The Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies,
University of Malta
Co-convenors:
Prof. Gloria Lauri-Lucente and Prof. Peter Vassallo
in collaboration with the
The Italian Cultural Institute, Valletta
announces the
14th International Conference:
'Britain & Italy: Literary and Cultural Relations'
MALTA: 30-31 May 2024
Venue:
University of Malta Valletta Campus,
St Paul Street, Valletta.
Conference Programme and Bionotes [PDF]
ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF ANGLO-ITALIAN STUDIES & THE CONFERENCE
The chief objectives of the University of Malta’s Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies, established in 1988, are to conduct research in the field of Anglo-Italian cultural relations, with special reference to literature and language, and to hold international conferences, seminars and similar meetings on topics in this area of interest. Postgraduate degree courses (by research) in Anglo-Italian Studies are organised within the Faculty of Arts under the auspices of the Institute.
Since 1991, the Institute has been publishing its own Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies, devoted to
current research in the history of cultural relations between England and Italy from 1300 to the present.
Articles focus on cross-cultural literary and historical studies as well as on related disciplines such as History of Art and Architecture. The Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies has established itself as one of the leading journals in this interdisciplinary field of studies and is listed in the Modern Languages Association Directory of Learned Journals and indexed in the MLA Bibliography.
“Britain & Italy: Literary and Cultural Relations” (30–31 May 2024), the Institute’s fourteenth event
in its conference series, will be hosting 18 distinguished speakers whose papers will be covering a rich range of topics, ranging from English Romantic Poetry to the National Gallery exhibit on Saint Francis.
Organising Committee: Peter Vassallo (co-convenor), Gloria Lauri-Lucente (co-convenor), Ivan Callus,
Fabrizio Foni, Glen Bonnici.
PROGRAMME
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Plaza Regency Hotel
19.00
Welcome reception for speakers and participants.
Thursday, 30 May 2024
Valletta Campus
Note: Papers will be 20 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes of discussion.
9.15 – 9.30: Welcome addresses (Chair: Dominic Fenech; Director: Gloria Lauri-Lucente; Senior Fellow:
Peter Vassallo)
9.30 – 10.30: Session 1
Chair: Nigel Wood (Loughborough University)
- Serena Baiesi (University of Bologna) – The Art of Italian Improvvisazione and English Romantic Poetry
- Matthew Scott (University of Reading) – Keats’s Titian
10.30 – 11.00: Coffee break
11.00 – 12.00: Session 2
Chair: Peter Vassallo (University of Malta)
- Nicholas Roe (University of St Andrews) – The Book that Nobody Reads: Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries (1828)
- Alison Yarrington (Loughborough University and University of Glasgow) – Made in Italy - Veiled
Vestals and Portrait Busts
12.00 – 14.00: Lunch (by one’s own arrangement)
14.00 – 15.00: Session 3
Chair: Maria Frendo (University of Malta)
- Saeko Yoshikawa (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies) – Trees in Wordsworth’s Italian Tour of
1837
- Elisa Bizzotto (Iuav University of Venice) – Vernon Lee and Italian Folktales
15.00 – 15.30: Coffee break
15.30 – 16.30: Session 4
Chair: Fabrizio Foni (University of Malta)
- Darcy Sullivan (The Oscar Wilde Society) – The Yellow Woman: Beardsley and Argento, Salomé and
Suspiria
- Francesca Crisante (University of Messina) – Ouida, A Village Commune and Italian politics
16.30 – 17.00: Book Presentation
- Nicholas Roe, Gloria Lauri-Lucente and Ivan Callus will discuss Peter Vassallo's recent publication
The Lure of Italy: Studies in Anglo-Italian Literary and Cultural Relations (Malta University Publishing, 2024).
Friday, 31 May 2024
Valletta Campus
9.30 – 10.30: Session 5
Chair: James Corby (University of Malta)
- Marco Canani (“G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara) – Gabriele d’Annunzio’s Keats: Reading Practices, Poetic Traces
- Enrico Reggiani (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan) – Dante and Yeats’s Polycultural
Musico-Literariness in Speaking to the Psaltery (1902)
11.00 – 12.00: Session 6
Chair: Gloria Lauri-Lucente (University of Malta)
- Jacob Blakesley (University of Rome La Sapienza) – English-Language Translations of Dante’s Commedia
- Agnese Amaduri (University of Catania) – From Lewis Carroll to Annie Vivanti Chartres: Influences
and Deviations in Children’s Literature from Victorian England to Fascist Italy
12.00 – 14.00: Lunch (by one’s own arrangement)
14.00 – 15.00: Session 7
Chair: Petra Caruana Dingli (University of Malta)
- Fernando Cioni (University of Florence) – Refashioning Italian Theatrical and Dramatic Conventions: Prologues, Epilogues and Inductions in Early Modern English Drama
- Francesca Orestano (University of Milan) – Daphne Phelps’s A House in Sicily: English Muses in
Taormina
15.00 – 15.30: Coffee break
15.30 – 16.30: Session 8
Chair: Ivan Callus (University of Malta)
- Stefania Michelucci (University of Genoa) – Wrestling with Exact Science: James Joyce’s Obsessions
with Numbers
- Nigel Wood (Loughborough University) – Donna Leon's Venice: Detection in a Heritage Site
16.30 – 17.00: Coffee break
17.00 – 18.00: Session 9
Chair: Glen Bonnici (University of Malta)
- Diego Bertelli (University of Fribourg) – Bartolo Cattafi’s Poetry and the Atlantic Literary Paradigm:
Conrad, Melville and Verne
- Flavia Laviosa (Wellesley College) – Saint Francis: National Gallery Exhibit (2023) and Liliana
Cavani’s Francis of Assisi (1966)
18.00: Concluding remarks
20.45: Conference dinner