Introduction

Postcolonial studies under erasure: The politics of the transnational in Italian studies

“…The Italian postcolonial was never articulated to delineate a field of studies limited to the borders of Italy. On the contrary, defined as a condition that ‘exceeds national borders,’ ‘the postcolonial perspective emphasizes a transnational spatial continuity, in that it reinforces the idea of diasporic communities in Europe and around the world which share the common experience of colonization’ (Lombardi-Diop and Romeo, 2012: 2–3). By studying emigration, the Southern Question, and immigration as phenomena closely intertwined with the postcolonial condition, Italian postcolonial studies deliberately connect the Italian South, the Americas, the Italian migration settlements across the Mediterranean, the ex-colonies in Libya, the Aegean and the Horn of Africa under one critical lens, recognizing the communal colonial matrix of these locations in the makings of Italian nationalism and imperial mentality.…”

“…I contend that these two critical perspectives, while they have been theorized by a great variety of scholars in Italy and across continental Europe, the UK, Canada, Australia, and the United States, have not reached an equal status as legitimate fields within Italian studies. While a transnational approach to Italian literary criticism has gained tremendous currency, especially in the UK and now in the United States, the postcolonial, as a field of studies within italianistica , remains rather invisible, especially, but not only, in Italian academia (Lombardi-Diop and Romeo, 2012; Mellino 2021). There are many points of convergence between these two approaches, yet I want to emphasize the imbalance of power in the dissemination of knowledge and institutional visibility of these two critical methods, an imbalance that is not simply epistemic, but involves a disparity in the allocation of institutional resources and money, in the existence of publishing venues, and in the creation of scholarships and of academic positions.…”

Reimagining the national map

“…In fact, moving the focus from the territorial boundaries of Italy, Melilli traces present and past migratory routes across the Mediterranean Sea, confronting contemporary migrant sea-crossings with the trajectories that involved her grandfather’s family, encouraged to resettle, under fascism, from Italy to the colony of Tripoli, in Libya (Figure 3). Casting new light on the ‘elsewhere’ nation, Melilli also considers the longstanding silence surrounding individual and collective histories of colonial migration affecting Italy, ‘a national paradigm rarely understood within a postcolonial framework’ (Lombardi-Diop and Romero, 2012: 1).…”

“…While Italian-African rhyzome reveals the particular dynamics of an Italian family living in a former colony of the fascist empire, and then forced to leave in 1969, after the Ghaddafi coup d’état , cultural hybridisations and disturbances of national memory through postcolonial counternarratives have been mainly undertaken in Italy by female migrant writers, whose narratological work has been foremost reliant upon geographical metaphors and evocative maps (see Lombardi-Diop and Romero, 2012; Parati, 2017; Ponzanesi, 2004; however, for an international perspective on literary postcolonialism and mapping, see Howard, 2010; Huggan, 1989; Ponzanesi and Merolla, 2005). For instance, Igiaba Scego’s novel, La mia casa è dove sono (tr.…”

Casting Sound: Modality and Poetics in Gabriella Ghermandi's "Regina di fiori e di perle"

“…2 Cfr. in particular LOMBARDI-DIOP 2011 andCLÒ 2010. 3 For a discussion of Ghermandi's musical performances involving her other written texts «A Song for Mamma Heaven» (Un canto per Mamma Heaven) and «In the Shadow of the Shameless Branches Laden with Bright Red Flowers» (All'ombra dei rami sfacciati carichi di fiori rosso vermiglio) as well as an analysis of her musical Atse Tewodros Project (2013), cfr.…”