclusione presenti nella società italiana.
Italy: The Fourth Road, Aulò, Beyond the Frame, and Maka. It is the result of a reflection and
collective work by a professor who wrote the films and a teaching assistant and previous student of
a course on migration studies. Each film features a prominent African Italian writer, respectively
Kaha Mohamed Aden, Ribka Sibhatu, Ubah Cristina Ali Farah and Geneviève Makaping. After a
brief plot summary, the study guide includes questions about various elements of cinematic style,
such as sound, lighting, and genre conventions. It also explores themes related to migration
cultures, including the feelings of multiple belonging and unbelonging experienced by immigrants.
Additionally, the guide investigates spatial issues such as ghettoization, the spatialization of
memory, and the concept of intimate and affective geography. Specific questions address the
histories of Somalia, Eritrea, Cameroon, and Italy.
postcoloniale in Italia: La quarta via, Aulò, Oltre i bordi e Maka. Ogni film ha come protagonista
una scrittrice africana italiana, rispettivamente Kaha Mohamed Aden, Ribka Sibhatu, Ubah Cristina
Ali Farah e Geneviève Makaping. Ciascuna sezione presenta un breve riassunto della trama,
comprende domande sulle storie di Somalia, Eritrea, Camerun e Italia e sullo stile cinematografico
(suoni, uso delle luci, fotografia). Le attività esplorano questioni relative all’appartenenza nazionale,
alla rappresentazione degli immigrati nei media, alla spazializzazione della memoria e alle geografie
intime e affettive che caratterizzano le culture degli immigrati.
This article analyses Gigliola Alvisi’s Ilaria Alpi: La ragazza che voleva raccontare l’inferno [Ilaria Alpi: The Young Woman Who Wanted to Narrate the Hell] (2014) and Giuseppe Catozzella’s Non dirmi che hai paura [Don’t Tell Me You Are Afraid] (2014), two novels that deal with two recent events in Somali and Italian history, the killing of the journalist Ilaria Alpi in Mogadishu in 1994 and the death of Samia Yosuf Omar while she was trying to reach the Italian shores from Libya by boat. Alvisi’s text is analysed in comparison with other fictional and journalistic representations of Ilaria Alpi, while Non dirmi che hai paura is examined through what Catozzella considers the two constitutive dimensions of the novel: documentation and identification. Drawing on Stefano Jossa’s reflections on the construction of literary heroes, the article challenges Alvisi’s and Catozzella’s claims that they represent ‘true stories’. The article also argues that the main characters of these literary works are portrayed as heroines and role models for the emancipation of Muslim women.
Mengiste is an award-winning novelist and essayist whose work examines the individual lives at stake during migration, war and exile and considers the intersection between photography and violence. Her second novel, The Shadow King, set in 1935 Ethiopia, during Mussolini’s invasion, was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize.
Series Editors: Professor Simone Brioni and Professor E. K. Tan (Stony Brook University)
ISSN: 2297-2854
www.peterlang.com/series/trcu
Transnational Cultures promotes inquiry into the cultural productions characterized by the vertical and lateral exchanges of ideas, objects and linguistic practices across the globe with a particular emphasis on South–South exchanges, minor transnational relations and Indigenous experiences. The series strives to offer a renewed understanding of minor and minority expressions and articulations of transnational experiences that often escape national and global discourses. With the growth of diasporic communities, migratory crossings and virtual exchange, cultural productions beyond, across and traversing national borders have become a growing focus of scholarship within historical, contemporary and comparative contexts. The series investigates how a transnational lens might transform existing understandings of cultural exchange, belonging, and identity formation in any period or location.
This series addresses a range of questions, including but not limited to the following: What broader flows of knowledge, capital and power mark pre-modern, modern and contemporary cultural productions and identity formations? How do marginal experiences trouble existing narratives of the nation-state and global–local paradigms? What kinds of creolization of cultures and experiences evolve in the processes of transnationalism? How do transnational flows in the Global South, and among marginal or minority communities, facilitate sites of articulation outside normative discourses?
Proposals for monographs and edited collections from international scholars are welcome. The series is interdisciplinary in scope and welcomes research on literature, film, new media, visual culture and beyond. All proposals and manuscripts will be subjected to rigorous peer review. The main language of publication is English.
Editorial Board: Adeshina Afolayan (Ibadan, Nigeria), Michael S. Gorham (Florida), Weihsin Gui (UC Riverside), Brian Haman (Vienna), Olivia Khoo (Monash, Australia), Amara Lakhous (Yale), Anne Garland Mahler (Virginia), Deepti Misri (Colorado–Boulder), Nasser Mufti (Illinois–Chicago), Valentina Pedone (Florence), Dorothy Price (Courtauld Institute of Art), Oana Popescu-Sandu (Southern Indiana), Sara Pugach (Cal State LA), Mireille Rebeiz (Dickinson), Giulia Riccò (Michigan), Mark Sabine (Nottingham), Lisa Shaw (Liverpool), Shuang Shen (Penn State), Kyle Shernuk (Georgetown), Emily Celeste Vázquez Enríquez (UC Davis).
An inclusive re-evaluation of Italian symbols acknowledging multiple perspectives.
How is it possible to re-evaluate Italian symbols in a more inclusive way that acknowledge the multiple, diasporic and postcolonial perspectives through which Italian culture is created, discussed, appropriated, and kept alive?
In an attempt to give an answer to this question, Dr Simone Brioni's lecture focused on examples of three collaborative research experiences and artistic endeavours: a reading of how Somali diasporic writers have discussed Dante’s Commedia; a re-visitation of Mantegna’s depiction of black people in his Renaissance paintings; and a closer look at questions of memory, belonging and family heritage in colonial photography.
Interrogating his own work as a scholar and a documentary maker, Dr Brioni's lecture argued that collaboration offers new perspectives which allow us to rethink how we study ‘Italian’ culture.
Dr Simone Brioni is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Stony Brook University and affiliated faculty in the Departments of Africana Studies and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies. He specialises in the literary and cinematographic representation and self-representation of migrants with a particular emphasis on contemporary Italian culture. He co-authored the films Beyond the Frame (2022, with Matteo Sandrini) and Maka (2022, with Elia Moutamid).
Italian has been taught at this university since 1881 and today Italian Studies is housed within the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures (MLC). We are a small and friendly community of academic and teaching staff whose research and teaching interests cover contemporary fiction, linguistics, cultural history, film and transcultural studies.
These wonderful lectures have been made possible by alumna and colleague, the late Professor Lucrezia Zaina, who studied French and Italian at the University of Liverpool from 1939-1947. She then became a lecturer in those departments and later Head of Italian from 1964 to 1988. Professor Zaina sadly passed away in 2008 having bequeathed a generous legacy to the University.
SEPTEMBER 28, THURSDAY, 6:00 pm,
Columbia University, Schapiro Center, Room 415
Simone Brioni (Stony Brook University),
What is a 'Minor' Literature? Somali Italian Literature and Beyond
Respondent: Madeleine Dobie (Columbia University)
Moderator: Pier Mattia Tommasino (Columbia University)
Abstract:
Simone Brioni analyses to what extent Deleuze and Guattari’s definition of the three main features of ‘minor literature’ – namely ‘the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation’ – are relevant in analyzing literature by authors of Somali origins in Italian. Because of Deleuze and Guattari’s abstract reference to gender and race issues and their vague concern for the geographical, linguistic and cultural specificities of literatures by minor authors, Brioni will argue that ‘minor literature’ should not be seen as a rigid framework to be applied in interpreting a specific case study, although its theoretical flexibility might be useful when investigating a literature that strongly refuse categorization. In particular, Deleuze and Guattari’s reference to ‘minor’ ‘literature as a literature ‘in becoming’ helps to identify the position of Somali Italian literature in a transnational context, proposing some changes in how 'Italian' literature has been conceptualized so far.
This paper is included in the conference proceedings, Between Immigration and Historical Amnesia, the third international symposium of the Diaspore italiane: Italy in Movement conference series.
27-29 June 2019, Galata Museo del Mare, Genova, Italy.
Organized by Mu.MA - Istituzione Musei del Mare e delle Migrazioni, Genova; Co.As.It, Melbourne; John D. Calandra Italian American Institute - Queens College/CUNY, New York
Incontro con Simone Brioni (Stony Brook) e Daniele Comberiati (Paul-Valéry-Montpellier) a cura di Simona Micali e Niccolò Scaffai mercoledì 18 novembre, ore 17.30
L'incontro si svolgerà in modalità telematica tramite la piattaforma GMeet, al link: https://meet.google.com/ofj-pztw-sdr