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.

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

‘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

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.

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

University of Sydney

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 t-tests 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 self-report 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
Sonita Sarker

Macalester College

Grazia Deledda and Antonio Gramsci: Native and Subaltern in the Italian Nation-State

In the spirit of re-imagining Italian Studies, this paper focuses on Grazia Deledda and Antonio Gramsci through their own conceptual vocabulary, namely ‘native’ and ‘subaltern’ respectively. In viewing Deledda (a literary figure) and Gramsci (a political figure) in terms of their gendered, ethnicised, and political status, I explore how and why their positionalities as Sardinians are crucial to their distinct responses to the modern, post/colonial Italian nation-state.

Italian literary studies have largely produced Deledda as a national symbol and universal woman writer, given her status as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1926) and endorsement by Mussolini.

Italian political studies have largely produced Gramsci as analyst of national conditions and universal political theorist, persecuted by Mussolini.

This paper takes a turn in reading Deledda and Gramsci, both Sardinians, as producing distinctly different negotiations of their own localised cultural identities with an Italian nation-state that seeks to define them in hegemonic terms. Their locations within and their particular struggles with a national modernity that is both colonial and capitalist in nature, I argue, have to be taken into account if we would like to re-imagine Grazia Deledda and Antonio Gramsci as relevant to 21st century Italian Studies. The analysis will focus on Deledda and Gramsci’s works in the 1920s and 1930s—The Prison Notebooks (Gramsci), and La Fuga in Egitto, Cosima, Il Cedro del Libano (Deledda).

In this proposal, I analyse Deledda and Gramsci at the intersection of 21st century gender, political, and cultural studies; while the scholarship on both figures is vast, this proposal marks a re-imagination of Italian Studies in a) juxtaposing them in the same frames, b) bringing literary and political work in more direct encounter, and c) conducting a deeper exploration into the relevance of contemporary notions of gender and ethnicity to Italian cultural formations.

Keywords: native, subaltern, Deledda, Gramsci, colonialism, capitalism, gender, ethnicity, Sardinia.

Susanna Scarparo and Bernadette Luciano

Monash University and University of Auckland

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.

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

University of Adelaide

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.

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

University of Western Australia

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 non-native 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 follow-up 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.

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.

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.

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

La Trobe University

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 Anti-Mafia 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

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.