IT331 TRANSNATIONAL STORIES IN ITALY
Jo Lee/Jenny Burns
Programme, autumn 2015
The module aims to enhance students’ understanding of how mobility and
immigration have shaped identities in Italy in recent decades. Students will develop
a detailed knowledge of Italy’s history as a former colonial power and explore the
impact of postcoloniality on national cultures. These questions will be explored in
relation to Italy’s identity as a destination country in global migratory flows through
an analysis of four contemporary novels. The topics discussed will include the
impact of displacement on subjectivity; the problematic notion of home; the memory
of Italy’s colonial past; and motherhood and migration. The analysis of the texts will
be informed by theories of personal, cultural, and national identity construction and
students will develop an awareness of how terms such as the transnational, the
postcolonial, hybridity and multiculturalism can be applied to the Italian case.
Teaching: The course is taught in one two-hour session (Monday 10am-12pm),
consisting of a combination of tutor presentation, student presentation and seminar
discussion. There will be a revision and consolidation seminar in the summer term
for those taking the exam for this module.
Assessment:
EITHER one essay of 4000-4500 words, to be submitted Monday 11th January
2016
OR one essay of 2000-2500 words, to be submitted Monday 11th January 2016 plus
one one-hour exam in the summer.
Core primary texts:
Mario Fortunato & Salah Methnani, Immigrato, 3rd edn (Milan: Bompiani, 2006)
Amara Lakhous, Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi (Rome: e/o, 2010)
Gabriella Ghermandi, Regina di fiori e di perle (Rome: Donzelli, 2011)
Cristina Ali Farah, Madre piccola (Milan: Frassinelli, 2007)
Programme:
Introduction (JB & JL, week 2):
 Histories of Italian mobility and migration
 Migration and postcolonial literature in Italy
 Theoretical frameworks and terms: what is the transnational?
Section 1. Migration stories (JB, weeks 3-5):
Week 3: Intercultural performances of identity. Fortunato and Methnani, Immigrato.
Week 4: Questions of voice, authorship and translation. Fortunato and Methnani,
Immigrato; Lakhous, Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi.
Week 5: Constructing the (trans)national, male/female subject; Islam in Italy.
Lakhous, Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi.
Week 6: Reading week
Jennifer Burns, H4.11, j.e.burns@warwick.ac.uk
Joanne Lee, H4.16, jo.lee@warwick.ac.uk
IT331 TRANSNATIONAL STORIES IN ITALY
Jo Lee/Jenny Burns
Section 2. Postcolonial stories (JL, weeks 7-10)
Week 7: ‘Talking back’, the history and legacy of Italian colonialism. Ghermandi’s
Regina di fiori e di perle
Week 8: Transnational identities. Ghermandi’s Regina di fiori e di perle
Week 9: Hybridity and biracial identities. Questions of language and plurilingualism.
Cristina Ali Farah, Madre piccola.
Week 10: Gender and migration, Cristina Ali Farah, Madre piccolo. Conclusions
Select secondary bibliography
Andall, Jacqueline and Derek Duncan, eds., Italian Colonialism: Legacy and Memory
(Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 2005)
Bond, Emma, ‘Towards a Trans-National Turn in Italian Studies?’, Italian Studies,
69.3 (November 2014), 415-24
Burns, Jennifer, Migrant Imaginaries (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013)
Burns, Jennifer, and Loredana Polezzi, eds., Borderlines: migrazioni e identità nel
novecento (Isernia: Cosmo Iannone, 2003)
Jay, Paul, Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies (Ithaca, NY and
London: Cornell University Press, 2010)
Parati, Graziella, Migration Italy: The Art of Talking Back in a Destination Culture
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005)
Ponzanesi, Sandra, Paradoxes of Postcolonial Culture: Contemporary Women Writers
of the Indian and Afro-Italian Diaspora (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2004) –
Grillo, Ralph and Jeff Pratt, eds., The Politics of Recognizing Difference:
Multiculturalism Italian-style (Ashgate 2002)
Comberiati, Daniele, Scrivere nella lingua dell’altro: La letteratura degli immigrati in
Italia (1989-2007), (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2010),
Lombardi-Diop, Cristina and Caterina Romeo (eds), Postcolonial Italy: Challenging
National Homogeneity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)
Vertovec, Steven, Transnationalism (London and New York: Routledge, 2009)
Jennifer Burns, H4.11, j.e.burns@warwick.ac.uk
Joanne Lee, H4.16, jo.lee@warwick.ac.uk