ANDY CROFT, N. S. THOMPSON (Eds.), A Modern Don Juan

Italian Studies, 2024

This article examines Giulia Caminito's novel La grande A (2016) to show how descriptions of colonial subjects and spaces rely on stereotypes and exoticisations derived from colonial discourse. By analysing formal aspects and the intertextual relationship with Mario Tobino's Il deserto della Libia (1952), the article underscores continuity in terms of modes of representation between La grande A and its main sourcetext, suggesting a lack of interactions or connections with the transnational African/Italian authors who have confronted the legacy of Italy's colonial past. In a mainly white European figurative framework, the novel marginalises and forecloses Black/African subjects while, at the same time, providing readers with orientalist descriptions of the former colonies. Although the novel addresses a frequently overlooked topic in Italian literature, namely colonialism and women's experiences in the overseas territories, it also problematically reproduces stereotypes about Africa/Africans rather than effectively exposing and debunking them.

Italian Studies, 2018

Galatina: Congedo, 2005. Pp. 187.

Italian Studies in Southern Africa/Studi d’Italianistica nell’Africa Australe, 2009

The discussion of Italian literature and culture within Italian Studies has been for a long time restricted to the geographical boundaries of Italy itself. The last decades have shown, however, an opening towards a broader vision, especially in the context of theoretical approaches such as Postcolonialism, Cultural Translation, and TransArea Studies.Analogous to Francophone and Hispanophone Studies, Italian Studies has begun to also focus on the so-called ‘guest worker’ and Migration literature, a genre which includes not only the literature of authors who migrated to Italy, but also ‘Italian’ literature originating in countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Strikingly, up until now, literature and media originating in the Italo-American context have been studied much more frequently in other fields of research, such as American and Canadian Studies, than in (European) Italian Studies. This edition of Lettere aperte’s 2nd edition will for that reason be dedicated to Italo-American Culture.

"Ulisse in Sicilia. I luoghi del mito". Catalogo della mostra (Gela, 22 luglio - 10 ottobre 2022), a cura di R. Panvini, Palermo, Regione Siciliana - Assessorato dei Beni culturali e dell'identità siciliana, 2022

in VeneziAltrove, vol. 3, p. 78-89, VENEZIA: MARSILIO EDITORI, ISBN/ISSN: 978-8831786027