U of A Italian Program to Host Annual Italian American Studies Association Conference

University of Arkansas

The Italian Program of the U of A will be hosting the 2023 Italian American Studies Association annual conference. The keynote speaker will be Jack Halberstam of Columbia University. We encourage all faculty and graduate students to consider submitting a proposal. 

Call for Papers

• Rereading the Italian Diaspora Across Time, Place and Space
• Intersections and Explorations of Queer & Other Identities

Date: Oct. 26-28

Where: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

• Graduate Hotel

Submission Deadline: April 15

• Submit a proposal

Considering Antonio Gramsci, Gayatri C. Spivak and other post-colonial critics' theories on the subaltern, this year's Italian American Studies Association's conference theme explores Italian Americana and "otherness" in its many manifestations. The 2023 conference aims to highlight underrepresented aspects of Italian Americana: from gender and sexuality to rural Italian Americana and migration, as well as Italian Americans and labor that stem from the numerous branches of subaltern studies. One current thread investigates LGBTQIA+ representations in Italian Americana and the Italian diaspora.

While Italian-American texts have, in many ways, celebrated queer voices for several decades, LGBTQIA+ Italian migrants around the globe still face serious challenges, ranging from overt and covert forms of bias and discrimination to a lack of family and broader community acceptance.

As Licia Canton writes, "Italian Canadians have traditionally been hesitant to openly identify as queer…being queer is still taboo" (2021, 11). Queer Italian Americans have expressed similar sentiments and explored related themes through varied modes of cultural production, including poetry, drama, essays, novels, historical accounts and more. While a wealth of queer Italian-American writing exists, it has yet to be given a place of scholarly prominence in our field. Furthermore, in recent decades, the Italian-American community has discussed queerness predominantly in the form of the binary: gay and lesbian, while scholars outside the US have shifted the discourse to something more open, diverse and inclusive.

Suggested topics and themes include, but are not limited to:

• Creative writing and artistic production
• Gendering the bildungsroman & Italian American stories across cultures, nations and diasporas
• Representations of LGBTQ+ Italian Americans via media (film, television, commercials, social media)
• Italian vs. Sicilian (or other regional) sexualities
• Masculinity and femininity
• Concepts of motherhood, fatherhood e/o the new Italian American family
• Hyper-masculinity e/o homosociality in Italian Americana
• HIV/AIDS in Italian Americana
• Sex-gender-ethnic performativity
• Vito Russo and ethnic activism (The Celluloid Closet, 1987), the documentary film VITO: The Life of Gay Rights Activist Vito Russo (2011)
• Italian/queer theorists (Miele, Pasolini, Bellezza, Buffoni, Penna)
• Transgender + ethnic identities
• Comparative approaches to "othering" and "otherness" in and among queer ethnic communities
• Rewriting and queering history
• Challenges to the binary: non-binary, extra-binary (Roof), etc., in Italian Americana and the Italian diaspora
• Gendering, as a verb in Italian Americana (Roof)
• Intersectionality (from Kimberlé Crenshaw to today) and power
• Ethnic/gender/sexual identities in the age of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging labor/class issues
• Italian Americans and space (city vs. rural, neighborhoods, road trips, moving)

Hosted in Arkansas, a second conference topic examines the significance of Italian migration to the South and Southwest, emphasizing the Italian migration to rural and under-studied areas. 2023 marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Tontitown (1898), a neighbor to the U of A, and the 30th anniversary of U of A's University Professor Jeannie Whayne's foundational Shadows Over Sunnyside: An Arkansas Plantation in Transition, 1830-1945. Additionally, we promote comparative studies of migratory experiences in the Southern US.

Some additional themes include:

• Southern othernesses
• The intersection of Southern & queer identities
• Italian newspapers in the South and Southwest
• Rural Italian Americana, including labor and foodways
• Interactions of Italian migrants and other ethnic groups, including Indigenous people
• Education in Italian Americana of the South and Southwest
• Festivals in the South and Southwest (St. Joseph Day tables, Grape Festival, Polenta Festival)

Beyond our suggestions, we welcome abstracts concerning all aspects of Italian-American and Italian diaspora studies and presentations on creative work and translation.

We welcome individual papers and completed sessions. Submit a proposal.