Dr. Teresa Fiore, Associate Professor of Italian and Inserra Endowed Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, contributed to the latest issue of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies (23:4, 2018 – Taylor and Francis/Routledge group) in two capacities: as author of an article and co-editor of a special section of the journal, with Dr. Ernest Ialongo. The result of a 2017 program held at Columbia University and Montclair State University, both the article and the section focus on the migrant “crisis” with specific reference to the case of Italy in the Euro-Mediterranean area, and challenge the fear-producing notion of “crisis” as unproductively used in political and media discourses.
The article, titled “From Crisis to Creation: The Early 21st Century Mediterranean Crossing on Stage and Screen in Works by Teatro delle Albe and Andrea Segre” (pp. 522-42) offers a textual and socio-political reading of the migrant voyages as represented in film and theater, and argues for a reversal of the by now stagnant concept of “crisis” in the direction of an active denunciation via the perspective of the migrants themselves. The article analyzes two works – the film Like the Weight of Water by Segre and the play Noise in the Waters by the Albe Theater – that were presented on the Montclair University campus over the past few years.
Dr. Fiore, along with Dr. Ialongo (Associate Prof. of History, Hostos CC, CUNY), is also the co-editor of the journal’s special section titled “Italy and the Euro-Mediterranean ‘Migrant Crisis’: National Reception, Lived Experiences, E.U. Pressures” (pp. 489-542). Designed to place Italy at the center of the debate about migration in the Mediterranean, the section is a response to a public debate increasingly prone to alarmism: its aim is to question the exclusionary practices adopted in Italy and Europe in favor of structured legal channels, and to reveal the growing crisis of E.U. democratic principles. The section includes, beside Dr. Fiore’s article, two other articles, respectively by Dr. Giuseppe Campesi of the University of Bari, Italy (“Between Containment, Confinement and Dispersal: The Evolution of the Italian Reception System Before and After the ‘Refugee Crisis’”) and Dr. Enrica Rigo of the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy (“Migration, Knowledge Production and the Humanitarian Agenda in Times of Crisis”). Dr. Fiore and Dr. Ialongo also co-wrote the Introduction to the section (pp. 481-89). This special section was selected by Taylor and Francis for inclusion in a December 2018 campaign about migration-focused scholarship.
The journal’s section Dr. Fiore and Dr. Ialongo co-authored is the result of a co-sponsored program (panel of experts and film screening followed by Q&A with director Andrea Segre) they co-organized in April 2017. The two-day program at Columbia University and Montclair State University was also titled “Italy and the Euro-Mediterranean ‘Migrant Crisis’: National Reception, Lived Experiences, E.U. Pressures” and embraced scholars and artists (see VIDEO).
Overall, the program and publication combined constitute an example of how academic and cultural programming is an opportunity to enrich the experience of students, faculty, staff, and the community at large, while simultaneously fostering and solidifying the research agendas of the faculty involved in the design and implementation of these programs. An instance of fruitful collaboration across institutions that served a vast audience on both sides of the Hudson River in the NY metropolitan area, the overall project also included a teaching and applied learning component, which Fiore’s article duly registers: students at MSU developed the surtitles for Segre’s film Like the Weight of Water, one of the numerous audiovisual projects supervised by Dr. Marisa Trubiano (Associate Professor of Italian at MSU). Ultimately, this project broadens the notion of teacher-scholar to encompass a role with a tangible impact on several communities engaged in contemporary issues linked to Italy as well as the globalized world at large.
