Tracing a Roadmap of Italian Feminism: Experiences of Solidarity Amongst Women in the Italian Bildungsroman

SIS Postgraduate Symposium 2026, Oxford

Keynote Speaker: Dr Olivia Santovetti (University of Leeds)

In From Margins to Mainstream (1993), Carol Lazzaro-Weis argues that the relevancy of the Bildungsroman to current feminist critical debates and writing lies in the fact that the form has always exposed the tensions, contradictions, and difficulties inherent to linking representations of subjectivity to criticism of social and political structures (1993, p. 98).
Authors such as Goliarda Sapienza, Fausta Cialente, and Alba de Céspedes among others have written novels that may be placed within the ‘romanzo di formazione’ genre. Such works feature female protagonists and challenge expectations for the coming-of-age trope, one which is traditionally associated with male protagonists. Destabilising the readers’ understanding of conventional ideas of heroism and anti-heroism, the authors cited above imagine uncomfortable, even scandalous literary heroines whose natures challenge established notions of morality, aspirational models, and unsettle the traditional linearity of the so-called ‘hero’s quest’. Scandalously murderous, avid, ambiguous and even sexually disinhibited, characters such as Goliarda Sapienza’s Modesta in L’arte della gioia (1994), appropriate the space of the Bildungsroman and challenge its male-centred, allegedly heroic tropes.

This conference aims to reconstruct a genealogy of (anachronistically) feminist Bildungsroman in modern and contemporary Italian literature. We invite proposals on novels that investigate questions such as:

  • Notions of heroism and anti-heroism and how they shift when embodied by female protagonists
  • The link between women’s voices and plurality as opposed to the individualism of a single male character’s voice
  • Forms of feminist sisterhood, even if ante litteram
  • The role of separatism in fostering women’s empowerment
  • Ways of re-thinking kinship through women-only friendships
  • How tracing feminist genealogies shapes the re-thinking of traditional relationship models
We welcome proposals from master’s and PhD students in Italian Studies and related disciplines such as comparative literature, gender studies and cultural studies. Six small grants (£100 each) will be awarded to students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to travel to Oxford.

Those interested in presenting a paper, should send a 250-word abstract and a 100-word biographical note to both Silvia Cercarelli and Esme Hodson at sil_cerca@outlook.it and esmeh33@btinternet.com by September 5, 2026.
Papers should not exceed 15 minutes in length. The preferred language is English, but Italian is also accepted.
The conference will take place in person in Oxford, at the Taylor Institution Library, on December 7, 2026.
Submission is open only to registered SIS members who have paid the membership fee. Please note that PG students can become members of the Society at a reduced cost.
Contributors may be invited to submit an article based on the papers presented at the Colloquium to the peer-reviewed journal Notes on Italian Studies.

Timeline
Abstract deadline: September 5, 2026
Notification of acceptance: October 5, 2026
Date of Colloquium: December 7, 2026
Publication of a selection of articles in Notes on Italian Studies: 2027