John D. Calandra Italian American Institute: Academic & Cultural Programs

Terre Promesse

Excursions Towards Italian Topographies

Call For Papers

April 22-24, 2010

John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor

(between 5^th and 6^th Avenues)

Manhattan

The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Queens College, CUNY) announces its third annual conference dedicated to the theme of cultural landscapes. This conference is an opportunity to address issues concerning place in Italy, amongst the Italian diaspora, and in former colonial locales. Issues of home and community, land use and foodways, power and sustainability will be examined as practice and representation. Ultimately, the conference is concerned with “the experiential and expressive ways places are known, imagined, yearned for, held, remembered, voiced, lived, contested, and struggled over” (Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, 1996).

The conference will be held in New York City, April 22-24, 2010.

Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to:

• Historic and contemporary land use, e.g., latifondo, hunting, fishing, gardening, foraging, confiscation of mafia lands, agriturismo

• Economics, e.g., property, markets

• Politics and power, including borders, territoriality, in-between spaces, migratory sites, colonial spaces, etc.

• The cultivation, preparation, presentation, consumption of food, wine, herbs, etc.

• The Slow Food movement and issues of sustainability

• Place consciousness, e.g., campanilismo, “the old neighborhood,” tourist destinations

• Imagined and utopic landscapes

• Memory and nostalgia

• Aural, olfactory, and tactical experiences

• Sacred spaces

• Chthonic practices, e.g., cave dwellings, burial traditions

• Architecture, the piazza as mise-en-scène, la passeggiata, etc.

• Waste and its management

In addition to scholarly papers and panels, this conference is open to presenting creative work (fiction, poetry, memoir, film, performance, etc.)

The official language of the conference will be English. All presentations are to last no longer than twenty minutes, including audio and visual illustrations.

Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2009.

Abstracts for scholarly papers (up to 250 words, plus a note on technical requirements, and a brief curriculum vitae) should be emailed as an attached document, by September 15, 2009, to calandra@qc.edu, to whom other inquiries may also be addressed.

Proposals to present creative work must include the work itself (plus a note on technical requirements, and a brief curriculum vitae). Films or videos must be mailed as a DVD by the deadline to Terre Promesse Conference, Calandra Institute, 25 West 43^rd Street, 17^th floor, New York, NY 10036.

All proposals will be evaluated anonymously through peer review and prospective presenters may expect to be advised of their acceptance or otherwise by December 1, 2009.

The Calandra Institute can not fund conference participants’ travel and/or accommodations.

For further information see our Web site www.qc.edu/calandra or call (212) 642-2094.

The Calandra Institute is a university institute under the aegis of Queens College.