This international conference aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogues on the diverse linguistic, literary, and cultural manifestations that margins can assume within the Humanities.
WHAT, WHEN AND WHERE
Margins are the kingdom of change, transformation, fluidity, and (re)location. To stand on the margins is to be transgressive, interdicted, eccentric. To prefer the margins over the central/centralised dominant culture is to take up a space of resistance. Therefore, it is crucial to embody marginality and counterpower in order to construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct the complexity of reality. Thinking and rethinking the borders means re-evaluating space from a geocritical perspective, combining language, identity, and setting representation – be it home, a rural or urban landscape, or even a digital or scientific/science-fiction space. Strictly connected with female writing, the household space, for instance, is remarkably ambivalent: a familiar place that provides protection but also requires it, the household often becomes a “prison”, and the inside-outside dialectic eventually leads to subversion dynamics. Because of the possibilities provided by semanticization, walls – namely, dividing lines between indoors and outdoors – become somewhat destabilising despite their function to support other elements and define space. Therefore, a house can also become a place of the eccentric and the unsettling, the so-called Freudian Unheimliche.
The notion of margin opens up a wide range of possibilities. Margins are frontiers that become a space of transition where different forces and individuals come in contact and alter their identities. As geographical borders, margins generate dividing lines that protect well-established political, social, and symbolic spaces. The crossing of borders, limits, and marginalities leads to issues of citizenship and belonging; and suffice it to think that some identities in movement, in the making, in transition, find it more complex to develop a sense of belonging towards a certain space, as well as to recognise themselves within it. Yet, crossing borders means opening a breech in the self, to enhance the possibilities for that self, to come to life once again.
A propelling force of change, movement and rebirth comes from inhabiting the margins. In relation to possible forms of categorisation, all of the texts inhabiting the margins, giving them a voice, and restoring complexity to the practices that stem from borders, thresholds, hybridization and impurity, are a symbol of fragmentary and destabilising artistic experiences. Indeed, they oppose the notions of safety, frontier, purity, and mobile forms linked with extraterritoriality and trans-territoriality, and can equally develop and promote a continuous process of transformation, while highlighting a movement towards somewhere else, a tension towards trespassing.
This international conference aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogues on the diverse linguistic, literary, and cultural manifestations that margins can assume within the Humanities. Suggested topics are:
AREA #1 – Queering Gender(s)
➢ Gender identities and sexual orientations on the margin;
➢ the performativity of non-normative bodies;
➢ spaces and places of masculinity, femininity, and queerness;
➢ intersectional vulnerability.
AREA #2 – Precarious Lives
➢ Crossing borders: diasporas and migrations;
➢ discrimination and oppression: the marginalisation of the Other;
➢ Medical Humanities and Disability Studies;
➢ Trauma Studies and the redefinition of the Self.
AREA #3 – On the Edge of the Canon: Linguistic, Textual, and Digital Metamorphoses
➢ Adaptations and appropriations;
➢ languages, hybridisation, and identity;
➢ digital performance and virtual reality;
➢ audiovisual and intermedial translation.
AREA #4 – Sustainability, Ecology, and Animal Studies
➢ Climate changes and ecocides;
➢ Ecofeminism;
➢ the connection(s) between human and non-human animals;
➢ literature and animals.
DEADLINE AND HOW TO APPLY
Proposals for individual presentations, in either English or Italian, must be submitted by 10 July 2024, to the following email address: marginalities.conference@gmail.com. Each proposal should include a title, an abstract (maximum 250 words), a concise bibliography (up to five references), the selected thematic area, affiliation details, email address, and a brief biographical note (maximum 150 words).
Panel proposals, in either English or Italian, must be submitted by 10 July 2024, to the following email address: marginalities.conference@gmail.com. Each proposal should include the name of the chairperson, their affiliation, and email address, along with the selected thematic area and pertinent details for each presenter. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 23 July 2024. 20 minutes will be allocated to each presentation.
For any information, please visit our website (https://www.gruppomargini.com/?page_id=65) or
send an email to marginalities.conference@gmail.com.
Registration
Early-bird fee (on/before 23/08/2024): 70 euros
Regular fee (24/08/2024-20/09/2024): 100 euros
Registration is available here: https://forms.gle/StbbsG9dJ42TtBP2A
• To register, it is necessary to have a Gmail email address. On-site registration is not available.
Travel and accommodation
The conference will be held at the School of Engineering (“Area Congressi”), Tor Vergata University of Rome.
Venue
“Area Congressi” (School of Engineering), Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Rome (IT)
How to reach us
Information on how to reach Tor Vergata University of Rome can be found here.
Accommodation
Reduced-rate rooms are available at CX Rome (Campus X), upon booking via email:
booking.rome@cx-place.com. Subject line: International Conference “Marginalities/Marginalità” (Professor Elisabetta Marino).
Scientific Coordination
• C. Bruna Mancini (University of Calabria, IT)
• Elisabetta Marino (Tor Vergata University of Rome, IT)