(Trans)National Identities – Reimagining Communities, CISR/NASSR conference, Bologna, March 12-15, 2008
Guest Post: Lilla Maria Crisafulli (Director, The Interdisciplinary Centre for Romantic Studies) and Diego Saglia (University of Parma)
If today’s world is one in which boundaries and identities are in constant flux, a crucial phase in the cultural and historical definition of this contemporary phenomenon was the Romantic period that was the specific area of investigation of the international conference “(Trans)National Identities – Reimagining Communities”, jointly organized by the Centro Interdisciplinare di Studi Romantici (CISR) of the Università di Bologna and the North American Association for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR). Over 250 Romanticists from all over the world met in Bologna from 12 to 15 March to discuss central Romantic-period issues such as identity-formation, the development of national cultures, the relevance of cosmopolitan and international ideas, the possibility of transnational aesthetics, and a wealth of intercultural exchanges and influences.
Bologna hosts the oldest University in Europe, and has been for centuries the core of cultural and ideological exchanges. The conference on trans-national identities is emblematic of Bologna’s status as a cultural and international centre. During the past few years the Centro Interdisciplinare di Studi Romantici, directed by Lilla Maria Crisafulli, has had an important role in this process of internationalization of the University of Bologna, promoting a number of international conferences, and establishing partnerships with many international centers and universities. From 1993, the year in which the Centre was set up, it promoted extensive cultural activities aimed at investigating the culture of the Romantic period through an interdisciplinary outlook. This approach contributed to making the CISR a centre of excellence and a pole of attraction for scholars researching different literatures and disciplines.
The theme of the conference is contextualized within nineteenth-century culture, yet it sounds extremely contemporary. Migrations, cultural exchanges and conflicts, religious clashes, and globalization are all themes present and extremely relevant to our society and which we confront on a daily basis. Yet the times have changed: nowadays intercultural relations are heightened by the many different forms of media, from press and television, to the more pervasive web technology, and better means of transport. During Romanticism communication was evidently more limited, yet it was an era of intense upheaval, global migrations, revolution, and also idealism: an era in which the concepts of nation and community, and the nationalities of knowledge and art, were constantly being called into question and reinvented.
The first day of the conference was dedicated to the pre-conference “An Italian in London: The Italian Presence on the British Stage from the Renaissance to Romanticism”. The pre-conference focused on a particular area of the conference topic of “Trans-national identities”, namely the “migration” of Italian performers, authors, characters, and plays towards the British theatre from the 16th to the 19th century. The Italian presence on the London stage - in the form of translations of Italian drama, or the inclusion in English-language plays of Italian characters, or performances by Italian companies and individual actors - was a highly influential factor in the development of both dramatic and performative modes in Britain. Likewise, the “importing” of specifically Italian dramatic genres, such as pastoral and tragicomedy, and Italian theatrical forms, such as Commedia dell’arte and opera, had an incalculable impact on British culture both within and outside the theatre. The pre-conference was organized within the National Research Project headed and coordinated by Keir Elam of the Università di Bologna. During this first day, Italian and British scholars brought into focus a variety of manifestations of the presence of Italian performers and texts in the development of British drama and stagecraft from the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century, with, among others, presentations of new research on Guarini’s influence on English Renaissance tragicomedy (Vittoria Intonti, Bari), Italian opera in eighteenth-century London (Giuseppe Galigani, Firenze), Joseph Grimaldi’s harlequinades (Jane Moody, York) and Gustavo Modena’s English career (Nicholas Havely, York).
After the closing of the pre-conference, the official inauguration of the joint CISR and NASSR conference followed, with greetings from several authorities (the Rector of the Università di Bologna, the Dean of the Faculty of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, the Mayor of Bologna), the Director of CISR (Lilla Maria Crisafulli), the President of NASSR (Tilottama Rajan), the Head of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures (Keir Elam) and Diego Saglia of the Università di Parma. Greg Kucich was not present at the opening, even though his support for the organization of the conference was invaluable. Accompanied by the songs of the Choir of the Università di Bologna, the official opening then led into the keynote address given by Stuart Curran (Pennsylvania) who, with his distinctive ability to interconnect different Romantic traditions, talked about “Romanticism Displaced and Placeless” and thus invited everyone to reflect on the fact that displacement is an abiding norm of Romantic-period culture. This magisterial introduction to the spirit of the conference was then followed by a welcome party allowing delegates to mingle and socialize.
The first full day of the conference comprised an opening series of special sessions and panels, which included ‘Globalizing Romanticism’ (organized by Jeffrey Cox, Colorado), ‘Transnational Charlotte Smith’ (organized by Jacqueline Labbe, Warwick), ‘Artist Communities in Italy’ (organized by Frederick Burwick, UCLA), ‘The Cultures of Risorgimento’ (organized by Fiorenza Tarozzi, Bologna), ‘British Romantic Poets Imagining Venice’ (organized by Janet Todd, Aberdeen), ‘Historiography’ (organized by Barnaba Maj, Bologna), ‘Staging History’ (chaired by Jane Moody, York), ‘Imagined Communities of Women Intellectuals’ (organized by Gina Luria Walker, New School University, NY), ‘Cross-Channel Romantic Exchanges’ (organized by Angela Wright, Sheffield), and ‘Transnational Exchanges between Britain, Italy and Russia’ (chaired by Gabriella Imposti of the Università di Bologna).
The panels and sessions of the third day further examined many of the themes and issues presented on the previous day, and delegates could choose from a wide variety of sessions on philosophy, politics and aesthetics such as ‘Symbolic Borders, Imagined Communities’ (organized by Elena Spandri, Siena/Arezzo, and Maurizio Ascari, Bologna), ‘Translating Between Genres/Translating between Nations’ (organized by Claudia Corti, Firenze), ‘Philosophy and Literature: Communities of Concept and Communities of Imagination’ (organized by Simon Haines, ANU), or ‘Poetic and Artistic Exchanges’ (chaired by Susan Wolfson, Princeton). Also on offer was a wide variety of panels on specific themes such as the two on ‘Jane Austen’s Englishness’ (organized by Beatrice Battaglia, Bologna), ‘Transnational Things’ (organized by Jill Heydt-Stevenson, Colorado), ‘Transnational Byron’ (chaired by Greg Kucich) or ‘Cosmopolitan Enlightenment and Cosmopolitan Romanticism’ (convened by Giulia Cantarutti, Bologna).
Finally, the closing day proved just as rich as the first two in terms of the variety of sessions and panels, including the second on ‘Editing Romantic Texts in a Globalized World’, convened by Carlo Bajetta (Aosta), ‘Spain in the Romantic Imagination’ (Beatriz Gonzalez-Moreno, Castilla-La Mancha), ‘Transnational Exchanges: Britain and Italy’ (chaired by Lia Guerra, Pavia), ‘Art Objects, Identities and Communities’ (chaired by Giuliana Ferreccio, Turin) and ‘Re-constructing National Identities’ (chaired by Patrick Vincent, Neuchatel).
Obviously, it would be impossible to give an exhaustive idea of the entire academic and cultural programme of this event (available for consultation here: www2.lingue.unibo.it/romanticism/nassr). Here we may simply mention that sessions and panels naturally organized themselves in clusters around such fundamental topics as otherness and exoticism; gendered identities and communities; nationalism and imperialism; communities in historiographic, philosophical and political discourse; and transnational aesthetics and interdisciplinary intersections. Delegates interpreted the conference’s topic with a truly astonishing wealth of approaches, and, in keeping with the spirit of the event, their papers did not merely concentrate on British and American literature, but also considered Continental cultures (particularly Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Poland and Spain), the mechanisms of trans-Atlantic exchanges, and a variety of farther-flung cultural spaces, most visibly the Orient and the Pacific. This multiplicity of materials and critical methodologies representing some of the most exciting new developments in Romantic-period studies was mirrored by the presence of delegates coming from various parts of the world, including countries such as Australia, Israel, Malaysia and Korea. Over the four days of the conference, the atmosphere was invariably relaxed and friendly, and delegates enjoyed the splendid spring weather and the many beautiful venues in the historic city centre of Bologna where conference events had been scheduled.
Following the tradition of the CISR collaborating with local artistic institutions, a number of cultural events were organized during the conference. A plaque with an epigraph by Giosuè Carducci written in memory of Byron’s residence in Bologna, was installed in Via Ugo Bassi, at the very heart of Bologna, to inaugurate the opening of the conference. At the end of the second day delegates took part in a guided tour of the Municipal Art Collection in Palazzo Comunale, and later attended a concert by the jazz group ‘Les Six’ with music by Eric Satie, Francis Poulhenc and Germain Tailleferre, among others. Early in the evening of the third day delegates were treated to a specially designed tour of the National Art Gallery of Bologna, which also featured a dramatized presentation of Raphael’s ‘Santa Cecilia’, one of the highlights of the art gallery, in which Romantic-period reactions to the great painting were read by the actor Stefano Pesce and other actors, under the supervision of director Laura Falqui. This was followed by a second concert by ‘Les Six’ later in the evening. During the days of the conference, the CISR in partnership with the Pinacoteca di Bologna organized a film festival on the romantic heroine. The conference closed with a magnificent banquet held in the stately rooms of the ‘piano nobile’ of Palazzo Pepoli-Campogrande in the historic heart of Bologna, with additional entertainment inspired by the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte and directed by Laura Falqui.
An outstanding event from the point of view of the intellectual critical mass it managed to concentrate, this conference represents a success for NASSR in its attempt to establish solid links with European associations and centres of Romantic studies, and has conclusively confirmed that the CISR of the Università di Bologna is the essential point of reference for high-profile Romantic-period scholarship both in Italy and internationally.
The conference was an event of primary cultural relevance and, as such, received the sponsorship and support of the Università di Bologna, the Emilia Romagna Region, the Province of Bologna, the Cineteca of Bologna, the Bologna City Council, the National Art Gallery in Bologna, Bononia University Press, The Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna Trust, The University of Notre Dame (Indiana) and the Università di Parma.
Tags: CISR
