Borders, Captivity and Memory in Transnational Italy and the Mediterranean (Virtual Symposium March 18 and April 8, 2022)

Join us for the two-part virtual symposium Borders, Captivity and Memory in Transnational Italy and the Mediterranean.

This two-day virtual symposium explores the relationship between borders, captivity, and memory, and how it shapes the racialization of migration and the construction of national identity. Given Italy’s porous position as a Southern European nation with complex histories of internal migration, emigration, and immigration, Italy and the Mediterranean region are critical contexts for understanding how processes of migration, racialization, and transcultural mediation have shaped public and cultural discourse about identity and belonging from nineteenth century emigration and colonialism, to today’s arrivals via the Mediterranean Sea. This symposium brings together scholars, writers, practitioners, activists, and students working in multiple fields and historical periods to explore questions of migration, incarceration, race, and memory in Italy and the Mediterranean in a transnational and transhistorical perspective.

Part 1: “Racial Justice and the Black Mediterranean” – Friday, March 18, 2022 (9:45am-4:15pm EST)
Part 2: “Language, Identity and Representation in Transnational Italy” – Friday April 8, 2022 (9:45am-4:15pm EST)

For more information and registration, see dedicated webpage.

Co-organized by Elena Bellina (University of Rochester) and Eleanor Paynter (Cornell University) through the Central New York Humanities Corridor (LLC35). Co-sponsored by the Montclair State University’s Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies; the AAIS Critical Race Studies Caucus; Cornell University’s Migrations initiative, Einaudi Center for International Studies, Institute for European Studies and Department of Romance Studies; the University of Rochester’s Humanities Center and the Department of Humanities in the Eastman School of Music.