Conference Organisation by Caterina Scarabicchi
Conference Papers by Caterina Scarabicchi
Journée d'Etudes Université Paris Sorbonne, 9 February 2018
BCLA Conference 'Unforeseen Consequences' Warwick University, 11 November 2017
Calls for Papers by Caterina Scarabicchi
WE WARMLY INVITE ALL DOCTORAL AND MASTER’S STUDENTS WORKING IN THE SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES, LI... more WE WARMLY INVITE ALL DOCTORAL AND MASTER’S STUDENTS WORKING IN THE SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES, LITERATURES, AND CULTURES to present short papers or academic posters on their current research at this year’s SMLLC Postgraduate Colloquium. The aim of the colloquium is to promote dialogue and generate discussion in relation to research currently taking place within our diverse postgraduate community. We hope that many of you will come and listen to presentations, ask questions, or even present a paper of your own. Whether you are doing your MA by Research, in your first year of doctoral study, or just finishing your PhD, this annual event is a fantastic opportunity to present your work in a friendly, relaxed, and supportive setting, receive valuable feedback from staff and students, meet other researchers, and hone your presentation skills. What’s more, it counts towards your required training days! Lunch and refreshments will be provided! The event will take place on Monday, 12 June 2017 — when annual reviews will also be taking place. If you would like to present a paper or academic poster, please send a provisional title, a brief abstract of between 100 and 150 words, and a few lines introducing yourself and your research to <smllc.pgcolloquium@gmail.com> by Friday, 21 April 2017. Papers should last no longer than 15 minutes. The presentation of posters will be limited to 10 minutes. All postgraduate students at Royal Holloway are welcome to participate and/or attend. Last year, we hosted a great selection of papers delivered by both MA by Research and PhD students from across the School, their presentations testifying to the extremely high quality and originality of the research currently being carried out. If you have any questions or queries, please feel free to get in touch! We look forward to hearing from you. The programme for this event will follow in due course.
Papers by Caterina Scarabicchi
Modern Language Review, 2020
Modern Language Review, 2022
Journal of European Studies, 2020
Over the last decade, Lampedusa has frequently been represented in the EU media as the setting of... more Over the last decade, Lampedusa has frequently been represented in the EU media as the setting of a supposed migration emergency due to the unprecedented number of displaced individuals transiting through its harbour. However, in contrast with such discourses, a growing number of social and artistic interventions have emerged, advancing a counter-narrative of solidarity and cultural dialogue. This article examines the case of Lampedusa in Festival, a community event organized by the Askavusa collective, which took place each year between 2009 and 2015. Interpreting its nature, evolution and limits in the light of event studies, this article argues that the festival constituted a collective performance of resistance which combined local and transnational resources, with the potential to re-spectacularize migration as a political and social opportunity.
Journal for Cultural Research, 2019
Over the last decade, Europe's immigration regulations have raised concerns regarding human right... more Over the last decade, Europe's immigration regulations have raised concerns regarding human rights and divided the public opinion on transnational movement, particularly with the ever-growing number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. While the direct voices of migrants themselves are still often absent or marginalised in the debate, numerous European authors have mobilised in favour of a change in policies, portraying migrants' and refugees' stories in their works. This article addresses these complex cultural representations, acknowledging them as essential, albeit ambiguous, acts of solidarity. Drawing on the postcolonial notion of agency, and on the reflections on the representation of suffering subjects in humanitarian narratives, I will consider the cases of the Italian long poem Solo andata (One way only) by De Luca and the French novel Eldorado by Gaudé. While the authors' choice to recreate the migrant's perspective through fiction can be read as a strategy to re-humanise the protagonists of these journeys, I argue that such borrowing of the migrant's story from a non-autobiographical, external viewpoint simultaneously risks further disempowering and silencing them, raising a number of ethical questions on authorship and advocacy whose implications, in literature as in other contemporary media, still remain to be urgently addressed.
Language and Intercultural Communication
ABSTRACT Over the last decade, the restrictions on human movement have inspired the drafting of n... more ABSTRACT Over the last decade, the restrictions on human movement have inspired the drafting of numerous ‘migrant manifestos' in advocacy of people on the move. This article engages with this underexplored corpus investigating its role in reconfiguring solidarity and calling for social action by use of a performative language. Considering the ‘Migrant Manifesto' by Immigrant Movement International, the ‘Charter of Lampedusa' and ‘La Déclaration des Poètes’ by Patrick Chamoiseau under the lens of performative studies and postcolonial theory, I will examine their implications and limits in relation to the debate on cosmopolitanism, agency and advocacy in the globalised present.
Journal of European Studies, 2020
Over the last decade, Lampedusa has frequently been represented in the EU media as the setting of... more Over the last decade, Lampedusa has frequently been represented in the EU media as the setting of a supposed migration emergency due to the unprecedented number of displaced individuals transiting through its harbour. However, in contrast with such discourses, a growing number of
social and artistic interventions have emerged, advancing a counter-narrative of solidarity and cultural dialogue. This article examines the case of Lampedusa in Festival, a community event organized by the Askavusa collective, which took place each year between 2009 and 2015. Interpreting its nature, evolution and limits in the light of event studies, this article argues that the festival constituted a collective performance of resistance which combined local and transnational
resources, with the potential to re-spectacularize migration as a political and social opportunity.
Language and Intercultural Communication, 2020
Over the last decade, the restrictions on human movement have inspired the drafting of numerous ‘... more Over the last decade, the restrictions on human movement have inspired the drafting of numerous ‘migrant manifestos' in advocacy of people on the move. This article engages with this underexplored corpus investigating its role in reconfiguring solidarity and calling for social action by use of a performative language. Considering the ‘Migrant Manifesto' by Immigrant Movement International, the ‘Charter of Lampedusa' and ‘La Déclaration des Poètes’ by Patrick Chamoiseau under the lens of performative studies and postcolonial theory, I will examine their implications and limits in relation to the debate on cosmopolitanism, agency and advocacy in the globalised present.
Roots & Routes, 2019
The representation of postcolonial and migrant identities in French society has increasingly been... more The representation of postcolonial and migrant identities in French society has increasingly been located at the centre of a heated political and cultural debate over the last decades (Mbembe, 2010; Thomas, 2013). In particular, academics and critics in the field of museum and heritage studies have raised their concerns about the ways in which recent immigration is being memorialised through institutional narratives based on notions of cultural assimilation, Frenchness and exoticised depictions of diversity (Fauvel, 2014; Kiwan, 2017), leaving little space for new modes of narrating migrant identities. This article addresses the problematic gaze cast on the story of the migrant as ‘other’ (Hall, 1997) within the permanent displays at the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in Paris, a museum dedicated to modern and contemporary immigration to France, problematically hosted within an imposing building originally conceived for the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931. Drawing on postcolonial museology (Chambers et al., 2014) and on Mouffe’s theorisation of the ‘agonistic’ (Mouffe, 2005; 2013), in this article I will discuss the complexities of the discourse, either conveyed or left implicit and ‘unsaid’, at the MNHI, by referring to the museum’s visual, written and spatial texts. Finally, the article will evaluate to what extent it can be considered as a site for renegotiating collective memory on migrant identities in a transnational perspective.
Journal of Cultural Research, 2019
Over the last decade, Europe’s immigration regulations have raised concerns regarding human right... more Over the last decade, Europe’s immigration regulations have raised concerns regarding human rights and divided the public opinion on transnational movement, particularly with the ever-growing number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. While the direct voices of migrants themselves are still often absent or marginalised in the debate, numerous European authors have mobilised in favour of a change in policies, portraying migrants’ and refugees’ stories in their works. This article addresses these complex cultural representations, acknowledging them as essential, albeit ambiguous, acts of solidarity. Drawing on the postcolonial notion of agency, and on the reflections on the representation of suffering subjects in humanitarian narratives, I will consider the cases of the Italian long poem Solo andata (One way only) by De Luca and the French novel Eldorado by Gaudé. While the authors’ choice to recreate the migrant’s perspective through fiction can be read as a strategy to re-humanise the protagonists of these journeys, I argue that such borrowing of the migrant’s story from a non-autobiographical, external viewpoint simultaneously risks further disempowering and silencing them, raising a number of ethical questions on authorship and advocacy whose implications, in literature as in other contemporary media, still remain to be urgently addressed.
Books by Caterina Scarabicchi
Peter Lang, 2023
The stories of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe have made the headlines in... more The stories of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe have made the headlines in the news over the last twenty years. How have
these human itineraries been represented in contemporary culture? This book considers the migrant’s story as portrayed in literature, cinema,
museums and festivals in Italy and France, in order to explore the widespread ethical complexities related to agency and advocacy. While typically produced in support of migrant communities, these narratives often confine the experience of displaced individuals within a Eurocentric, humanitarian discourse that is difficult to overcome. Through an interdisciplinary and
postcolonial approach, the book analyses, among others, recent works by Laurent Gaudé and Emanuele Crialese, the Musée National de l’Histoire
de l’Immigration in Paris and a community festival in Lampedusa, to highlight the complexity of advocating for migrants from a European perspective.
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Conference Organisation by Caterina Scarabicchi
Conference Papers by Caterina Scarabicchi
Calls for Papers by Caterina Scarabicchi
Papers by Caterina Scarabicchi
social and artistic interventions have emerged, advancing a counter-narrative of solidarity and cultural dialogue. This article examines the case of Lampedusa in Festival, a community event organized by the Askavusa collective, which took place each year between 2009 and 2015. Interpreting its nature, evolution and limits in the light of event studies, this article argues that the festival constituted a collective performance of resistance which combined local and transnational
resources, with the potential to re-spectacularize migration as a political and social opportunity.
Books by Caterina Scarabicchi
these human itineraries been represented in contemporary culture? This book considers the migrant’s story as portrayed in literature, cinema,
museums and festivals in Italy and France, in order to explore the widespread ethical complexities related to agency and advocacy. While typically produced in support of migrant communities, these narratives often confine the experience of displaced individuals within a Eurocentric, humanitarian discourse that is difficult to overcome. Through an interdisciplinary and
postcolonial approach, the book analyses, among others, recent works by Laurent Gaudé and Emanuele Crialese, the Musée National de l’Histoire
de l’Immigration in Paris and a community festival in Lampedusa, to highlight the complexity of advocating for migrants from a European perspective.
social and artistic interventions have emerged, advancing a counter-narrative of solidarity and cultural dialogue. This article examines the case of Lampedusa in Festival, a community event organized by the Askavusa collective, which took place each year between 2009 and 2015. Interpreting its nature, evolution and limits in the light of event studies, this article argues that the festival constituted a collective performance of resistance which combined local and transnational
resources, with the potential to re-spectacularize migration as a political and social opportunity.
these human itineraries been represented in contemporary culture? This book considers the migrant’s story as portrayed in literature, cinema,
museums and festivals in Italy and France, in order to explore the widespread ethical complexities related to agency and advocacy. While typically produced in support of migrant communities, these narratives often confine the experience of displaced individuals within a Eurocentric, humanitarian discourse that is difficult to overcome. Through an interdisciplinary and
postcolonial approach, the book analyses, among others, recent works by Laurent Gaudé and Emanuele Crialese, the Musée National de l’Histoire
de l’Immigration in Paris and a community festival in Lampedusa, to highlight the complexity of advocating for migrants from a European perspective.