Memory, Trauma, and Calabria in Italian American Literature: A Tribute to Helen Barolini.

The second lecture in a series of three addresses the theoretical question of the relationship between memory and trauma as a crucial background to the representation of Calabria in the narrative by Helen Barolini, with particular attention to her canonical historical novel Umbertina (1979).

Margherita Ganeri is a Full Professor of Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Calabria, where she is also the founding director of the Seminar Italian Diaspora Studies.  She has a wide record of publications, with 10 authored books and more than 50 essays in recognized national and international academic journals. Her research interests focus on Italian and Italian diasporic literature in the 19th and 20th centuries and on related issues of literary criticism and theory. She is on the board of directors of the journal «Moderna», and directs the book series Italian Diaspora Studies for the publisher Rubbettino.  Receiver of two Fulbright fellowships, she was appointed visiting professor at Cambridge University (UK), Stony Brook University (NY, US), Italian School at Middlebury College (VT, US), University of Chicago (IL, US), Karl Ruprecht University of Heidelberg (DE), Seton Hall University (NJ, US), University of Saskatchewan (SK, CA), Fordham University (NY, US) and was an invited speaker and keynote in various conferences in Europe and Australia.

Among her authored books:

Ritagli critici: sulla letteratura Italiana contemporanea (Critical clippings: on Contemporary Italian Literature), Roma, Vertigo, 2023.

Italian America. Epos and Storytelling in Helen Barolini, Fanu (PU) 2015, Mimesis International.

L’Europa in Sicilia. Saggi su Federico De Roberto (Europe in Sicily. Essays on Federico De Roberto), Firenze, 2005, Le Monnier: 110 pages.

Pirandello romanziere (Pirandello The Novelist), Soveria Mannelli (CZ), 2001, Rubbettino: 258 pages.

Il romanzo storico in Italia. Il dibattito critico dalle origini al Postmoderno (The Historical Novel in Italy: the Critical Debate from the Origins to Postmodernism), Lecce, 1999, Manni: 164 pages.

Among her edited volumes:

Italian Diaspora Studies, monographic issue of «Moderna», XXII, 1-2, 2020: 200 pages.

with Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Celebrating Calabria. Writing Heritage and Memory, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli (CZ), 2020: 176 pages.

with Mario Domenichelli, Lukács, monographic issue of the journal «Moderna», XVIII, 1-2, 2016: 272 pages.

Oltre i confini. Gli studi diasporici e il campo italiano/americano (Beyond Borders. Diasporic Studies and Italian/Americana), in «Palinsesti. Quaderni del Dottorato internazionale di Studi Umanistici – Università della Calabria», n. 3, 2015: 21-179.

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This lecture will be livestreamed on the Department's YouTube channel.

All times stated in Eastern time.