University at Buffalo (UB)
NeMLA Italian Studies has a blind reader policy, and the editorial staff will erase the personal information from the copy sent for evaluation to each of the readers. We encourage submissions by graduate students and by established scholars of all ranks.
Across diasporas and continents, motherhood is one of the most contested and politically charged sites of cultural life. This special issue of NeMLA Italian Studies invites interdisciplinary scholarship that examines how race and diaspora shape maternal identities, care practices, and kinship structures in Italian and global cultural production. We approach motherhood not as biological essentialism but as a socially constructed, negotiated practice of care, one that can be claimed, performed, and resisted beyond biological relation or gender identity.
Italy serves as one particularly generative node within a broader transnational network. As both a historic emigrant nation (over 26 million Italians left between 1861 and 1985) and a contemporary destination, especially for communities from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, Italy sits at the intersection of colonial legacies, European border regimes, and global care economies. Yet this volume treats Italy as a case study that illuminates dynamics visible across many diasporic contexts: the persistent racialization of care labor, the residues of colonialism in contemporary mobility, and the ways maternal practices become sites of both state regulation and creative resistance.
We welcome work that engages directly with Italian cultural production as well as scholarship situated in other geographic, linguistic, and cultural contexts. Contributions may use Italy or the Italian diaspora as a comparative lens, but this is not required. Essays centered on other national and diasporic contexts — particularly those addressing broader patterns of racialized mothering, transnational kinship, and migrant care — are equally encouraged.
Guiding questions include: How do maternal representations circulate and transform across diasporic networks? How is motherhood racialized depending on geography, historical period, and proximity to whiteness? What shared strategies emerge across disparate migration trajectories, and where do race, colonial legacies, and citizenship regimes produce radically different conditions for mothering? How might centering race and diaspora reveal power relations previously obscured by nationalist or Global North frameworks?
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Racialized Motherhood and Representation: Colonial and postcolonial maternal figures; the racialization of care across diasporic and migratory contexts worldwide; intersectional analyses of race, class, and maternal identity in literary, cinematic, and visual culture.
Transnational Care and Labor: Global care chains and migrant domestic work; long-distance mothering and family separation; refugee and asylum-seeking mothers; the racialized division of reproductive labor; return migration and reunification narratives; literary, cinematic, and testimonial representations of care work and maternal absence across borders.
Cultural Transmission and Memory: Intergenerational transmission of language, belonging, and practice; food, music, and storytelling as vehicles of diasporic memory; second- and third-generation representations of maternal migration; grandmothers and extended kin as custodians of cultural identity.
Non-Normative Kinship: Queer and trans parenting; transracial and transnational adoption; chosen families and intentional care networks; childlessness and maternal refusal; race and queerness in transnational family formations; narratives and cultural imaginaries of non-normative motherhood in literature, film, and visual culture.
Submission Guidelines
We encourage interdisciplinary approaches across the humanities and social sciences, including Italian studies, cinema and media studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, critical race theory, postcolonial studies, diaspora studies, ecofeminist and ecocritical studies, and related fields.
Please submit:
Send to: Giusy Di Filippo, gdifilip@holycross.edu; Simona Wright, simona@tcnj.edu
Proposal deadline: May 31st, 2026
The outcome of the selection process will be communicated shortly thereafter. Authors of selected proposals will be invited to submit full-length articles (approximately 5,000 words, not including endnotes or works cited) in Italian or English and formatted in MLA style by July 31, 2026. These articles will be double-blind peer-reviewed and, if accepted, included in the special issue of NeMLA Italian Studies, Volume XLVII.
We aim to foster interdisciplinary and intercontinental dialogue among scholars, so contributions from various disciplines, methodologies, and global contexts are strongly encouraged.
NeMLA Italian Studies has a blind reader policy, and the editorial staff will erase personal information from copies sent for evaluation to readers. We encourage submissions by graduate students and by established scholars of all ranks.
Editors: Sergio Ferrarese (William & Mary) and Judith Tauber (Cornell University)
The 1970s have often been described in reductive terms, reflecting a narrative diffused by politicians and controversial judicial rulings, both of which profoundly influenced public perception of this decade. Of these descriptions, the term “Years of Lead” is the most well-known, but also the most limited in its scope. In reality, Italy’s “long 1968” featured a complex, multifaceted kaleidoscope of social contestation from which emerged vibrant countercultures, revolutionary ideas, and innovative methods of self-organization. The period witnessed worker and student protests, the rise of feminism, the roots of the Italian LGBTQ+ movement, social reform, conservative backlash, changes in sexual norms, and much more.
The social contestation of the 1970s has been (re)elaborated through objects of memory, particularly in innumerable representations in literature, cinema, television, and theater. Given rising scholarly interest in the Italian 1970s in recent years, this bilingual special issue aims to highlight recent research related to the contestation of ideas, structures, and existing norms in the late 1960s–early 1980s, as well as responses to and cultural representations of those events. Issues to be addressed include—but are not limited to—the following: What radical ideas, events, and processes from the 1970s remain understudied and/or little known, and what impact have they had? What shape did public, state, intellectual, and media responses to this social contestation take? How has this activism been retold, and how might we add to or challenge these narratives? What might we learn from the 1970s for today?
We aim to foster interdisciplinary and intercontinental dialogue among scholars, so contributions from various disciplines and countries are encouraged.
We invite you to submit proposals related to individuals, groups, movements and collectives seeking to enact radical social change in Italy during the late 1960s–early 1980s, including but not limited to:
We seek contributions regarding:
We ask that articles directly address (even briefly in the conclusion) what lessons or ideas can be drawn from these experiences.
Please submit a title, a brief proposal in Italian or English consisting of original and unpublished research (200–300 words), and a short biography (max. 200 words) to editors Judith Tauber (jmt349@cornell.edu) and Sergio Ferrarese (sferrarese@wm.edu) by June 15, 2025. The outcome of the selection process will be communicated shortly thereafter. Authors of the selected proposals will be invited to submit full-length articles (approx. 5,000 words, not including endnotes or works cited) in Italian or English and formatted in MLA style by December 15, 2025. These articles will be double-blind peer-reviewed and, if accepted, included in the next special issue of NeMLA Italian Studies, Volume XLVI.
On April 22nd, the Transnational Italian Studies of Bryn Mawr College organized a symposium dedicated to the memory of Professor Emeritus Nicholas Patruno (1941-2020) titled Understanding Primo Levi, after Patruno’s milestone book. In Understanding Primo Levi, Patruno defined Levi as a writer of "encyclopedic vein" and argued that his significance as an artist and a communicator lay in the fusion of his scientific sensibilities and literary creativity. In keeping with the spirit of Patruno’s scholarship, the 2023 special issue of NIS invites papers that illuminate the work of Primo Levi from a broad range of perspectives. We are pleased to publish innovative and insightful criticism into Levi’s prose, lyric, essays, translations, interviews, short stories, and science fiction tales, as well as investigations of the publication, reception, and re-interpretation of his works, including cinematographic adaptations and theatrical performances. Thirty-five years after his death, Primo Levi remains one of the most widely read Italian writers, in Italy and abroad. His works are also read and examined in courses well beyond Italian literature and language, including Jewish studies and Holocaust studies, comparative literature, history, psychology, and philosophy, and in discussing violence and guilt within the context of moral and ethical behavior.
In this monographic issue of NeMLA Italian Studies new interdisciplinary investigations on Levi will intersect with the most recent scholarship to move beyond the barriers that all too often have created compartmentalized scholarly inquiries. Thus our volume will offer additional tools to engage scholars with an author who is regarded as one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century.
NeMLA Italian Studies has a blind reader policy, and the editorial staff will erase the personal information from the copy sent for evaluation to each of the readers. We encourage submissions by graduate students and by established scholars of all ranks.
Article-length submissions should not exceed 10,000 words, including notes and a list of only works cited (not general bibliography). Articles can be either in English or Italian. Submissions are subject to double-blind peer-review and published contributions are indexed and abstracted widely.
Please supply an abstract of 100 or fewer words with your submission. All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter/message that includes the author’s relevant affiliations, a U.S. or international postal address, and an e-mail address. Contributors need to submit, in order, their name and work affiliation at the end of the article. Manuscripts for articles should be submitted to rricci@brynmawr.edu and/or cbenetollo@brynmawr.edu as attachments in Microsoft Word format. Attachments should be marked with the last name of the contributor, followed by the name/subject of the paper (Dunne/Boccaccio — Dunne/Postmodern).
Once accepted, all contributions must follow the MLA Stylebook, 7th ed., and be print-ready. All articles should be double-spaced, including notes, which must be endnote-formatted. All manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s) and the author(s) assume all responsibility for obtaining written permission for unpublished or published material quoted in excess of fair use and/or for the reprinting of illustrations any illustrations. Images may be submitted as digital files (.tiff or high quality .jpgs) at least 300 dpi. Since images take up space normally reserved for text, please keep any such materials to a minimum
Please direct questions and correspondence to: rricci@brynmawr.edu and cbnetollo@brynmawr.edu.
The deadline for article submission is April 15, 2023.
For centuries Naples has aroused both interest and repulsion and has been a source of inspiration for writers and directors both in Italy and in an international context. For some Naples has become a symbol of freedom and authentic joy, whereas for others the urban environment has represented a distillation of anguish, fear, and a sense of alienation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the image of Naples in Italy and in Europe was of a city beset by criminal elements and plagued by gangs of thieves. In this context, the local youth, mostly uneducated and often encouraged by their own families, inevitably fell in with the camorra, moving up through its ranks. Naples has retained these negative associations throughout the 20th century and beyond.
Writers, artists, and directors have variously represented the degradation of its citizens as well as the disfigurement of the city and its environment. The beautiful landscape of Naples and its gulf, portrayed on many postcards of the 1800s, has been violently altered by illegal building. The scent of lemons and street food has been smothered by the acrid smoke coming from the terra dei fuochi. Artistic representations of the city speak to its changing horizons, the physical responses to the sensations it evokes, the reliability of memory in this context, and fear for the future. As a result, works that center on Naples are united by an acknowledgement of the complexity of the task of depicting urban life and its social realities.
Against the backdrop of the challenges facing those who seek to portray the city in art, literature, and on screen, there has been renewed attention in the 21st century to Naples. Decades after the works of La Capria (Ferito a morte, 1961) and Luigi Compagnone (Mater Camorra, 1987), the city of Naples has regained the interest of scholars in response to the publication of the novels of Elena Ferrante, and Saviano’s Gomorrah. These successes were further boosted by Garrone’s movie (2007) and the TV series Gomorrah and L’amica geniale. In striking contrast, more traditional cunti as Orsini’s Francesca e Nunziata (2009), received little or almost no critical attention.
In this issue of NeMLA Italian Studies we seek to explore the various 21st century representations of Naples and its surroundings in Italian literature, cinema and TV, theater, and music in response to the questions: Is Naples still considered a peripheral city in Italy? Has the city lost its “armonia”, as La Capria stated in L’armonia perduta (1986), or has it begun to regain this quality? How do contemporary authors depict the urban landscape and everyday life? Is the city space only physical or imaginary? How do characters interact with this landscape?
Submissions could also address current topics in literary and cultural studies: national and transnational cultural interactions, identity and migration, human interaction with urban environments, an ecocritical approach to representing cities and landscapes, the return to the real, and regional tensions in a larger national political context. We are looking to provide a consideration of contemporary Naples in a broad, diverse range of texts or sites or cultural production.
Articles may not exceed 10,000 words [40-45,000 characters] and can be either in English or Italian. Authors must comply with the MLA bibliographic standards for citations and documents of sources. Manuscripts should be sent via email Word (docx) attachment to Meriel Tulante (meriel.tulante@jefferson.edu) and/or Nicola Di Nino (ndinino@gmu.edu). All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter/message that includes the author’s affiliations, a 300-word abstract, a 50-word bio and list of main publications, and an email address. Contributors need to submit, in order, their name and work affiliation at the end of the article.
Deadline for article submission is January 15, 2022.
The area of men’s studies is still a relatively new discipline for Italian studies. From a theoretical point of view, the influence of the American/English research in this field can be found in approaches and methods employed in texts on Italian culture. In the last two decades, however, scholars of Italian have published stimulating volumes that have been paving the way for the establishment of solid and consistent scholarship on this subject in the Italian studies area. Works like Essere maschi. Tra potere e libertà (2009); Uomini e corpi. Una riflessione sui rivestimenti della mascolinità (2009) are among several texts that are investigating masculinity from multiple perspectives.
If we consider the application of men’s studies concepts to works of Italian literature, cinema, theater, art, television etc…, we notice that the recent years have witnessed the appearance of important contributions to the scholarship. Among others, we can cite Masculinity and Italian Cinema, Sexual Politics, Social Conflict and Male Crisis in the 1970s (2014) and Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian Cinema (2014).
Therefore, given that men’s studies are still not fully represented under the general umbrella of Italian studies and also considering that several scholars of Italian are interested in this subject, we believe it is necessary and important to put together a volume devoted to Italian masculinities.
Consequently, we invite submissions of articles for the 2020 NeMLA Italian Studies issue dedicated to this topic.
We welcome theoretical contributions, text analyses, studies of works of literature, cinema, theater, art, television etc… interdisciplinary approaches and investigations of masculinity throughout the different epochs.
Articles may not exceed 10,000 words. Manuscripts should be sent via e-mail attachment (Microsoft Word for PC) to simona@tcnj.edu and epecchio@buffalo.edu. Attachments should be marked with the last name of the contributor, followed by the name/subject of the paper (Dunne/Boccaccio — Dunne/Postmodern). All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter/message that includes the author’s relevant affiliations, a U.S. or international postal address, and an e-mail address. Contributors need to submit, in order, their name and work affiliation at the end of the article. NeMLA Italian Studies has a blind reader policy and the editorial staff will erase the personal information from the copy sent for evaluation to each of the readers.
The deadline for the submissions is January 31, 2020.
Free will, pithily defined by Dante's Virgilio as the noble power to guide and constrain the soul's natural inclination and desires (Purg. 18.73), holds a place of central concern in the Commedia. This volume intends to propose a discussion on the representation of free will and the subjective agency of women not only in the Commedia, but also in Dante’s other works and in those of near contemporary Italian writers.
Essays can include:
Quali per vetri trasparenti e tersi,
o ver per acque nitide e tranquille,
[...] vid'io più facce a parlar pronte... (Par. 3.10-16)
As through clear, transparent glass
or through still and limpid water,
[...] I saw many faces eager to speak...
The pilgrim turns to find the people whose reflections he imagines he is seeing, only to discover, as Beatrice puts it, that his still juvenile intellect has misdirected his steps toward a meaningless void, and away from the reality he sees before him (Par. 3.19-29). The passage chosen for the title of this collection of essays synthesizes the subtle multiplicity of the themes it explores. Primarily, the passage points to the perceptual errancy of the observer who does not initially grasp the reality and legitimacy of the female subjects prepared and eager to speak and act through their own agency.
Contributors are invited to consider how various representations of the subjective agency of women throughout the pilgrim’s journey in the Commedia serve as case studies in exemplum for the poem’s extended discourse on free will. Contributors are also invited to cast farther afield and integrate related or near contemporary works including but not limited to sources in the Classical tradition, patristic authorities, political treatises and other poetic and literary concerns.
Submissions should not exceed 5,000 words (including notes and bibliography) and can be either in English or Italian (with preference given to English). Authors must comply with the MLA bibliographic standards for citations and documents of source.
Contributors should send their manuscripts together with a 300-word abstract and 50-word bio and CV to the editors by August 31, 2019.
All essays will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Interested authors should contact the editors by e-mail (please include all of them): Francesco Ciabattoni (fc237@georgetown.edu), Catherine Adoyo (ADOYO@post.harvard.edu), and Simona Wright (simona@tcnj.edu). Please use the subject "NIS VOLUME XLII."
How to Use Literature in the Italian Language Class
The use of literature in language classes can be considered as one of the most effective ways to teach language and culture. As a rich resource of authentic texts, literature offers a large variety of motivating material (Ghosn: 2002, Collie & Slater: 1987, Freddi: 2006, Balboni: 2006), providing a fertile territory for the enhancement of interpersonal, interpretive and presentational abilities (Belcher & Hirvela: 2000). Literary texts are also fundamental tools for the development of critical thinking and intercultural awareness (Ghosn: 2002), contributing to the students’ personal process of education and growth (Lazar: 1993).
In this call for papers the editors welcome original contributions that investigate the relevance of the use of literary-based input for teaching and learning Italian language and culture, and highlight strategies educators can use to effectively engage students through literature in the classroom. Preferred contributions should address all levels of Italian courses, particularly the beginning and intermediate ones.
Essays can cover the following:
Submissions should not exceed 5,000 words (including notes and bibliography) and can be either in English or Italian (with preference given to English). Authors must comply with the MLA bibliographic standards for citations and documents of source.
Contributors should send their manuscripts together with a 300-word abstract and 50-word bio and CV to the editors by June 30, 2019.
All essays will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.
Interested authors should contact the editors by e-mail (please include all of them): Paola Nastri (paola.nastri@gmail.com), Paola Quadrini (paolaquadrini@gmail.com), and Simona Wright (simona@tcnj.edu). Please use the subject "NIS VOLUME XLI."
The Italian Digital Classroom: Italian Culture and Literature Through Digital Tools and Social Media
Our students live in the midst of digital information. They skype, tweet, facebook, text and share as part of their daily life. As educators, we cannot ignore the new skills that they have developed. We have the opportunity, instead, to leverage their digital expertise toward the realization of a collaborative and creative learning model in our language and literature classes.
Volume XXXIX of NeMLA Italian Studies is a special issue dedicated to the use of digital tools in the Italian language, culture, and literature classroom. It aims to provide a forum for the academic investigation of digital pedagogy in the realm of Italian studies. For this volume, the editors are seeking original, innovative research on the use of digital tools and social media in the teaching of Italian at any level. Possible areas of inquiry include but are not limited to: use of blogging, social reading and social media as well as digital storytelling, virtual reality tools and the use of text visualization tools to enhance the Italian classroom experience.
Submissions can be authored in English or Italian. Authors must comply with MLA standards for citation and documentation of sources.
Interested contributors should send a 500-word abstract to the editors by e-mail and a CV to Tania Convertini, Dartmouth College, tania.convertini@dartmouth.edu, and Simona Wright, The College of New Jersey, simona@tcnj.edu.
Manuscripts must be submitted electronically no later than December 15, 2015.
Even before his untimely passing in 1987, Primo Levi's contributions to the Italophone literary panorama inspired a significant amount of critical responses.
One could argue that his name has become synonymous with contemporary representations of the Italian Jewry, including (but not limited to) artistic reflections of World War II and the Shoah.
This volume aims to highlight new or underexplored approaches to the study of the Italkim, but also to properly contextualize and further the extant critical discourse on Italian-speaking,
foreign-born authors such as Edith Bruck and Giorgio Pressburger who (among others) have had an undeniable impact on how Italian and European audiences perceive the modern Jewish experience.
Contributions will be informed by the most recent scholarship on the subject and will endeavor to move beyond the barriers that all too often have helped create a compartmentalized scholarly inquiry
with respect to Jewish artists operating in Italy. Essays exploring the literary and cinematic representations of the Italophone Jewish experience will constitute the principal focus of this issue.
Submissions addressing unstudied/understudied artists and themes are especially welcome.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Male and Female Jewish Identities, Migration,
Transationalism and Translingualism, the Shoah, World War II and Fascism, Cinema, Theater.
Submissions can be authored in English or Italian. Authors must comply with MLA standards for citation
and documentation of sources.
Articles may not exceed 10,000 words. Book reviews should not exceed 1,200 words.
Editorial communications should be addressed to the editors, preferably via e-mail,
or mailed to Simona Wright, Dept. of Modern Languages, The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, NJ 08628-0718. Manuscripts should be sent via e-mail attachment (Microsoft Word for PC). Attachments should be
marked with the last name of the contributor, followed by the name/subject of the paper (Dunne/Boccaccio — Dunne/Postmodern). All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter/message that includes the author’s
relevant affiliations, a U.S. or international postal address, and an e-mail address. Contributors need to submit, in order, their name and work affiliation at the end of the article. NeMLA Italian Studies has a blind reader
policy and the editorial staff will erase the personal information from the copy sent for evaluation to each of the readers.
NeMLA membership is not required to submit to NIS; however, membership is required for publication.
Interested authors should contact the editors by e-mail:
Philip Balma
University of Connecticut-Storrs (philip.balma@uconn.edu)
Simona Wright
The College of New Jersey (simona@tcnj.edu)
Manuscripts must be submitted electronically no later than February 15, 2015.
Volume XXXVIII of NIS is an interdisciplinary issue that aims at discussing the intersections and cultural interactions of a range of fields including philosophy, religion, history, art, architecture, literature, astronomy, politics, medicine, archeology, and music, during the early modern period in Italy.
The volume searches for contributions that investigate the vast and multifaceted scenario of the culture of the Renaissance in Italy in all its contradictions from Late Antiquity to the middle of the seventeenth century, with a special focus on the complex set of negotiations between innovative production and its tension with the past. We welcome essays that rethink, through a multidisciplinary perspective, the on going dialogue among disciplines, as well as illuminate the role of intellectuals in forging changes in the dynamic relationship between continuity and plurality of positions in the cultural field.
Submissions readdressing unstudied/understudied artists and non-canonical themes /works are especially welcome. Possible topics include but are not limited to: the rhetoric of marginalization, diversity, popular culture, vernacularization versus Latin authoring, private testimony, the use of dialect as anti-classical production, parody, authorship, anti-intellectual life, women’s studies.
Submissions can be authored in English or Italian. Authors must comply with MLA standards for citation and documentation of sources.
Articles may not exceed 10,000 words. Book reviews should not exceed 1,200 words.
Manuscripts should be sent via e-mail attachment (Microsoft Word). Attachments should be marked with the last name of the contributor, followed by the name/subject of the paper (Dunne/Boccaccio — Dunne/Postmodern). All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter/message that includes the author’s relevant affiliations, a U.S. or international postal address, and an e-mail address. Contributors need to submit, in order, their name and work affiliation at the end of the article. NeMLA Italian Studies has a blind reader policy and the editorial staff will erase the personal information from the copy sent for evaluation to each of the readers.
Interested authors should contact the editors by e-mail:
Roberta Ricci
Bryn Mawr College (rricci@brynmawr.edu)
Simona Wright
The College of New Jersey (simona@tcnj.edu)
Manuscripts must be submitted electronically no later than April 30, 2015. Editorial communications should be addressed to the editors, preferably via e-mail, or mailed to Simona Wright, Dept. of Modern Languages, The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, NJ 08628-0718.