"Elena Ferrante in a Global Context" International Conference at Durham University, June 7-8, 2019
Elena Ferrante in a Global Context, Durham University, 7-8 June 2019
Confirmed keynote speakers: Prof Laura Benedetti (Georgetown University) and Prof Tiziana De Rogatis (Università per Stranieri di Siena)
The global success of Elena Ferrante’s so-called Neapolitan Novels has firmly established the author as one of the most powerful voices of contemporary World Literature. Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet interweaves an imaginary that is profoundly rooted in Italian – or more specifically Neapolitan - culture with some of the emergent topics and issues of globalisation as her female protagonists negotiate the tensions emerging between local identity and national and transnational belonging. The conference seeks to advance reflections on how Ferrante interrogates a series of margins – for instance relating to gender roles, topography or language – that are of relevance on a global scale. We would welcome a range of scholarly, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches that address some of (but not exclusively) the following topics:
- Elena Ferrante and the Global Novel
- Local identity and national and transnational belonging
- The negotiation of language and place
- The public formation of female destinies
- Liminal cityscapes
- The family novel
- Gendered urban spaces
- Visual/narrative portrayals of the diseased and/or the ageing body
- Female friendship
- Ferrante’s L’amica geniale: from book to TV series
- Elena Ferrante in translation beyond English
- Elena Ferrante in the university curriculum
- Elena Ferrante in public and scholarly debate
Please submit your abstracts (max 250 words) together with a mini-bio to katrin.wehling-giorgi@durham.ac.uk, derogatis@unistrasi.it and smilkova@oberlin.edu by 9 December 2018. Papers can be given in either Italian or English.
Stiliana Milkova, smilkova@oberlin.edu
Katrin Wehling-Giorgi, katrin.wehling-giorgi@durham.ac.uk
Tiziana de Rogatis, derogatis@unistrasi.it