Translation || Spatial Practices || Voices

Translation

Creative arts and cultural politics

Events:

Sharon Wood's translation of Dacia Maraini’s play, Hurried Steps, Stories from Women by Dacia Maraini was performed in March 2009 and is now touring. Already held or scheduled are a series of workshops on issues raised by translation in specific media: poetry (Franck Miroux, University of Pau), novel and comic strip (Anthea Bell), film subtitling (Cynthia Schoch).

Research:

Nicole Fayard continues to publish on work on Shakespeare adaptations and appropriations in France. Sharon Wood’s work on the cultural issues raised by translation includes a major project on Cultural translations in Ottocento women’s writing, for which she is applying for a Leverhulme grant. 

Spatial Practices

Space, place and identities

Events:

• International Symposium of Cuban Studies: Space and Nation in Poetry and Cinema, June 2010, organised by Anna Vives and Sheldon Penn. BA conference grant applied for.
• Exhibition (as part of AHRC-funded project) in the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London  on ‘Against Mussolini: Art and the Fall of a Dictator’, autumn 2010, co-curated by Simona Storchi.

Research:

Projects here include:

• Rabah Aissaoui's work on the Maghrebi diaspora
• Liz Jones's work on spaces of home and belonging
• Simona Storchi's work on the visual arts, architecture and design in Italy in the inter-war years. 

The cultural imaginary

Events:

These have included:

• A conference on Gianni Celati, attended by the writer himself, organised by Marina Spunta in 2007, resulting in a volume published in 2009 co-edited by Marina Spunta and Laura Rorato (University of Bangor).
• Research seminars have taken place on ‘Heterotopias and the city’ by Bill Marshall (University of Stirling, March 2010.
• Research seminar on ‘Invisible paths’, in Italian landscapes by Jacopo Benci (British School in Rome), March 2010.

Research:

Projects here include:

• Sheldon Penn's work on the esoteric  in Mexican literature
• Ian Roberts's work on the Afghan war in German cinema
• Marina Spunta's work on representations of space and landscape in postwar Italian fiction and photography
• Simona Storchi's work on public and private space in 20th century Italian culture
• Sharon Wood's work on contested spaces, and on the meeting of West and East in 19th century Italian writers
• Lesley Wylie's work on literary geographies, particularly in relation to the American Tropics

The theme of heterotopias is taken up by some PhD work within the School of Modern Languages, on prostitution (Michela Turno) and on prisons (Corinna Sanapo).

Voices 

Dominant discourses and minoritarian voices

Research:

Projects here include:

• Nicole Fayard's work on gender violence and trauma
• Helen Rawlings's work on the decline of Spain from the sixteenth century to the present day
• Marina Spunta's work on orality and on contemporary Italian fiction
• Sharon Wood's work on language and gender.

Current PhD research in the School of Modern Languages includes the reappropriation of the Bildungsroman by Spanish-American woman writers (Emma Staniland), and giving voice to gay men in French and Italian documentary (Oliver Brett). 

Narratives  of the self

Events:

Two conferences have been held in the ‘Leicester Life-Writing’ series: 

• ‘Serge Doubrovsky, Life, Writing, Legacy’ conference (BA-supported and attended by the writer himself), Jan 2007, resulting in a special edition of L’Esprit Créateur, edited by Liz Jones.
• ‘Narratives of the Self in the Visual Arts, November 2007: papers included in an edited volume currently under consideration by Nebraska UP.

The next Leicester Life Writing conference will be an e-conference, hosted on the Life Writing website to be set up by Liz Jones.

Research:

Projects here include:

• Liz Jones’s work on life narratives of Algerian women
• Ann Miller’s work on self-representation in bande dessinée.

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