The Society of Italian Studies

Annual General Meeting 2021
2021-01-16 13:30 - 16:00 (Europe/London)
The Society for Italian Studies is very pleased to invite you to the next Annual General Meeting, which will take place online on Saturday 16th January at 1:30pm, until around 4pm. The AGM will take 45 minutes and, after a short break, we will then move on to the afternoon discussion. As always, the meeting is an important opportunity for the Italian Studies community to discuss the major issues that are affecting our discipline. So this year our afternoon session will be devoted to addressing issues of equality, diversity and inclusion in Italian Studies.
To join the meeting, please use the following link and/or credentials:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83793076505?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 837 9307 6505
Passcode: [REDACTED]

«L 'ombra sua torna» Dante, il Novecento e oltre
2021-04-19 - 2021-04-21
The Departamento de Estudios Románicos, Franceses, Italianos y Traducción of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, together with the Universitat de Barcelona, the University of Leeds, and the University of Oxford, is happy to announce the forthcoming International Conference on Dante and the literary and artistic culture of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The event will take place on 19-21 of April 2021 online. You can follow it on youtube.
The programme is very rich and will feature the following lectiones magistralis:

Aurora Conde Muñoz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Divina Ficción
Lino Pertile (Harvard University) Dante, Primo Levi e il Fascismo
Marco Antonio Bazzocchi (Università di Bologna) Corpo, luce, ombra: declinazione di “figura” nella Commedia
Eduard Vilella Morató (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Deranged Paths: presenze fuori campo di Dante nel cinema
Jacob Blakesley (University of Leeds) Mapping Dante: the worldwide reception of Dante’s Commedia
Daniela Caselli (University of Manchester) Modernist Dante, but not as we know it

Translation as Position-Taking in the Literary Field
2021-04-22 - 2021-04-24 | Online
Translation as Position-Taking in the Literary Field. Agents and institutions of translated literature in Italy and of Italian literature abroad (20th and 21st Century)
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The aim of the conference is to foster critical discussion on translated literature as part of the target literature, by focusing on literary institutions (publishing houses, book series, journals) and agents (translators, literary agents, editors), and the composite sociocultural factors driving the selection, production, and publication of literary translations. “Calling into question the politics of canonisation and moving resolutely away from ideas of universal literary greatness”(Bassnett and Trivedi 1999), we are particularly interested in social categories of writers who have been dismissed by literary critics who insisted on “the autonomy of the aesthetic” (Bloom 1994); in other words, writers who challenge the ‘Western canon’.
The conference aims to explore the mechanisms of reception, dissemination, recognition and popularisation in the Italian literary system of foreign literature. This will include literature by women authors in translation, by feminist translators, authors from non-hegemonic/non-central languages, non-white, minoritarian and marginalised authors/groups and collectives. We are also interested in similar mechanisms by which Italian literature is translated and received beyond Italy.
Keynote lectures will be delivered by Cecilia Schwartz (Stockholm University, Sweden), Jacob Blakesley (University of Leeds, UK), and Susan Bassnett (University of Glasgow/University of Warwick, UK). Full programme is available here

SIS Workshop for Early Career Academics
2021-06-24 - 2021-06-25
Italian Studies: Theory and Practice

The Department of Italian at University College Cork and The Society for Italian Studies are delighted to host a two-day online Workshop for Early Career Academics (ECAs), which will address Methodologies and Theoretical Approaches within the Humanities and their application to the study of Italian language and culture. The event will also host two professional development sessions, which are designed to enhance the professionalisation of Early Career Academics.
The workshop is structured around four dedicated sections, each one of which will comprise a panel of ECA speakers in dialogue with a keynote speaker:
1) Digital Humanities
Keynote: Prof. Massimo Riva, Brown University
Organiser: Dr Ana Stefanovska, UCC
2) Mediating Subjectivities
Keynote: Prof. Loredana Polezzi, Stony Brook University
Organiser: Dr Valentina Mele, UCC
3) Intermediality
Keynote: Prof. Giancarlo Lombardi, City University of New York
Organiser: Dr Guido Bartolini, UCC
4) Deconstructing Whiteness
Keynote: Dr. Gaia Giuliani, University of Coimbra
Organiser: Dr Guido Bartolini, UCC
We invite submissions of papers in English or Italian, from Early Career Academics
throughout Ireland, the UK, and further afield. Please check the panel descriptions belowand write to the individual panel organisers. In line with the SIS EDI guidelines, westrongly encourage a diversity of participants and approaches to Italian language and culture.
The professional development sessions will comprise:
1) ‘What we look for in an article submission for an academic journal’
A roundtable with the Editors of the journal Italian Studies:
Professor Ruth Glynn, Dr Catherine Keen, and Professor Giuliana Pieri.
2) ‘How to write an academic book proposal’
Delivered by an editor from an academic press.
Given the restrictions of the online format, the workshop will be held as a plenary forum and the number of papers permitted will be limited. We welcome participation of all interested ECAs, whether presenting a paper or as part of the online audience.
DEADLINE for Submissions: 1 April 2021
Workshop Dates: 24-25 June 2021
Mode of Delivery: The event will be held online
For further information about the panel, please visit the Website
This conference is generously supported by The Society for Italian Studies and the
Department of Italian, UCC.
Please note: All participants will need to be registered members of The Society for Italian Studies
by 1 June 2021.

"Visibili rifatti": Early Modern Voices in the Contemporary World
2022-06-29 - 2022-06-30 | Universty of Sussex, United Kingdom
“Visibili rifatti”: Early Modern Voices in the Contemporary World aims to explore the revolutionary implications of the humanist enterprise in today’s society, fostering reflections on the art of adaptation as interpretation and remediation.
The conference is organised by Dr Ambra Moroncini (Sussex), Dr Aaron Kahn (Sussex), and Dr Daragh O’Connell (Cork), in collaboration with Prof. Peter Boxall (Sussex) and Prof. Brian Cummings (York).
You can find here the full programme.

Study Day 'Envisioning the Afterlife: Dante and the Irish Visionary Tradition'
2024-05-20 | University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Envisioning the Afterlife: Dante and the Irish Visionary Tradition
Study Day
20 May 2024
The Council Room, University College Cork, & online

This study day, organised by the UCC Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland, focuses on the medieval Irish vision tradition and its relationship with the Commedia, Dante Alighieri’s fourteenth-century poetic vision of the afterlife.
In collaboration with specialists in literature, theology, cosmology, history, and textual transmission, we aim to examine the particularity of medieval Irish literary visions and their ‘insular’ features, while also considering their extraordinary European circulation, especially the influence that works such as the Visio Tnugdali and Navigatio Sancti Brendani had in Italy, where they were copied, translated, and transformed. Despite the relatively high number of surviving manuscripts of these Latin and vernacular texts, the Irish visionary tradition has received little attention among Dante scholars, and its direct or indirect impact on late medieval Italy is yet to be fully explored.
This study day brings the Italian and the Irish literary traditions into dialogue via Dante in a way that appreciates their distinctiveness, while also recognising the commonalities they have in answering questions central to the medieval – and possibly modern – understanding of the self: namely, how can one be present to other realities than those immediately evident to our senses? How do writers invite readers to partake in their extraordinary visionary experiences? And how is our understanding of the miraculous and the supernatural in vision literature shaped by genre expectations and social, cultural, philosophical, and theological contexts of transmission?
In addition to hosting senior specialists and early-career scholars from Ireland, Italy, Hungary, and the UK, this study day draws upon existing research strengths at the UCC Department of Early and Medieval Irish and especially the project ‘De Finibus: Christian Representations of the Afterlife in Medieval Ireland,’ which resulted in the two-volume collection The End and Beyond: Medieval Irish Eschatology (2014).
Professor John Carey (UCC) will deliver a keynote on (dis)embodiment and (im)materiality in visionary experience, concentrating mainly on Irish texts, but also considering sources shared by Dante and the Irish, notably Visio Sancti Pauli and Gregory the Great’s Dialogues.

SIS Biennial Conference 2024
2024-06-19 - 2024-06-21 | Royal Holloway
The 2024 Biennial Conference of the Society for Italian Studies, the largest scholarly society in the UK and Ireland for the study of Italian language, literature, and culture, will take place in person at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Both presenting or not-presenting attendees can register at this link: https://onlinestore.rhul.ac.uk/product-catalogue/events-and-conferences/school-of-humanities/society-for-italian-studies-biennial-conference/society-for-italian-studies-biennial-conference
Please find all information on the conference and the conference venue at this link: https://sites.google.com/view/sisbiennial2024/home?authuser=0

Please remember to also subscribe to the Society for Italian Studies in order to participate in the conference: https://italianstudies.org.uk/the-society/membership/
Should you have any questions, please contact: SIS.biennial.2024@rhul.ac.uk

NILI-UK Event: Book Presentation 'Complete Italian'
2025-11-03 04:30 - 18:00 | Online
Organised by NILI – Network of Teachers of Italian in the United Kingdom, this event will be a workshop/presentation of the book Teach Yourself Complete Italian, a self-study Italian language textbook for learners of Italian as a foreign language, written by Elena Borelli and Giulia Baronti.

During the event, the following topics will be discussed:

How to write an Italian language textbook, particularly for self-learners

How to work with a publisher during the writing process

How to present culture in a respectful, authentic, and engaging way for the self-learner

How to incorporate inclusive language and pedagogy into this type of textbook.

To sign up and receive the link, please complete the registration form here

“Choose wisely: why language matters in Dante’s Commedia” – SIS Networking Talk at Bristol by George Rayson (Cork)
2025-11-18 05:00 - 19:00 | University of Bristol
We are delighted to share that, as part of the SIS Networking Scheme, George Rayson (University College Cork) will be presenting at Bristol on the 18th of November, 5 pm, Arts Complex 1.H020 – Humanities Research Space.
His talk “Choose wisely: why language matters in Dante’s Commedia” will be delivered in hybrid format. See the details to access the online event below:
Teams link
Meeting ID: 330 386 067 301 46
Passcode: [REDACTED]

“Goat Herding in Aspromonte” – SIS Networking Talk at Edinburgh by Aurora Moxon (Cork)
2025-11-20 13:30 - 15:30 | University of Edinburgh
As part of the SIS Networking Scheme, Dr Aurora Moxon (University College Cork) will be presenting her research at Edinburgh with the support of the Society. The talk will be delivered in hybridg format on the 20th of November, 1.30 pm.
For those able to join in person, the talk will take place at: 50 George Square, Project Room, Edinburgh EH8 9LH.
For those who prefer to join online, here is the Teams link:
Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 311 080 184 466 2
Passcode: [REDACTED]
The session will be recorded, so if the date and time don’t suit, you’ll still be able to catch up later.
Further details on this talk here.

Dante Futures 2025: New Voices in Ireland and the UK
2025-11-21 - 2025-11-22 | University of Warwick
The University of Wariwck is happy to invite you to the conference ‘Dante Futures 2025: New Voices in Ireland and the UK’. The conference is taking place on the 21st and 22nd of November at Warwick. Please find the full conference programme and venue details here.

SIS PG Colloquium at Cambridge: ‘Italian Literature and Culture through a Comparative Lens: Transnational and Transhistorical Networks’
2025-12-05 | University of Cambridge, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, United Kingdom
The Society for Italian Studies is delighted to invite you to our 2025 Postgraduate Colloquium. This year the Colloquium will take placen at the University of Cambridge on the 5th of December. See full programme and further details here.

SIS Annual General Meeting
2026-01-17 10:30 - 16:00 | Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London, United Kingdom
The AGM of the Society for Italian Studies in the UK and Ireland will take place on Saturday 17 January at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London (Senate House, Malet Street London), 10.30-4pm.

The morning session (10.30-12.30am) will be dedicated to the AGM and other Society business. The afternoon session (1.30 to 4pm) will be dedicated to research, with a focus on REF 2029 (including Q&A) and on research impact.

Speakers will include the Chair and Deputy Chair of our REF subpanel, Prof. Jane Stuart-Smith (University of Glasgow) and Prof. Susan Harrow (University of Bristol).

Lunch will be provided.

SIS Biennial Conference 2026
2026-07-09 08:00 - 2026-07-11 17:00 | Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Italian and Modern Languages in Higher Education in Ireland, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin are delighted to host the SIS Biennial Conference 2026 on 9-11 July 2026. The conference programme and further details are available on the conference website; for further information, please get in touch with the conference organisers at sisdublin2026@gmail.com.
