2017 UCLA Italian Graduate Conference

The symbiotic but often troubled relationship between land and sea is crucial to the formation of the cultural and geopolitical identities of the Italian peninsula and its islands. These elements have shaped Italian ethnographic diversity and they have influenced agricultural, urban, and maritime activities. They have fueled developments and changes in civilization and cultural traditions, differentiating the internal regions from the coasts, while fostering their interconnectedness. The land’s openness to the surrounding seas has been a source of anxiety and fear, as well as colonial ambition, and now of dreams and expectations by migrants and refugees. As a mark of mediterraneity, the bond of land and sea has been a continuing source of inspiration for literary, philosophical, artistic, and cinematic representations. It has deepened ontological connections between humans and nature, but also promoted critical and even anguished reflections about changes linked to industrial, technological, and geopolitical developments. Landscapes and seascapes are not merely aesthetic representations, but socio-political constructions. The political stakes at play include not only exploitations of land and sea, but also ecological concerns for the environmental preservation of Italian coasts and territory.
The UCLA Department of Italian and the Italian Graduate Student Association invite papers from a variety of disciplines to investigate how the duality of land and sea plays a central role in political, historical, literary, and visual representations as well as negotiations and configurations of Italian identities.

EXAMPLES OF TOPICS INCLUDE:

Land and Sea in Italian Identities
Language and Dialects
Food and Eating Practices
Religion and Rituals
Music
Clothing and Fashion
Ethnography; Local and Regional Traditions
Rootedness and Sense of Belonging
North vs. South
Visual Representations
Mediterranean Literature

Mobility, Travelling, Commerce and Exploration, Tourism, Migration
Travel writing
Maps
Trade
Grand Tour
Expeditions and Colonizations
Piracy
Hospitality
Shipwrecks

Islands, Port Cities, and Towns through the Ages
Venezia, Trieste, Pisa, Ravenna, Genova, Napoli, Amalfi, Ostuni, Taranto, Livorno, Messina…
Sicily, Sardinia, Lampedusa…

Landscape, Environment, Architecture and Planning, Ecology, Ecocriticism
Ecological Movements
Building, Restoration, Development, and the Landscape
Agriculture and Landscape
Preservation and Development
Fishing and Fisheries
Mafia, Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita, and the Exploitation of Land and Sea
Animal and Human

Mythology, Archetypes, Symbolism, and Folklore
Genius Loci
The Fluidity of the Sea, Fixity of the Land
Humans and Nature
Humus and Humanity
Maritime Monstrosity
Nymphs, Naiads, Nereids
Nomos and Chaos
Geophilosophy
Ideas of Homeland, Fatherland, and Motherland

Geopolitics
War by Land and by Sea
Borders and Border Conflicts    
Migration Policies in Europe
Italy’s Position in the Mediterranean
“Southern Thought”