The Campus Language School is pleased to host the 3rd IASA International Symposium in Italy, which will be held in Lucca at Fondazione Campus in May 2021.
The Italian American Studies Association (IASA) is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the culture, history, literature, sociology, psychology, demography, folklore and politics of Italians in America. Since it was founded, IASA has driven forward this objective by publishing over 30 volumes of the papers presented at their annual meetings.
L’American Association Teachers of Italian (AATI) è un’associazione alla quale aderiscono i docenti di lingua italiana delle università e delle scuole di ogni ordine e grado di tutto il mondo e ha lo scopo di Promuovere, diffondere e tutelare la lingua e la cultura italiana.
This symposium is dedicated to the theme of Diaspora: “Italians: one Diaspora, many Diasporas. Manifestations and Dynamics of Cultural Change”.
The dispersion of communities of people physically displaced from their perceived ‘homeland’ has been a defining feature of the human experience. Commonly referred to as Diasporas, these groups have travelled to other lands for reasons including to escape persecution, seek a better life, and exploit economic opportunities. Some have defined Diaspora in terms of what it is not – not from “here,” not “at home,” not “rooted.” This approach is consistent with the way modern–that is, privileged–subjectivity is primed to understand identity in terms of how it differs from an ‘Other.’ Theorization on cultural exchange has moved from Marie Louise Pratt’s “contact zone” (1992), mainly understood spatially, to Homi Bhabha’s “third space” (1994) where the meeting between two cultures takes place. More recently, Doreen Massey (2005) conceives spaces as the site of a continuously developing intersection of different trajectories, human and non-human, which is “open, multiple and relational, unfinished and always becoming.”
This symposium aims to consider how members of displaced groups relate to identity markers such as race, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, and other socio-cultural categories, having regard to the impact of globalization, connectivity, and mobility. If the language of difference, binary categories of here/there, and other features of customary understandings of diaspora are no longer appropriate, then scholars need new approaches for conceptualizing, theorizing, representing, and interacting with Diasporas.
Click here to submit proposals for the symposium.