| EVENTS |
2012-13 MA PROGRAM INAUGURATION: US Consul General Kyle R. Scott and journalist Oliviero Bergamini
2016-17 EVENTS
4 Nov 2016. Program Inauguration and Round Table : "The US After the 2016 Presidential Election"
Panelists: David Ellwood (Johns Hopkins Univresity, SAIS Europe), Alberto Simoni (La Stampa), Maurizio Vaudagna (Univ. Piemonte Orientale), Christopher Wurst (US Consul for Press and Culture, Milan). Moderator: Marco Mariano (MA in American Studies and Univ. Piemonte Orientale). Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/342973299382536/
19 Nov 2016. Alan TAYLOR (University of Virginia): 1750-1804: A Continental Look. Saturday, November 19, 2016, at 11 am - Campus Luigi Einaudi - Lungo Dora Siena 100 A - Torino (room F1).
Lecture description: Most interpretations of the revolution's causes subordinate western issues, treating them as minor irritants less significant than the clash over taxes. And yet, the American Revolution took place way beyond north-eastern urban areas. After the war, thousands of settlers moved across the mountains to make more farms and towns. Westerners formed a national constituency stronger than anything in the East.
About the Lecturer: Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson Professor of History at the University of Virginia, is the author of many acclaimed books in early American history. He has twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History. Most recently, he has become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
2 Dec 2016. Giorgio MARIANI (Università di Roma, La Sapienza): Peacefighting in American Literature, from the American Revolution to the Iraq War. At 2 pm. Venturi ex sala lauree, Via Verdi 25, ground floor.
Lecture Description: The war against war, William James once wrote, will be no holiday excursion or camping party. He was right, and in my talk I will explore some of the contradictions, tensions, and conceptual problems American writers who wish to write against war continue to run into. Whether by trying to fashion a "peaceful" version of the old epic genre or by denouncing the imbrication of violence and the sacred, American literature has often engaged an important though only partially successful fight against war. After sketching the general argument of the book I have recently devoted to this problem, I will focus in the second part of my lecture on the poetry of Brian Turner, a US Iraq War veteran who has been both praised for his attempt to acknowledge the human face of the "enemy" and criticized for failing to understand his own role as "imperial grunt"
About the lecturer: Giorgio Mariani is professor of American literature at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he directs the doctoral program in Scienze del Testo. The president of the International American Studies Association from 2011 to 2015, he is the author and editor of volumes on the work of Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Ralph Waldo Emerson; on contemporary American Indian literature; on the relation between war and US literature. His most recent book is waging War on War: Peacefighting in American Literature (University of Illinois Pres, 2015)
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
16 Dec. 1016. Antonio BARRANECHEA (University of Mary Washington): Mondo Dracula: Celluloid Vampires from Tod Browning to Mario Bava. At 2 pm. Venturi ex sala lauree, Via Verdi 25, ground floor.
Lecture Description: My lecture approaches American Studies from two directions: 1) through a hemispheric map that includes Latin America; and 2) by tracing U.S. cultural influence beyond Anglophone borders. I begin by outlining the emergence of the two parallel versions of Dracula produced by Universal Pictures in 1931. One is the famous version directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi; the other is a Spanish-language version produced to cash in on the Hispanic market during the Great Depression. Together, these Hollywood adaptations created a commercial template for the Mexican horror cinema starting in the late 1950s. I examine one key film from this period, Fernando Méndez’s El vampiro (1957). I argue that, by reinventing the Hollywood gothic, this film forges a Mexican response to modernity in the Americas. My lecture ends with a brief discussion of how a transatlantic model of Hollywood reinvention might apply to the European low-budget cinemas I am presently studying through a fellowship in Aix-en-Provence, France. In this case, I look at the Italian film I vampiri (1957), which was directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava and is the first film to set in motion a “Euro-trash” film trend in the 1960s.
About the lecturer: Antonio Barrenechea is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington in the Washington, DC area. He holds a PhD in comparative literature from Yale University, where he specialized in literature and cinemas of the Americas. Since joining the University of Mary Washington in 2005, he has created an Inter-American Literature curriculum, as well as courses in Hollywood, art, and—most recently—exploitation films. His book, America Unbound: Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2016. The book is a study of how the maximalist novel reimagines European and Native American encounters in the New World, and allows us to envision a new (Hemispheric) American Studies grounded in multiple literatures, cultures, and languages. He sits on the boards of the International American Studies Association, the International Association of Inter-American Studies, the American Comparative Literature Association, and Comparative American Studies: An International Journal. Currently, he is a resident fellow at the Institut Américain Universitaire in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he is working on a new book with the working title “Hemispheric Horrors: Monster, Trash, and Exploitation Cinema of the Americas.”
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
16 Dec. 2016. Krystyna MAZUR (University of Warsaw). details coming soon. At 4 pm. Venturi ex sala lauree, Via Verdi 25, ground floor.
please return for more 2017 events.
The MA in American Studies at the University of Torino would like to thank all the lecturers who have contributed in the last five years to the success of our Master's Lectures Series and Seminars:
2016-17 EVENTS
4 Nov 2016. Program Inauguration and Round Table : "The US After the 2016 Presidential Election"
Panelists: David Ellwood (Johns Hopkins Univresity, SAIS Europe), Alberto Simoni (La Stampa), Maurizio Vaudagna (Univ. Piemonte Orientale), Christopher Wurst (US Consul for Press and Culture, Milan). Moderator: Marco Mariano (MA in American Studies and Univ. Piemonte Orientale). Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/342973299382536/
19 Nov 2016. Alan TAYLOR (University of Virginia): 1750-1804: A Continental Look. Saturday, November 19, 2016, at 11 am - Campus Luigi Einaudi - Lungo Dora Siena 100 A - Torino (room F1).
Lecture description: Most interpretations of the revolution's causes subordinate western issues, treating them as minor irritants less significant than the clash over taxes. And yet, the American Revolution took place way beyond north-eastern urban areas. After the war, thousands of settlers moved across the mountains to make more farms and towns. Westerners formed a national constituency stronger than anything in the East.
About the Lecturer: Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson Professor of History at the University of Virginia, is the author of many acclaimed books in early American history. He has twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History. Most recently, he has become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
2 Dec 2016. Giorgio MARIANI (Università di Roma, La Sapienza): Peacefighting in American Literature, from the American Revolution to the Iraq War. At 2 pm. Venturi ex sala lauree, Via Verdi 25, ground floor.
Lecture Description: The war against war, William James once wrote, will be no holiday excursion or camping party. He was right, and in my talk I will explore some of the contradictions, tensions, and conceptual problems American writers who wish to write against war continue to run into. Whether by trying to fashion a "peaceful" version of the old epic genre or by denouncing the imbrication of violence and the sacred, American literature has often engaged an important though only partially successful fight against war. After sketching the general argument of the book I have recently devoted to this problem, I will focus in the second part of my lecture on the poetry of Brian Turner, a US Iraq War veteran who has been both praised for his attempt to acknowledge the human face of the "enemy" and criticized for failing to understand his own role as "imperial grunt"
About the lecturer: Giorgio Mariani is professor of American literature at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he directs the doctoral program in Scienze del Testo. The president of the International American Studies Association from 2011 to 2015, he is the author and editor of volumes on the work of Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Ralph Waldo Emerson; on contemporary American Indian literature; on the relation between war and US literature. His most recent book is waging War on War: Peacefighting in American Literature (University of Illinois Pres, 2015)
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
16 Dec. 1016. Antonio BARRANECHEA (University of Mary Washington): Mondo Dracula: Celluloid Vampires from Tod Browning to Mario Bava. At 2 pm. Venturi ex sala lauree, Via Verdi 25, ground floor.
Lecture Description: My lecture approaches American Studies from two directions: 1) through a hemispheric map that includes Latin America; and 2) by tracing U.S. cultural influence beyond Anglophone borders. I begin by outlining the emergence of the two parallel versions of Dracula produced by Universal Pictures in 1931. One is the famous version directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi; the other is a Spanish-language version produced to cash in on the Hispanic market during the Great Depression. Together, these Hollywood adaptations created a commercial template for the Mexican horror cinema starting in the late 1950s. I examine one key film from this period, Fernando Méndez’s El vampiro (1957). I argue that, by reinventing the Hollywood gothic, this film forges a Mexican response to modernity in the Americas. My lecture ends with a brief discussion of how a transatlantic model of Hollywood reinvention might apply to the European low-budget cinemas I am presently studying through a fellowship in Aix-en-Provence, France. In this case, I look at the Italian film I vampiri (1957), which was directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava and is the first film to set in motion a “Euro-trash” film trend in the 1960s.
About the lecturer: Antonio Barrenechea is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington in the Washington, DC area. He holds a PhD in comparative literature from Yale University, where he specialized in literature and cinemas of the Americas. Since joining the University of Mary Washington in 2005, he has created an Inter-American Literature curriculum, as well as courses in Hollywood, art, and—most recently—exploitation films. His book, America Unbound: Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2016. The book is a study of how the maximalist novel reimagines European and Native American encounters in the New World, and allows us to envision a new (Hemispheric) American Studies grounded in multiple literatures, cultures, and languages. He sits on the boards of the International American Studies Association, the International Association of Inter-American Studies, the American Comparative Literature Association, and Comparative American Studies: An International Journal. Currently, he is a resident fellow at the Institut Américain Universitaire in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he is working on a new book with the working title “Hemispheric Horrors: Monster, Trash, and Exploitation Cinema of the Americas.”
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
16 Dec. 2016. Krystyna MAZUR (University of Warsaw). details coming soon. At 4 pm. Venturi ex sala lauree, Via Verdi 25, ground floor.
please return for more 2017 events.
The MA in American Studies at the University of Torino would like to thank all the lecturers who have contributed in the last five years to the success of our Master's Lectures Series and Seminars:
JONATHAN ARAC (University of Pittsburgh). June 6, 2014. The Age of the Novel in the United States.
DAVID SHUMWAY (Carnegie Mellon University and current Fulbright Scholar)May 17-18, 2013 . Faces of the Rock Star: Stardom and
Cultural Change.
MAURIZIO VAUDAGNA (Università del Piemonte Orientale "A. Avogadro”). May 25, 2012. American History and European Americanist Historians: Defining the West in a Transatlantic Perspective.
DAVID SHUMWAY (Carnegie Mellon University and current Fulbright Scholar)
MAURIZIO VAUDAGNA (Università del Piemonte Orientale "A. Avogadro”). May 25, 2012. American History and European Americanist Historians: Defining the West in a Transatlantic Perspective.
GRZESIEK
KOSC (University of Lodz), May 4, 2013. Lecture: Nation
Building Through Portraiture During the Cold War. This lecture was
sponsored through the Erasmus staff exchange program.
FERNANDO
FASCE (University of Genova), March 15, 2013- . A 5-session seminar on the history of advertising in the U.S. with a
lecture entitled Advertising and U.S. Society in the American Century.
FEDORA GIORDANO (University of
Torino): April 12, 2013, Native American Literature,
postcolonialism and cosmopolitism. (Sala Lauree Dip. Lingue e Lett.
Straniere. Via Verdi 10, 2nd floor.)
BARBARA ANTONIAZZI (Freie Universitaet
Berlin), May 3-4, 2013. 2-day seminar,
Progressive America and Its Women: Civic Passions in a Time of Change.
2012-13
PROGRAM INAUGURATION: "Jobs, Families, Economy. A Round-Table on the 2012
US Presidential Election" Friday, 28 September 2012 ,
at 3 pm. Fondazione
Einaudi. PANELISTS: Kyle R. Scott, US Consul General,
Milano; Oliviero Bergamini, Rai3; Maurizio Vaudagna, Università
del Piemonte Orientale. Maurizio VAUDAGNA (Università del Piemonte
Orientale), " "American History and European Americanist
Historians", May 25, 2012
KRYSTYNA
MAZUR (University of Warsaw), May 26, 2012
TOMASZ
BASIUK (University of Warsaw), "Contemporary American Life
Writing", April 28, 2012
ASHLEY
DAWSON (City University New York and Fulbright Specialist 2012):
"AMERICAN DISASTERS", April 13, 2012
DANIELE
FIORENTINO (Università Roma 3): "SPREADING THE AMERICAN FUTURE The US
and the World at the Beginning of the 20th Century", April 13, 2012
ARDASHIR VAKIL (University
of London): 'Longing To Belong: Migration, Memory and Meaning in the stories of
Jhumpa Lahiri.', March 30-31, 2012
ALAN
NADEL (University of Kentucky and Fulbright Specialist 2012), March 3, 2012 : "American Cultural Narratives."
OLIVIERO
BERGAMINI (Rai 3): "American decline or 'rise of the rest'? The US
and a fast changing world."
FEDORA
GIORDANO (University of Torino): "Native Languages and identity in
Contemporary Native American Literature".
PETER
J. LING (University of Nottingham), Sept 30, 2011 "Uneasy Allies: The Presidents And Martin Luther King"
SYMPOSIUM: TORINO-NEW YORK. COME
L'ITALIAN-MADE TRASFORMA L'AMERICA. Participants: MORNING SESSION: Stefano
Albertini (New York University), Oliviero Bergamini (Rai 3), Oddone Camerana
(scrittore), Daniela Del Boca (Università di Torino), Francesco Farinetti (AD
Eataly), Giuseppe Lavazza (Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.), Luisa Passerini (Università
di Torino), Carlo Petrini (Slow Food), Ennio Ranaboldo (Lavazza North America),
Mario Calabresi (La Stampa) AFTERNOON SESSION : Daniele Fiorentino (Università
Roma Tre), Stefano Albertini (New York University), Karen Pinkus (Cornell
University), Sabrina Ovan (Scripps College), Davide Borsa (Politecnico di
Milano), Simone Cinotto (Università di Pollenzo). Maurizio
Vaudagna (Università Piemonte Orientale). May 24, 2011
ASHLEY
DAWSON (City University of New York). "American
Disasters." A long seminar examining the changing contours of
American culture over the last decade. December 3-11, 2010
OLIVIERO BERGAMINI (Journalist, Rai 3),
discusses the Obama Presidency with Maurizio Vaudagna (Univ. East Piedmont) and Andrea Carosso (MA in American Studies), to mark the
publication of Bergamini's Storia degli Stati Uniti (Laterza 2010), February 17, 2011
DANIELE
FIORENTINO (University Roma 3), Building More Perfect Unions: the
transformation of United States foreign policy and the Italian Risorgimento in
the second half of the 19th century. November 19, 2010
DON
MCKAY and MARLENE CREATES: In Dialog. November 19, 2010
OLIVIERO
BERGAMINI (Rai 3), "Journalism and Obama's decline". November 12, 2010
MARINA CAMBONI (University of Macerata),
"Modernist American Poetry. 1: H.D. and Imagism;
2. H.D.’s Trilogy and the Long Poem." October 22, 2010
SUSANNA BASSO (literary
translator), Sul tradurre. Esperienze e divagazioni militanti.
Discussants: Carmen Concilio, Anna Nadotti; opening remarks: Andrea Carosso. October 8, 2010
ROSEMARY
SULLIVAN (University of Toronto). "Life Writing." May 15, 2010 .
AARON
JAFFE (University of Louisville): "Publication, Patronage,
Censorship: Literary Production and the Fortunes of Modernist Value". May
7 and May 8, 2010
DONATELLA
BADIN (Univ. of Torino). "Henry James and Europe." April 23, 2010 .
ANDREA
CAROSSO (Univ. of Torino). " 'The eyes of all people upon us.' Religious
and Political discourse in Colonial America, 1492-1692." March 26 and April 16, 2010
FEDORA GIORDANO (Univ. of Torino). "Native American Studies Seminar." March 5 and March 6, 2010 .
MAURIZIO VAUDAGNA (Univ. of East
Piedmont). 2010 Inauguration lecture and
seminar: "Social Democracy in the United States." Feb 26 and Feb 27, 2010 . JAMES T. KLOPPENBERG (Harvard University), "Obama and the
Historical Tradition of American Liberalism," April 3, 2009
ROBERT
VISCUSI (Brooklyn College), "DEEP FUTURISM: Migration
Aesthetics," March 6, 2009 DONATELLA
IZZO (University of Naples), ""The Gendered Genealogies of
Modernism and the Emergence of the Aesthetic Sphere," Friday, April 24,
2009 .
DAVID
NYE (University of Southern Denmark, Odense), "Technology Matters:
The Transformation of Urban Space in the United States." April 17-18, 2009
SOPHUS
REINERT (Cambridge University) and FRANCESCA VIANO (University
of Torino), "The Art of Empire: America: 1700-1901". Nov. 14-15, 2008 .
ALISSA
YORK, presenting her latest novel Effigy, May 9, 2008 .
RICHARD
BUTSCH (Rider University). "A History of American Audiences" April 11-12, 2008
OLIVIERO BERGAMINI (Rai 3 and Università
di Bergamo). "The State of American
Journalism". March 7-8, 2008 . FRANCO
MINGANTI (University of Bologna), "(Strands of) American Roots Music:
from Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music to Greil Marcus's The Shape
of Things to Come (and back)", December 5-6, 2008 .
MICHAEL
HOENISCH (Freie Universitaet Berlin), "Documentary Film in
North-America", April 18-19, 2008 .
MAE
NGAI (Columbia University), "Legal and Illegal Immigrants in 20th
Century United States: Issues of Citizenship and Nationality", April 26 - May 3, 2007 .
DAVID
NYE (University of Southern Denmark)."Electrifying the American
City" and "America as Second Creation", May 22-24, 2007 .
STEFANO
ROSSO (Università di Bergamo), "Male Identities in American
Literature and Culture", April 18 and May 7, 2007
MICHAEL
HOENISCH (Freie Universitaet Berlin), "American Documentary Film:
History and Methods", April 26-27, 2007 . GUIDO
CARBONI (Univ. Piemonte Orientale). "Visual Arts in America,
1913-1917: realisms and abstractions.", March 21-28, 2007
ALBERTO PAPUZZI (La Stampa), "Dalla
penny press a Walter Lippmann: il senso della notizia and Le regole morali del
giornalismo americano", March 6-7, 2006
OLIVIERO BERGAMINI (Rai3 and University
of Bergamo), "Giornalismo, media e guerra negli Stati Uniti. Prospettive storiche e problemi contemporanei", March 22-23, 2006
KEVIN
BARNHURST (University of Illinois at Chicago), "The Ideology of
American Journalism", April 26-27, 2006 . PETER
D'AGOSTINO (Temple University). "On the Lines / In the Air: surveying
new & desperate media", May 15-16, 2006
FEDORA
GIORDANO (Univ. of Torino), "N. Scott Momaday, the Man Made of
Words", February 28, 2007
IVAN
KURILLA (Volgograd State University, Russia). "Russia and the United
States: Past and Present", March 5, 2007 PETER
LING (University of Nottingham), "The Dream: Charismatic Leadership
and Martin Luther King", March 29, 2007 WILL
KAUFMAN (University of Central Lancashire), "Woody Guthrie: Hard
Times and Hard Travellin'", a lecture/performance, May 16, 2007
GIAIME
ALONGE (Università di Torino), "Schmucks with Underwoods. Ben Hecht
and the craft of screenwriting in classical Hollywood", April 5, 2007 . "The President as a Movie Star: John Fitzgerald Kennedy e il
cinema", April 26, 2006 .
MAURIZIO
VAUDAGNA (Università del Piemonte Orientale), "Victorian Virilty,
Democratic Emotionalism and Patriotic Citizenship in Franklin D. Roosevelt's
Fireside Chats", April 17, 2007
JAN
NORDBY GRETLUND (University of Southern Denmark), "Mark Twain, the
Good American", May 24, 2006.
JOHANNES
VOELZ (Freie Universitaet Berlin), "Introduction to American Jazz
History, 1900-1945", March 21-30, 2006 .
LAURA
BUSH, First Lady of the United States, visiting the University of Torino
while leading the US delegation at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics and bringing
a book donation to the MA in American Studies, February 11, 2006 .
