Italian Studies for Global Challenges: Transdisciplinary Conversations.
The 12th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) 2024
The Australian National University, Canberra, Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country
3–6 July 2024
Convenor: Francesco Ricatti
Advisory committee: Theodore Ell, Tom Geue, Katrina Lolicato, Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli AM.
The conference will take place at the Australian National University, on the unceded lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge First Nations’ struggles for Sovereignty and Country.
The 12th Biennial ACIS Conference invites perspectives on Italian Studies as a field of enquiry with a role to play in facing the challenges that continue to intensify in our highly globalised world – those cultural, political, economic, and environmental challenges demanding consideration and bold address.
The ACIS Italian Studies for Global Challenges conference aims for an open, multifaceted, and nuanced exploration of Italian Studies’ role in illuminating and influencing cultural and social challenges that are shaped by globalisation but also grounded in particular localities, and histories. The conference is thus interested in any discipline, historical period, topic, theme, theory, performing art, methodology and pedagogy that are relevant to Italian Studies. Conference participants are encouraged to articulate with purpose, courage and creativity how and why their teaching, research, art, and community work matter right now.
The goal of the conference is to foster transformative connections between researchers in Italian Studies as most broadly defined. The conference will be in person, but a small number of online presentations may be accommodated in extenuating circumstances. Different modes of presentation – whether scholarly papers, workshops, conversations, or research-informed performances (theatre, dance, storytelling, music, art performances, poetry, screenings, etc.) – will structure the conference programme. Proposals shaped by other innovative and creative modes of presenting and sharing ideas are also encouraged.
Please note that all sessions will be 1 hour in length and each presentation will be allowed a maximum of 20 minutes (including questions from the audience). This approach to programming seeks to reduce the number of parallel sessions, so that all participants can attend more sessions, present in front of a larger audience, and enjoy more time and energy to share plenary events and participate in informal, open, and productive exchanges.
A low fees registration will be available for PhD students, Indigenous scholars and knowledge-holders, and low-waged or unwaged researchers who are presenting their work
ACIS and Italian at ANU aim to support the travel and accommodation expenses of PhD students, precarious scholars and Indigenous scholars working on Italian Studies at Australian and New Zealand universities and presenting at the conference. This will be subject to funding availability - details will be provided upon acceptance of proposals. Given the limited funds, we encourage scholars to apply for funding from their university in the first instance.
